Finally, a Breakthrough

It's been 1 week since my shoulder dislocation. I'm finally getting a breakthrough. We're making beef broth in the Instant Pot to help. Surprise cut on Lily's pony Blaze. A failed chicken gathering. And finally planting our field in a special crop to rebuild after the hurricane.

Must go on. Beef broth. Bacon bones for beef broth.

It's been feeling so good first thing in the morning, and then it doesn't. And I'm thinking, is it the sling? As soon as I put that sling on, it's like, ah! But I don't think it's the sling. It's starting to hurt with or without the sling, just with movement. Should I stop moving? I don't think so. Doctor didn't say anything but take 2 weeks of pain medicine.

Can you come with me to help me do chores? Be my arm?

I think John's here. Maybe he can be my arm. Growing our own food is no joke. Those Pongrow mills don't just magically appear on the table. There's a lot to be done in between those mills all year round. This amount of feed— set a timer for 1 hour. 1 hour starting now. Put in airplane mode before I put it in my pocket so I don't nuke my butt. Let's go before the calves get to the— everybody's still in. Call the Inquirer.

Let's get them while it's Still true.

Oh my gosh, it's still true. Calf is separated. He-Man's in. Everybody's in. Oh my gosh, let's try begging. Henry, will you please come with us? Will you please come with me?

There's a time to play this afternoon. Come on, come on.

I can't really get him. I only have one arm and I've got you guys in it.

If I grab you a sweater, will you go? Okay. I'll put that. Okay, well here's your sweater. Put it on. It's overkill, but be sure to give it to me when you take it off, okay? Because we don't need to leave it out in the grass.

The podiatrist—

what is it— told me I only had to wear the sling for a week.

Jonah's telling me you really got to keep it still, like in a cast.

Hey, there's somebody to help you. Okay, are you ready to go?

Go now. Okay, good deal.

All right, since I'm hurting anyway, I might as well wear this. Freaking— it just popped. Do I really just need to sit? I'm, I'm going to go even slower.

Okay, a little bit of pain, that's one thing, but for it to feel like it's moving, that means it's not setting. That's another thing. Forgot to put the chickens up and they got to move.

Did you see that? My shoulder just popped. Moves.

Do you think we could just take a catapillar out there and kind of chase them into it? Maybe. John's here.

Maybe if I walk real slow, maybe if I get the sling on and get it real tight, because it doesn't take much movement to trigger that. And that was one of the things that he said, if you're feeling instability in 3 months, you could be looking at surgery. So I feel like this is now— this is critical that we don't experience that.

All right, let's find John. Let's go catch some chickens. Maybe that'll be my limit. Yeah, you see your Jeep? I kind of want to oversee this land restoration project, move the chickens off of it in broad daylight. It's gonna be difficult because they have to move. Move.

They have to like go across the creek.

They ain't gonna just walk, so we have to catch them.

Then we'll put down compost, then they'll drag it to smooth it out and to stir it up, and then we'll cast seeds on it. It's a very important job because now the animals have done their work, now the plants of the COVID crops need to do their work.

If you move the non-milkers over, hopefully they'll start eating and you'll have less pressure out there trying to milk the cow, and everybody's here in that alfalfa. If you move those who aren't getting milked over to the new paddock, at least they have that brand new grass and distracts them some.

I feel like I have a goal with this, like I don't want that moving sensation feeling. Let's see how little of those I can have during the day.

Not have a goal, it seems like it's not—

I think I'll be better about walking real still, getting this sling on, holding it real close, and at least until I can see a professional, right?

PT starts soon. Hey John! All right, you got to help me get this sling on.

Well, it's like every once in a while feels like my—

they used to go over here—

my joint is moving, like my bone is moving. It's not stable. But now I know why they said you take pain medicine for 2 weeks.

I was thinking, but they're like— what they were saying is it's going to hurt for 2 weeks. You done with that already? What about you die? All right. Hey John, can you tie this around his waist? Double knot.

No, not quite.

Johnny changed his mind. He wants his sweater back on, and this time buttoned. Lily just called me. I'm very upset. She says Blaze has gotten caught in barbed wire and is bleeding. Is he gonna let you treat him in the field? Probably not. We should probably bring him in. Can he walk? Yeah, he can.

It's just that we're actually bleeding. Okay.

Will he let you do it right there? See, he's scared of John. See? Okay, he's using it normally. This is good. I don't really like crossing this wire. Where's your opening?

It's way over there.

This is really hard because I feel like I should rush, but this is me rushing, or we're gonna have worse problems.

Thank you guys for moving the sheds. It's gonna be a hot one. How much milk did you get? A gallon and a half. Heck yes!

You okay?

He's walking like he's gonna be okay. That's a lot of blood. What are you gonna do with Luna? Luna just follows along, doesn't even need a halter. Really, it's actually good that it's bled a lot. It gets out any infection. So we're gonna let you handle it because he's used to you.

Yeah, it's real good.

Show me what you got.

Got some medicine.

Okay, first aid for horses. Okay, so that tells you it happens. Okay, was he caught in it when you went out there to him? No. Okay, how do you know it was barbed wire?

Because I tied him up to the fence because I, because I had to fix the fence because they got out, and then he got all panicked and he ran against the fence.

Oh, I'm looking. How'd you get up there?

Climb here.

What are you doing, Lily?

I'm putting it on the small cuts.

Is there a big cut?

Yeah.

He seemed kind of unconcerned. You got it cleaned up. Lily, that's the beef bones.

Good morning. I am struggling to get out of the house today. But I'm gonna eat my breakfast. I had to do a lot of like, care for the tooth. I'm gonna make my breakfast and then I'm gonna go work in the high tunnel. For a little bit and then work on tomatoes, maybe harvest some cabbage.

We'll see.

Okay, here it is. So I eat 4 chicken sausages and 3 eggs most days, um, to meet my protein goals. It's— the sausages are 18 grams of protein, and then the 3 eggs are 18 grams. So 18 plus 18 is 36. Yes, I could get more protein with powders, but I prefer to do choose food. I feel like that's the dilemma with this high protein thing. It's like I could do it if I use the, the powders. I'm not saying powders are bad, I just, I'm trying to not rely on them. So I'm gonna go outside and eat my breakfast, um, and then I'm gonna head to the high town.

I was gonna go get those beef bones and then Beauty's sitting here. Maybe I should sit first. Not really. There's a lot of blood.

I think that was probably her first.

Yeah, and it was her fault.

Tying into the fence.

John, you want to open that for me and see See if that's ready. John, my arm today. Oh yeah, let's turn the oven off. Grab a hot pad to set it on and grab 2 hot pads for you to pick it up on. All right, put what you can in there. Too hot? Grab some tongs or something.

That's good.

I'm thinking I should probably be drinking the best broth possible. These are our beefs. These are our beef joints. I should definitely be eating, drinking joint, right? They say part for part in healing. I haven't been healing fast enough to my satisfaction. It's like, I was like, really, Rebecca? Uh, 2 weeks ago today, almost 2 weeks ago, or 1 week ago today, I was moving blueberries. I'm worse off today than I was then, so slow down. Made the beef broth.

I'm a fan of fasting, but I think I need nutrients too.

So how about OMAD? One meal a day, but I can have beef broth anytime I want. Today it's probably going to be lunch. For lunch, get digested, go have a good night's sleep. I've been sleeping well though. I've been sleeping really well. My chauffeur, my arms. Let's go get some cattle panel, see if we can't catch some chickens. Jonah is starting to act like he's gonna come help us. How's Blaze?

He's good. He did limp a little bit on the way, and now he's back out. Yeah, he's back out.

Are you gonna treat it again this evening?

Yeah, if he liked being in the stall, I would put him in the stall so he couldn't run around and get the— and lose the bandage, right? But it would stress him out to be in the cell.

Yeah, this is the best. This is the— and it's clean. You know, it's not, it's not that dirty because you rotate them there. It's clean. Now I want you to catch up with the sheep today, okay?

I want you to come every evening catching up.

I want you to do that, okay? Bring all that up here and we're gonna just loop one end of that onto Salma. Lily, can you help him? We're just gonna drag it. Yep. Lily, go grab the other end and kind of bring it up onto the road. We're gonna go take it down and catch the chickens, the pasture posse. This is the kind of project that excites me immensely. A land restoration project. It would have been so much easier if I would have just shut the door to the chigshaw last night at dark when they went in there. It's going to be easier to herd them into a corner because then you'll have the— I would put the opening ends— I would put the middle of it in the corner, so that joint right there. Yeah, swing that around to where it can be in the corner. Bring the feed and water in there, they'll say, this is, this is home, this is comfortable. I think I may have unlocked the healing path not letting this thing move.

I know it sounds obvious, sounds so stupid, doesn't it?

So I must have just kept continually straining it. Let's come open this one side more, line it along the fence. And then that way we can kind of herd them along this fence. See, for me, I need a real clear— like, this is too much. There's going to be some pain. I'm not just going to lay in the bed all day. You got to move. The rest of my body needs help. Look at this. This is going really well.

There you go.

How are you going to catch the rest? Just freestyle?

Yeah.

Oh, they're jumping right through. Okay, we could flip it because this has a tighter mesh. This may not work either because they can just jump to up through the bigger block.

Finished my breakfast, swished with salt water. Yesterday we worked in clipping and pruning I'm not done. I didn't finish, so I also want to assess my harvest. It looks like I might have enough to can a small batch at least. Wow, they're just so beautiful.

It's just so beautiful.

I just love it. Look at that. It's got a bruise, but that's all right. But look at all of this we've got coming. I see I need to trim here. I didn't really trim in here. I had a great time yesterday pruning and talking with the people as we pruned, finding hornworms. It's not too bad in here, won't take too long. I'll set you guys up on a time lapse. Oh look, my garden is coming in! I'm so excited. I only have a couple flower areas this here, which is so sad.

What happened? They just go through the cattle panel. Oh, they do? We're just getting a net.

Oh, it's of some sort.

I had to step away for a minute, but we flipped the cattle panel and they still getting out even with the closer webbing. I guess they're just jumping above it. We're doing double net, huh? I mean, this is, uh, they have zip ties We could just wait another day, but Jonah's hot to fix this today. It's on his radar, and you want to have bare ground the least amount of time possible. Will you, out of a kind gesture, go drive beside the high tunnel and say, Mom, do you need anything?

Can I help you?

Okay, if she does, you help her, but if not, you can come back. She'll probably just say no, but it would be— it would be noticing her. We're getting a net cage set up. Hopefully that'll work. Jonah, we have our net set up. Let's herd them in here. We're just getting close over here, right? How you gonna herd them in there, Jonah? With the coop right there? Are y'all moving the coop in there? Yeah. Oh, okay. Jonah, we were gonna catch them in this corner and then catch the chickens and then put them in there. You won't be able to catch them. Pull it out. Put it in this corner right over here, John, or put it right here. Yeah, put it in your corner. Once you catch the chickens, then you can move that over closer. Now herd them in there. That's a lot easier said than done. There's a stick right there if you need to prod them out. Is this all of them?

Yeah.

Okay, now you can move the coop closer. Pretty difficult. I mean, they're all gonna go flying crazy as soon as we start grabbing them. Look, I just moved Okay, just grab one. There you go. That wasn't too crazy. Oh, John needs to kind of turn it around. That's not gonna work. All right, let's just move them into this grass and then you can have access to this dirt. They have a grass paddock here. We're just gonna make their paddock smaller, get them off the dirt, and then that way we can get to it. And let's move them another time, get them all over to the grass, then we'll reposition their net. They'll probably— it's so hot, they'll probably just hang out under the coop anyway. Hey, you did good. We do need you to load the manure spreader. Would you mind? What? Would you mind loading the manure spreader? Should we grade this field before doing this? Remember how it has some low spots? Because once we plant it and get sod and grass, we're not going to want to grade it then. What do you think? You feel like you have the skill to kind of make it higher on this end and lower on the other end? Yeah, are the chicken— are the sea monsters in the way? Maybe we should just wait. See where Tubeman is? That's definitely a slump. The ground's higher over there and it's not gonna run off to the creek. It's gonna be a wet spot. Hard to grade to the creek without pushing all this soil into the creek. I mean, it's not puddling now.

So seed, do 3 handfuls of rye. Here's a better way to do this.

If I had another arm, I could just pour it in there. And then I'll do a handful of vetch, and I'll do a handful of buckwheat. Hey, when he says, I'll just be locked up inside in this cool dirt, just like that. Thanks for the, the, the cows' winter bedding and the sheep's winter bedding, the chickens turning the compost. You got black soil where there was none. John put it on about a 3 and just walk back and forth down through there. Just make a pattern, quit getting the Sea monsters are getting out. The last animal effort on this field, the sea monsters, and then the COVID crop, and that's it. We're gonna let the COVID crop go to fruition, then graze it. Dude, that one will fall in. They can't swim. I think he fell in upstream and hit the rock and got up. Not a duck, it can't swim. Come on, grab it before it goes down the stream. Feels good to have that compost down. It's some sort of ground cover in and of itself. Feels good to have the seeds in there. Now it's let nature have her way. She's modest, she wants to be covered, so she will likely sprout those seeds and get them going. We move these blueberries a week tomorrow, transplanted full-on adult, the middle of the day in July. Blueberries, they actually are not wilting yet, and I think they would have, and they're not dropping their berries. Does that mean we're not going to lose these berries this year and we're actually going to get blueberries? It's crazy that these would live through such a transition, let alone still give us blueberries this year. I'm gonna let that run about an hour. It just so happens to be a trench down through there. And it just kind of fills up with water and he's soaked it up, buddy. I'm gonna do this for 2 weeks. I just harvested the broth out of here. There's maybe a little bit left. I wish I would have gotten that earlier shot. Oh, you want to do that? I thought you said I was gonna do this. Uh, what I need you to do is fill this back up with water. Beautiful one tells me you can do 3 rounds of this. Just added more water to Healing with Broth.