Finally Healed (after 15 years)

Happy day! Finally, after 15 years, I declare healed. We take the compost posse and they get a fresh start on a new setup. The boys have an idea to keep the piglets separate from the mama so they can get all-you-can-eat buffet. And we check out some cheap nighttime devices to help our bodies go to sleep with the sun. Oh, and so much more. Let's go! Happy day! I'm declaring it. Last night I declared it. I am healed. My psoriasis hasn't itched in 5 days. I have no muscle stiffness, no joint pain, and best of all, I have my energy back. I'm positive, I'm hopeful, I have more ideas and more things I want to do than I have time. Instead of this depressed, I don't want to do anything kind of attitude. I am healed. It's absolutely incredible. I look forward to the future that me and this family will be able to build because of that. Oh my gosh, I'm claiming it. I'm healed. I mean, I'm healed. I'm 46 years old and feeling fantastic, and all I had to do is not eat for a month and then do GAPS. I'm now on 13 days. How are they?

Good.

Did they have any food left over?

Yeah, they have some.

We gotta sneak some time right here before we eat. Breakfast is a little late to get the compost posse out to the pasture. They are done with their compost work. That compost isn't vibrant and alive anymore, so there's nothing for them in there. So they're just in this continual run, and plus I want them to get some grass before there is no grass. They are cooped up. It's gonna be cage fights if we don't get on this. We want the healthiest eggs possible. They are, uh, and they're, they're slowing down the eggs a little bit now. It's less light, it's getting cold. I don't know if it's because I went away too, kind of afraid maybe we didn't get them enough to eat. We've been rationing it. The sheep are out. They're so far up there. One calf is still over. I don't see the other calf. I think the other calf might have gotten to the cows. That's so much for moving the chickens before breakfast. How much longer? Um, like, I don't know, 2 minutes. Are you still in the bed? Breakfast is ready. I thought I saw you up. Dudes, you were supposed to be at breakfast at 7:15. That's 10 minutes ago. Let's go, Lily. Turn my soup off, please. I need to check the fence every night. The kids just don't do it. I guess I don't do it either. Check the fence every night. You know there's persimmons over there, right? Yeah, eat one for me yet. Oh, I can't have raw fruit yet. Eat one for me, buddy. Persimmons in. I might skip ahead. We didn't get some because the persimmons are gonna be in only so long. You just can't buy those at the store. Okay, where do we turn this fence off at? Turn the fence off while you're up there. The chickens have got to get out because they're cooped up together and it's starting to be light. They'll be stressed, they'll lay us less eggs. They're laying less eggs, I'm afraid. I gave a ration before I left and I've been monitoring that. The farm sitter's not going to be able to monitor that. Like I am going to be. So we'll hope that's it. It could be the cool weather in the fall, but I eat a lot of eggs now, y'all. We gotta figure it out. Did you turn it off?

I did.

Okay, there's the other calf. She did not get to the mom. Do not go get the sheep yet. All we're gonna do is secure it so calves can't get to the mom because then we don't get milk. So what if it's on? It might not even be connected to this fence. There's the calf, and the other one's still in the paddock. That's not in. That's not even in a little bit. The chickens are gonna have to wait. That looks so delicious.

Yeah.

Good job, Dutch babies for the win! Let's get our chicken going. I am about to run out of beef bits for my soups. That's meat 1 inch from the bone. We've got our chicken carcasses. That'll probably give me a pound or 2 of beef bits, hopefully at least 2 meals. I know birthday's coming up, October 31st. That is when I'm gonna graduate the refeeding. And the big celebration hurrah is going to be beef brisket. Beautiful one's going to make me a corned beef. We're gonna have Reuben bowls, sauce and everything. And we're gonna have it for lunch. We're having a big meal at lunch. You want to wear your apron?

Yeah, it is.

It's cold. Which one do you want to wear?

The new one.

All right, here we go. Come on, get over here. You gonna try the Keens? All right, you want to wear your apron or you do not?

I will need it.

Hey, we got to get to Harriet. Hey, what's this? Is this something we need? Austin will have to leave the link to these. Of course I can't attest Oh yeah, we're serious about putting our eyes— taking our eyes down when the sun goes down. It's not good to have that, what you call blue light. Your body naturally winds down when the sun goes away. There's no more blue light in nature unless you turn on all the blaring lights in the house. This electric candle— we do not want to do real candles, we might burn the house down, knowing us. Oh, and we saw these at our Airbnb. These are clutch, man. You can use them kind of like a flashlight and, uh, go into a bathroom and just set them down. Hang in there, guys. We'll try these tonight.

And I know how to turn it on.

You do? Good. That would be all yours, buddy. I got some book lights coming too. We're getting serious about this, y'all. It's part of why I've healed, I believe— respecting the sun. Listen, the sun fed me. It was the only food I had. I would just come out and lay in the grass and the sun would feed me. It would stimulate my mitochondria, it would give me the vitamin D, it would, uh, it would boost my serotonin, basically feed me without food. So now I'm thinking I had to respect it more and put my eyes to sleep, so to speak, when it goes to sleep. Okay. Uh, hang on, Henry, I'll be right back. Put it right here.

Okay, let's go.

That was a fun detour. Chickens are cooped.

Uh, get out of that, get out of that, get out of that.

Um, problem is if the chicken's getting this, we're in trouble. Lettuce. Or if they get in our cabbage. Did we have frost? I should probably just go ahead and cover it. I should probably water it. Oh shoot, we gotta feed these chickens. Dang it. Okay, come on buddy. Here, let's go, let's go get these chickens out and then we'll feed everybody. Okay, they want their freedom before they want their food.

Okay, right now you want to do that?

Right now? You're gonna go feed them, or do you want to help me get the chickens out?

I'll help you get the kitchen out, and then— okay, and then I'll clean the bed.

All right, let's do it. Gideon, you got the water and the feeder? This ain't light, or I'm weaker now. You know, I figure I've lost a lot of muscle. I'm trying to Lift this net. It's hard, harder than it used to be, but what's my hurry? I'm gonna build back. I'm gonna build back from scratch. It's gonna be even better. Well, there's a lot of them in there. There's probably 70 birds in there.

There we go.

Who's going to go first? Okay, 1, 2, 3, go! Free the birds!

The goose can be close.

That's a happy set of birds, buddy. Look at that. Trying to get the goose?

Yeah.

Okay, well, hold on, Lily needs help. What's the problem?

Well, look, this is, uh, mom's feed, right?

This is what she needs, but the pigs feel it all.

They run her off and then she runs away and she can't eat any more food.

Okay, so what are we—

should I just feed her later?

Hold on, we'll feed more. No, let's get another pan for the piglets. Get in, start— get the water and the feed over there. I've asked the boys to get our auto feeder in there with some way to block mom from it. You don't need all— but those piglets do. I don't want to stick my hand in there and get it sniffed on by a muddy pig. 7 pounds soaked for the pasture posse and 5 for the breakfast posse. We'll see if that's enough. I upped it a pound each. Get in, we need to come check on them this afternoon. Let's go till this is not so absolutely empty. Wow, they already obliterated that horse manure. Good for you guys. You want some watermelon? Gideon got some watermelon. He picked it. See if it's good. It looked kind of lively, didn't it? Well, we could have had a really good watermelon, especially in this cold. Really? Yeah, because it's not gonna frost for a while. I don't see it in the next 10 days.

That's a lettuce.

Hey, come on. What would we have done, Jonah? Don't— Gideon, don't pick any more, okay? How is it?

Pretty good.

Good, Josiah. It's okay. The question is, are you gonna get a second piece?

Yeah.

All right. What about you? You gotta get a second piece. I'll try it, but okay. So maybe let's harvest— let's wait and harvest all the watermelons before the last frost. Okay, the boys are on the pig project getting the piglet feed separate from the mama feed. I'm gonna go do Harriet. I wonder if they got the leash out of the tree. It looks like they got the tree straightened up. See any alfalfa? I don't see any alfalfa. What y'all doing? Is that gate wide enough? Under those little holes this side, we could just zip tie it up high. I'm not afraid though. Oh, they may be able to fit under this one. Not really. You have to put it upside down over there though. They're definitely not fitting through this. They could fit that way. They could fit that way. Yeah, but where's the alfalfa bucket? It's up there. Up where?

Up there.

I left it out there with, uh— Okay, where's the leash? Did you get the leash out of the tree? It's— oh yeah, it's in the skid steer. It is? The leash is in the skid steer? You were able to get it out of the tree? Were you able to prop the tree up? Yeah, prop the tree up. Yeah, heck yeah, bud. I don't see that leash. Y'all see that leash? Day 1, yesterday we trained this heifer. She's gonna give a calf for the first time. We've got to get her handled. Day 1, rubbed her down, touched the udder. Even today, if I can get her leashed, I could theoretically tomorrow hook her up to the side-by-side and be pretty much there. The only other step after that would be to get it to where she would let me squat down beside her touching her udders and her not move while she's snacking. We gotta find that collar. Are they gonna be able to get under it? You sure? Let go. The collar was not in the bucket of the tractor. It's on the inside. Inside of the track loader? Yeah. Oh look, it got under! Heck yeah! You didn't want to put the feeder in there first? I will just lift it over. All right, we're doing this. You guys could do it. Put on your list. Well, pick up like the pallet and all the chicken stuff, and then I'll come through and pile all this up with the excavator. Yeah, scrape, scrape the, scrape the top layer off, put it all on that pile, and let's manure spread it out on the hurricane pasture. Harriet's right there in the middle. How do I get her out? Good news is she perks up more than anybody. Look at Josiah's job. He pushed the tree up. Looks good. He's got on a little shim and a nice brace. He did it. She's right there at the gate. This doesn't normally go this easy. Down here.

Come on.

Better put this up. She'll think I'm hurting her with it. You're okay. You're okay. Remember yesterday we petted? We petted? Yeah, yeah, remember? Yeah, remember? Wasn't that bad. Here, it's from me. That's from me.

I'm gonna scratch your head here.

Oh, that scared her. Put it on her. Scared her. It was a good session. I'm not necessarily a cuddly one with the animals, but that was kind of fun. I like, I like connecting that way. I liked connecting that way more, maybe more than I have in the past. Changed so much since fasting. Came back for the little boys. We're gonna go check on the big boys clearing our neighbor's pasture. He's letting us have for hay. Why'd you get the measuring tablespoon for that?

Was it good?

We're gonna check on the boys, but Mom said come talk to her at some point. I'm not putting that off. She said no rush, but gentlemen, She said rush. Rush her every chance you get. Rush to serve her. A few moments later. You on things, babe?

Yep.

All right, gotta talk to Mom. Hey, you want to go see the boys? Did we lose the momentum? Let's go see the boys. You're gonna have to eat it there.

No, I have to eat because it looks like you've eaten it all.

Gideon, I'll go get him. When you go back and you had kids, they disband. That's how much I love that woman, because it's not just going back, it's going back and then rounding up the kids again. All right, here we go. Let's go. Wait, you got another tablespoon? Where's the other one?

It's right here.

Okay, these— can you take these in, put them in the sink, and get him a spoon?

Technically, I mean, thank you.

He'll lose the spoon too, but at least we have more of those. In an effort to expand our own growing area, we're looking for neighbors who will let us lease for growing hay or grazing. This is the closest one. He's let us access to about 2 or 3 acres, so we want to do right by it. We said, hey, you'll let us use this, we'll clear the trees that fell into it from the hurricane, which is nice because we can access that pasture now and it gets his pasture cleaned up. Leaving our property now. Gotta get that over though, that's too close to the woods. I feel like this, this grass— I'll bet this has grown up and dead— is better than that other grass. At least it's mostly grass. There's grass down in the bottom, but they won't get that when they cut the hay. Hey, there you are! Don't go past that ditch. Hey, you guys are doing good. Gideon, you got to clean this car. All right, the behind the scenes event. We're still picking up some merch. We've got a store, The Rooted Life, always a good seller. It's 15 years and dozens of books compiled into something you could read in about 4 and a half hours. Also, this is no joke. Homestead Builds: 12 step-by-step plans for the critical structures. Man, I'm super proud of this one. That was a lot. I felt like you should be further along than this. Did you get a little distracted?

No.

Come on now, it's a mess, huh? Clean it up. Well, sounds like the chicken— chickens are happy about laying some eggs. What you making, dog?

Um, fried potatoes, meatloaf, cultured—

some cream. Now to get it to go into butter. Ever since Dax, I've eaten nothing but cultured butter. We're spoiled. We're never gonna not eat cultured butter.

Gotta get back in the farm groove.

2 Instant Pots going. I don't know if my taste buds have changed. I'm just Appreciative of food. Just loving these plain soups. Garlic, onions, broth, fish. Okay, we are gonna make a peanut butter fluff on Gaps. I can't believe this is happening. I just put a cup of my freshly made cultured butter. Let's finish this. 2 tablespoons peanut butter. I can't believe I can eat peanut butter. How can I eat peanut butter? Wow, those look amazing. Do I miss those? I don't know. I'm a new man. I'm a new man. I don't know if ever I'm gonna be chubby again. I've said that before though. I hope this lasts. I don't think you go not eat food for 30+ days and come away unchanged and without more self-discipline. And my taster's changed. I love this soup. I, I love tea with just a half teaspoon of honey. Blood liver. I need to set it out so I'll eat it tomorrow. I want to just take a spoonful of this peanut butter. And the old me would have done that, but parts of me wants it just to keep that special sacred taste and feeling. So I can easily put this peanut butter back. Just get it whenever you want on any old whim. It's not special. When you eat when you're not really hungry, It's not special. I'm hungry now, and I can't wait till after the refeeding is over so that I can stop eating at night. I love that feeling of just being hungry in the morning and that reward of saying, I didn't eat last night, I wanted to, I slept great, I'm gonna reward myself now. Guilt-free. It tastes so good. Lily, you got your collards, honey. Looks like they're getting done. Done? A little bit out. I'm trying to get used to that. It's a little butterish.

Oh, you're using my sparkle!

Should I have used the whip?

Weren't you supposed to have like done it for like 5 to 10 minutes? Yeah. Did you do it for 5 to 10 minutes?

Look at this, Rebecca. You'll think this is interesting. I've been wanting collards.

That is interesting.

I wouldn't eat collards before. Don't worry, I ain't gonna stoop to kale. Look at that, Beck's into it. When you gonna start doing gaps with me? She did not like that question. I keep missing the meals with them because I make the soup. I have to make my whole separate— okay, I have to make my own thing. So now we have to get 2 meals ready by the same time. That's hard. This is me now. This is not a sacrifice. This is a— I really want this. I will be having this forever-ish. To me, it's not a diet. This is fantastic. I've arrived at a healthy lifestyle diet. Teenage boys were done eating, of course, but Mom's there. We're eating together. It's hard to get two meals done at the same time.

It is.

It's best. Begging food from the— Okay, starting tomorrow.

That's a lot.

I know, I don't think I'm gonna eat all this. Oh, there's too much honey.

You what?

Too much honey. I mean, I was thinking it was almost sweet enough and it didn't have no honey. This would be a good whipped cream. So how do you store this then?

Well, I would think would be best is to put it in a piping bag.

Uh-huh.

You pipe out little rounds. Then you can just take it and eat it. Freeze it.

Come on, Gideon, you're going with us. Go get your town shoes. Everybody get a hug. You never know. Driving's dangerous. We love you. We're proud of you. Proud of ya? You're going to soccer? Yep. All right. All right. Mmm. I love you so much.

And you might feel a slight tingling at first.

Oh, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just went to acupuncture for my shoulder. We've only got one more acupuncture, maybe two more PTs before we go back to the doctor and he decides if— well, we ultimately decide. But he'll say, yeah, you're gonna have to have surgery, or no. What do you think, Rebecca? Look, I try to keep my shoulder straight. That's my right arm, right? Right. You remember how far I could get this one, correct?

Yeah.

I won't say my face looked like this, but I was better. I was a lot better. It used to be like this. They said this is abnormal. It must have been more severe or, you know, my muscles for whatever reason are contracting more than others. But I don't want to have surgery. They're not gonna cut me. They're just gonna manipulate it. But I don't want the anesthesia.

I think that you don't do well with anesthesia.

No.

If for some reason we choose to do it, we're gonna have to work with a doctor on what we can do to help you with anesthesia before you do it because I do not want to send you into pain and all this other stuff that I feel like maybe comes with it.

Why would I do it? I'm just 2 inches away.

I know.

And I feel like I'm still making progress.

Right.

Maybe if I hit a wall for a month.

Yeah. Sorry, I'm just working because I have so much to do.

I know, she's a working gal, guys. We're closing in on the cabin. That's the hardest part, is that final stretch. Wow, that was a record-breaking town day, guys. When we go to town, we go to town. I think we had 6 stops. Y'all waited on us to eat? Yeah. All right, that was nice. His plate, her plate. Maybe one of the hardest things, right? Two different meals. I did put a little dab of hot sauce on there. I think I'll be just fine. And I think I'll eat one of those chicken— nobody got her chicken. That was probably too much. I might have this because it's within an inch of the bone. I think I can handle a little roast meat by now. You think I can handle some roasted meat by now? Yeah, meat closer to the bone is easier to digest. Solid food, man. Now this is a refeed meal. Wow, I killed that. I gained weight. Oh, one— what's 161 from 159? Yeah, my lowest was 156. When yogurt— just plain yogurt tastes like dessert. I'm going to try these frozen peanut butter fluffs.

Hold on a second. Are they good? Tell me.

Does it look like soap?

See ya. That tastes good.

I think this would be good on, uh, those pancakes. It's not in anything.

Mama, can No, it kind of tastes like an M&M.

That might be what I have for my birthday dessert.

Everybody gets one.

Wow, that feels like a real dessert. What's the next exciting mile marker for me? Stewed apples? Stewed fruit? Hopefully before the persimmons are gone. I want to do intro sus things like maybe peanut butter on its own before I intro a whole nother thing. It's dark time. The sun has gone to sleep. So our eyes are going to sleep. Ooh, look! Act like you're coming into this kitchen and set it down on the table. That's cool. You can go to a room. Oh, one problem is it's got that little green light on the bottom of it. Oh no, it doesn't.

But it only, only when you're pressing it.

Okay, I like it. All right, happy day!

La la la la la, let me be free.