In this informal homestead vlog, Victor Justin Rhodes is joined by Chris Slattery, co‑author of Polyface Designs, to review and prototype a series of farm structures and tools. They discuss using SolidWorks to create detailed 3D models of a chicken tractor, trellis, and other farm equipment, aiming to optimize dimensions and functionality. An experimental chicken tractor is evaluated for multiple uses—cold frame, coop, mower, and fertilizer spreader—leading to design refinements such as widening the base and adding deep bedding for winter housing. The episode celebrates a rare, abundant broccoli harvest, with tasting notes comparing it favorably to store‑bought produce. A cooking segment follows, featuring tips for slow‑cooked pork ribs and a four‑hour turkey broth, including a tip on rib placement for optimal fat rendering. Throughout, the crew updates on animal husbandry: a rabbit death, sheep grazing trials, a forthcoming calf, and wheel repairs on farm equipment. They also showcase new Homestead Fest merchandise (black‑on‑white and white‑on‑black hats) and discuss the upcoming Homestead Design Book, inviting viewers to submit their biggest design challenges and livestock plans via a linked form. The tone remains conversational, enthusiastic, and hands‑on, blending design engineering, practical farming, and cooking.
Chapters
I'm here with Chris Slattery this morning, co-author of Polyface Designs. Yes! Well, you did the, the graphics and the design and the design perfections and just really nailed it down for what Joel had been doing for a while, right? Yeah. So I'm like, hey, wait, could we do that with him for this? And could we do that for that thing? And what about this trellis you got? Can't we beautify that a little bit, Chris?
Absolutely, sky's the limit.
What about this? Let's put a chicken tractor on this thing and let's make it fit right. Yesterday we spent all day going over all— I think there's like 20-ish, 25-ish designs Henry, if we design this trellis to be mounted on the outside of these beds, we can still easily put our chicken tractor on top of here without having to put a shim in. Here's the chicken tractor. Let's put it up there as our model and see how we should change our sizing. I'd like to get this off because it looks so ugly.
What did you use all this for?
That was— this was an experiment. Could our chicken tractor turn into a cold frame with Agribon? At least— no, it cannot. It's too rigid, and the wind— even just the wind would blow holes in this stuff. I guess it's right. If this were Fresh build, it'd probably be plum, wouldn't it? I never had really problems with it falling off, but it does need to be wider. This tractor is amazing. You can use it to start a garden out in the yard. You can use it to mow the lawn, fertilize the lawn, move it around every day. You can use it as a coop and open this door, have them in a net during the day. You can fit it on top of one of our raised beds soon. It looks like we need to make it, what, 4 inches?
We discussed the other day potential of putting deep bedding in here, sheltering up the sides of this, and you could have winter chicken housing.
Yep, on this as well. Holy moly, it's dinner! We found success with broccoli, which we've never been able to do, which is probably Rebecca's favorite vegetable. Look like it needs to get harvested though, starting to spread right there.
2, but 3, 4—
look at this one! Holy smokes! What's that? Bug netting, bro. Yep, look at that one. Perfect.
Whoa, holy cow! Like, that's like 3 days.
I like— yeah, I know, it's—
it like took off, man.
Don't you think you need to get it? Because it's gonna start— yeah, it's gonna start doing this right now. Good. Should we put this to the chicken?
No, because the side shoots come off of this and it keeps it weeded.
Yeah.
All right, should I get this one too?
You're gonna have to. There's some, uh, exciting— there's some moths.
I know, I saw that.
Wait a minute, did you plant this whole bed in broccoli?
Yes, this whole bed.
What are you gonna do with all this broccoli?
Um, I'm gonna save it. I'm gonna, um, freeze it.
I've never had success with it, so being a part of this in a small way— you don't understand if you, if you've never tried to grow broccoli. It's hard.
Broccoli can be very difficult.
She's got more. Look, one, once, once it's too hot, 4 chickens will love you for it.
I mean, no one likes to weed, but when you get to have the joy of feeding the chickens right next to it, that's fun, right?
It is. That's free food for the chickens. Look what just came. Oh, we got the Homestead Fest coming up. Abundance Plus has a vending booth there. Created some hats for the first time. These both the hats? These are probably the black and white. Look at this. Boom! Oh, they're both white on— both white on black. Oh yeah, that's style! That's some style right there. What do you think?
Nice.
I learned this trick from Garth Brooks. I saw that in his documentary. He had this black hat with black logo in it, and it worked. I thought black on black, white on black. That looks pretty good too. I like that look. Just, uh, we have one more. On today's episode of Burn It Up Cooking Show, we have it smoky in here, that's for sure. Sautéed, slow-cooked pork ribs. A little tip for you: put the ribs sideways, rest them on this side so that you can get this fat. Otherwise you're laying in the middle and you're only going to fry the middle. How about a half a gallon Broth. This is turkey broth. Could be chicken, could be any kind of broth, I reckon. We'll cook that for about 4 hours on 225. Chris is showing me what he's capable of, kind of the behind the scenes stuff. You got the Eggmobile pulled up right there.
This is the feed buggy from Polyface Designs. Okay, behind the scenes look.
What software are you using on that?
It's SolidWorks.
So he took SolidWorks and it eventually ends up in this book. You've seen me build these, many of these builds. I built the pig ramp, I built the hairpin, I built the greenhouse.
So the plan is to go to this level of detail on every single one of Justin's designs. We're gonna 3D model everything on the computer. If there's any issues, any interferences, we're gonna optimize everything. And then we're gonna do all of our technical illustrations decorations, and we're gonna put it on paper and it's gonna be awesome.
Look at this broccoli. I mean, it looks like, it looks like we just came in from the grocery store. Looks perfect. Let's see how this bad boy turned out. Oh my, we're not gonna lack any juices. Did you eat that broccoli yet?
It's so good.
What do you think, Birdie?
Very good.
I mean, like, crisper. Is that one of the things you just can't tell the difference from the grocery store?
No, it tastes better than the grocery store, 100%.
Her plate, his plate. How'd the ribs turn out?
Good.
Come here, Winnie. Hey, cat. Raw bits for Winnie. No gusta? She does not like eating with me standing right here. That's okay, I'm gonna pet you a little bit and you can eat. Hey, I found our problem right here. I thought our drainage pipe was clogged up, but this— there's water dripping down this hose and that's how it puddles up down here, probably from that leak right there. Does that look like a sturdy washer to you? No, this is a sturdy washer. Haha, no more, no more mud back in the most— that's one of the most trafficked spots. We had to separate the cakes. Pound Cake, the aunt to Cupcakes' babies, she was starting to get nursed because she is soon to have babies in about a month, so she can lactate a little bit. Uh, that's bad, that's bad because it can give the mom mastitis and the little piglets can take all the colostrum. We're hoping that she's still got enough, far enough out, like a month-ish. That she'll develop that colostrum. It was really easy though. All we did was put a 16-foot piece all the way across and just strap together some wire that's not holding. Will you redo that?
Yeah. Can you come help me do my rabbit?
She's saying the rabbit leads me to my next update, which— if you're a rabbit, if you're a fan of Lillian and rabbits, you're not going to be very happy. Yep. Another one bites the dust. What happened to your rabbit, Lily?
It died.
Do you know why?
Uh, nope.
Okay, we just came out here and it was dead in its cage. This wasn't dead, is it? No, he's still going. We're down to one rabbit. The male died over vacation. Doesn't help that you're scaring them half to death, Teddy. What do you smell? You'll notice Winnie's out. And we're actually happy about it. Didn't really work out with the sheep. More on that in another video soon. Why'd you have me put up this chicken fence out here?
Winnie and Teddy were getting in here and playing with each other and ruining my tomatoes.
What happened here? Can you guys see that? See that pole? This got pulled weird, or stud really rubbed on this hard. Look, folks be asking for plans for that. We're still prototyping. Talked with Chris about it yesterday, might involve him in improving some of the design. We're working on plans on this and 98% of my build. Phyllis is going to give us a calf in, what, a month and a half-ish, and then she's retiring once the calf is 2-3 months old. Retiring to the— where's she going? Freezer camp, he says. Or Hamburger World. Hey, but aren't you gonna— is that gonna be an emotional day? No, no, she was what?
She stepped a lot.
Ah, these kids are so in tune. They've been around this, this whole life. I don't care how in tune you are with the life and death cycle and where and how aware you are where your food comes from, he's still gonna I know him, he's talking tough. He's still gonna get a little emo when we have to pull that trigger. This removable cross brace, well, that's not really working out. I mean, it didn't work in this situation. I think we need to make, uh, a bigger brace, bigger diagonal braces. And one of Chris's suggestions, maybe an X brace right in the middle. At first I thought, well, that will cut in the lounging area, but it might actually make it better because she could lounge here and then Phyllis could be comfortable on the other side of the X. Look at that burl. We actually live in Burl Holler. Holler is country for valley, and this is a burl, anybody ever wanted to know. So there must have been some bunch of burls up here when they named this place. What do you think? I guess this wasn't here. This is relatively—
well, oh look, there's a tiny burl right there.
Yeah, this is a burl-less tree. Let's fix these wheels. This time our problem isn't flat. Because we found non-flat tires, it's— this has become undone. I wonder if Jonah can weld that. Replace 3 of the wheels. We'll see if we can fix them. But I noticed 7 of 8 are blown. Well, that was nice, even though 4 wheels are still jacked up. I was still able to move it by hand. Show them what we got, man. Mom made waffles, strawberries from the land, bacon, eggs from the land. Oh, get some of that sausage. Being a carnivore, I'm supplementing a little with a burger and having eggs and bacon. We have some very special guests today. What y'all's names and where are you from? Oh God, you had to throw that in there, honestly. We're the Bodrow family. I know, man.
Gosh, so Matt, Heather, our 3 kids are around here somewhere, and we are admittedly from California.
We'll forgive you. Thank you, I appreciate that. Jonah, come here, my man. Do you think you could weld that back on?
Yeah, where's the other half? Let's hear this.
It's crooked is the problem. Well, it just flipped, lock bending to the other side. Can you guys see that? Yeah, to the metal stall. You got your alfalfa, Lily? We've had the sheep doing this mow job on our bank for one week. You don't want to keep sheep in a spot more than a week. How have you done? Look, look how they mowed down in there. We should have We should have divided it in half, put them in one side for a week and then the other side. But you got it clear enough, we can come in and shrink them easy enough now. Which way do you want to take them? Will they follow you?
Yeah, I'm sure, but I think we should take them around that way.
All right, so tame they didn't even go out to open. Hey, let's get a closer look at their job. Not bad, not bad. All right, they're going now. I can't keep up. I think that's the trick, get them running. Wait, they're not going. Kind of spook them towards you a little bit. There you go. You're not helping us. Door's open that way. If we herd them around, that should be a natural wall. They want to stay close to the shed, to the round pen. Here they come, Lily! Open that door more so it's a wall. There, one went in. Wait, there's two. There it is, there it is! Now give them all the alfalfa. Ding! So yeah, I'm in the early stages of a homestead design book. I want your opinion. Let me know what your number one struggle is in regards, um, to homesteading design or builds. And then give me an idea of what you got going and quantities, like how many chickens do you want to keep, uh, are you going to have cows, pigs, etc.? And give me an idea on how to focus this. So guys, let's build this together. Link in the description for a form for you to fill out helping me build this thing.
