Finished! My 1,400 sq:ft Front Yard Homestead

Been working hard this week to get my front yard homestead going. It's ready. It's not complete though without some chickens. Let's do that. And it needs a haircut desperately. We must hurry. The chickens have been cooped up. It's light, they want to be out. That kind of thing does not happen overnight. In fact, it takes years. It actually started way back in the day. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7— 54, 55, 56, 57. 57 steps from the front door, our first garden. Hey, it's fine for a crop garden, but very first garden, trouble. It's gonna get neglected. It's far away. You don't pass it on your way out. It's gonna get neglected. You're gonna be tired by the end of the season and not want to go out there and weed. It's good. You're going to let some things go to harvest, or like zucchini is going to get ahead of you. Bad news. These guys are out. Chickshaw chickens. We've cooped up the Mini-Me chickens. So that we can move them. To move chickens, you just close them in at night, and hopefully you have a mobile coop. Please tell me you have a mobile coop. And then you're ready to take them to another locale. Not long after we started homesteading, we discovered permaculture. It's a system that mimics a natural forest, and it's a system that takes very little maintenance, build soil, and the swale itself helps hydrate the property. One of the things permaculture teaches you is to start right outside your door. So we put a garden in right outside our door. Hey, I'm just here in my front yard. A lot of people asked for a tour of my chicken garden systems, so I thought I'd take a minute and show you a couple of them. At this point, I'm sure our normal neighbors thought we were crazy. What in the world is going on here? Vegetables in the front yard? No, I gotta see this. Yeah, that's tomato. Of course, if you're gonna have a garden, you gotta have chickens next to it. So we did that with a poultry net right there. Deep bedding in front yard with a poultry net, and that front yard system worked Fantastic. Ah, let's have some Swiss chard. Ooh, and how about a little bit of onion right here? And while I'm at this garden, why not some of these little tomatoes for part of my lunch? It worked fantastic until it didn't. It's like a spring. Look, water's just flowing out of there. It's not flooding in the tomatoes, but it sure is streaming by it. Look, then the beautiful one said, honey, You're gonna have to build raised beds. This cannot happen again to my tomatoes. I was having a good moment. I was tending the garden of peace. I said, yes, dear. So we built her these raised beds. We're gonna build it right here in place. We could— look, here's what we just had. Oh, you know how we could do it? Look, put it on there for a second. Okay. I guess we should put it with the up down there too. Smashing beautiful. Just 2 more sides, Rebecca, and we've got the weekend ahead of us. You're gonna have garden, you're gonna have chickens next to them, so soon had this built. Finally, a beautiful chicken run that doesn't stink. Beautiful enough for the front yard. Good morning, ladies. That just below the surface of this deep mulch— oh my gosh, can you look? Beautiful. Beautiful compost. And this system worked out amazing. Now notice, we tried it and we proved it with mobile systems before we did anything permanent. Actually, probably had that system for 10 years before we did this. Let's not keep them waiting any longer. Free the birds! 27-ish, and none of them went under. They're already going scratching and tilling. We don't have to level the wood chips, they'll do it for us. They have no internet, they have nothing to do but to eat, breathe, drink, and scratch. Transition right into there. There's no other choice for a coop in here. It's just the exact same size as the mini me. It's just pretty. All this turned out amazing. I was skeptical about the raised beds, but they turn out to be so easy to maintain. They stay up out of floodwaters, and they're just a pleasure. The chickens easily provide enough compost. We probably have more compost— we do have more compost than we need. I'm just— I just couldn't be happier. I don't like much veggies. I don't like much gardening, but, uh, gardening is fun to a carnivore. I mean, well, let's pretend this is a weed. Okay, well, this is a weed. We're gonna actually work this up hopefully today, and, uh, we'll rake it up and throw it to chickens. I don't know if they like that or not, but again, gives them something to do. Oh, they're eating it, they're eating it. What they don't eat— if you don't know, just throw it in there. So long as that's not all they're eating, they know. They've got bird brains. But remember, they have nothing to do, no internet, so And they don't read the books, they don't read the internet, and, uh, they'll eat what's good for them despite what everything says. Anyway, where was I? Oh, and then another flood came. A catastrophic flood came. Ironically, Hurricane Helene. Again, Austin, let's show some more clips. We can't show this enough. This might be the first time they're viewing this. And even our hurricane-proof raised beds weren't Hurricane Helene-proof. Like, 30 inches in 2 days? Yeah, no. This week I rebuilt the raised beds, and then I rebuilt the chicken run, and now it needs a picking up. It needs a haircut. It just started to rain, so we're gonna have to put this on hold, let the rain pass, and hopefully get back at it early afternoon. Much later, the rain has gone. We're gonna get this— we're gonna give this yard a haircut. Hey, you back in the overalls? What does that mean? Does that mean it's spring? Yeah, I guess just water in this cover crop real good. Although I'm wondering, just to get it to germinate. Yeah, just trying to get it to germinate. I cannot wait to give this place a haircut, but first we got to pick up some things. Can you back Salma in here and we'll get this rock out of here? Ew, it feels terrible. Help us in. Yep, yeah, here's our guest scrubber. Add it to our rock collection. Wow, he didn't get as excited as me, but when you're 46 and you move a rock like that, you get excited. While we're over here, might as well get the string trimmer. Hopefully it starts. We left fuel in it. I see that can clog it up. This works better with a camera. Yeah, maybe they'll calm down now that it's separated. The posse is complete. 3 down. Beck comes out and asks me, why is this taking forever? Yeah, I want to know. I don't know. This is taking forever. It's just so thick. Did we even mow it over here yet last year? We did. And I want to hurry up and get this done. We have people coming to pick up pigs in 20 minutes. Can I finish this in 20 minutes? I thought I could do the whole thing in 20 minutes.

You better pick up the pace if you want to be done before him.

I know, I wish we had two string trimmers. I'd give you one. All right, our customer is here. All right, Beck. And I was almost done. Is it just you? No, I got my son Peter. All right, first time getting pigs, Nolan? It's, uh, first time in a long time. Had pigs growing up. Look, even brought the bedding for them. That's a good start. You want to help him catch this pig? We need a pig wrangler. There's no, there's no quiet way to do that. Okay, what's her name?

We don't know yet. We have to decide because, you know, I'm all for cute sweet names and Dad's like, Lex, name her something substantial. And there's a lot of Contradiction, but we'll find out.

Okay, so since she doesn't have a buddy yet, y'all are gonna have to visit her.

Yeah, we will, because she's in the same barn that my bottle calf is in, so I'll be visiting her morning and evening at least.

Okay, good. You might be a homesteader if you got a piglet in your Kia. And I hear you're getting 6 chicks on the way home. Yeah. Okay, 6 chicks and a pig, no calves, right? You're gonna pick up— you're not gonna pick up any calves on the way home? Okay, bye-bye guys. Good luck. Mom don't even notice. She's like, whatever, I'm over it. Thanks, it's done. Hey, we're gonna give you a break Sunday. What a great set of folks. Good luck to them. Pigs for everyone, right? Pigs for everyone. They got a female, so Cupcake's line is gonna live on. They're gonna have a breeder. All right, let's finish this up. So close to being done. All we lack is getting around the chicken run. If you're afraid to homeschool your kids because they might turn out weird, well then don't homeschool your kids. This is what they do when they have— can explore their own interests and have a lot of free time. Now they encourage, if you do choose to homeschool, just know ain't no normal world changers, is there? No movers and shakers are normal, and I'm going for movers and shakers. One last thing— clean up. And it's windy. Austin, give us some wind noise. Give us some wind noise. I got the mic protector. Spring is windy. Guys, let's go with it. I am so proud. This feels so good. This yard looks so good. Austin, let me get this one last shot and then roll the B-roll. Front yard B-roll. Before and after. Let's go! One last thing, let's get this chicken in. While Annie wrangles that chicken, last vlog of the week. Thank you for joining us this week. Last chance to get in on the Kickstarter, my newest book, The Chicken Tender: How to Raise Your Chickens Naturally from Hatching to the Plate. Uh, we've got— we talk about this system, we talk about using them to make compost, We talk about every single step to raising chickens. Let's make 2025 the year of the chicken. I'm gonna help you. All my backers get bonuses, including a live show training you for 2025. Book ships Christmas. You'll get digital download by August. Go check it out. That's at chickentenderbook.com. Oh, good catch! She's a chicken tender. Good job. All right, happy day, everyone.