FLOOD RECOVERY

We had some significant flood damage on the farm yesterday. Oh my gosh. Culvert under the road filled up with sand. Driveway got washed out. Culvert got clogged up. And our pond overflowed right here. Our silt pond overflowed. And our root cellar's flooding. Today we've got that to deal with, but the family has to come together because we still got to plant our garden. We still need minerals. We still need to dance and have a little fun. La la la la la, let me be free. Get all this off of it without damaging Yesterday this got clogged up with sand and the whole road was flooding. Look at all this water coming down, flooding the road, coming into here. He's doing a pretty fine job with this thing. I think we accidentally bent the grate. Hopefully we can bend that back. That's easy. He's cleaning the road. Filling back in our hole. Next up, let's clear around this culvert here. Sticks out of our way, and then I'll move the little pipe that's in the way. I think I'm gonna have to get in the water. I think I owe these machines another hug. They're making quick work of these water problem fixes. Chiropractor. I know. I'm proud of you. Gotta always tell them I'm proud of them. I think they like that more than I love you. Tell them that too, but— See what kind of problem we got here. Next time they call for 4 inches of rain, go around the farm and then plug this stuff. Here at the pond, we overflowed there. In that event, that's our third escape. You've got the main drain, you've got the overflow drain, and then we need to have decade rain event drain. Thinking a berm out of the silt pond. I got to find where that pipe comes.

No. Yeah, you're right.

Any more flow? It's clogged somewhere. That's doing something. Here it comes. Here it comes. Hey, we got to do our unclog the ditch dance. You want to join us? This is a lot of fun going around and fixing stuff. So satisfying. Yeah, look, our little overflow is already not in service. I think we've got it. Isn't this work satisfying this morning? Yeah, just fix big problems really quick. Oh, save one. Gideon's gonna grab the Kayak, and we're gonna unclog the main drain pond. Third overflow. We think the track loader is going to be a better job— do a better job for this little slight ditch so that we can still drive here and we still have a pasture here. The sun will come out tomorrow. I'm gonna do the Sundance. What is this, a paddleboard now? Don't you fall in, that'll be a cold plunge. Unclogging the main drain pond. There it is. All right, throw it to the bank. You did it. This pathway is jacked. But we need to dry it. It needs to dry out a bit. I think putting gravel here will help hold down this mud. I think. I mean, half of grading is knowing how to fix it, not just knowing how to run the machine. Number 4, probably one of the most important projects. The flooding root cellar. This jerry-rigged contraption to get water out of here. Did help a lot. This is going to help a lot. Water comes down through here a little bit. It's not a whole lot. It is some of the problem. We have a guy coming to lay bricks for the garage. Let's, let's have him lay some up there too. Fanning this out, extremely important. Our root cellar, we're gonna fill this up with goodness this year, so we gotta keep it dry. Anything out here is gutters. But we got to get the fascia going. I'm gonna see if the gutter guy can do the fascia. We were waiting on the framers to do that, but maybe he does that. We can get the gutters and that will solve this problem. That's the major problem. Did you cut my 3 boards? Bring them here, please. We got down to one board. It was This much too much. We tried hammering in with some of these, and then Josiah grabbed the rubber mallet. It worked. Now let's straighten these up. We got our 16 compartments. We got a ridge going across the top to connect it, give us a little bit of slope for the mat. Wow, whoa! We've got the skids. Let's flip it over, put them on. I'm calling it a day. That's success. We lack our mat, hooks, some sort of pulling device, and plastic decking for the bottom of these skids. Do wonder if I could make this optional when we make these plans available. You could turn this into a mineral shawl if you don't have a machine to move it. My hope that was that it would be movable by hand as a sled, because when you shawl it, there's potential for the cows to knock it over. Man, I just like to look at that. I don't want to leave yet. I want to look at this. What'd you make us for breakfast, Lily? Or lunch? Ooh, nice and crispy. You seed-timing it up? Or is that this afternoon?

No, it's this afternoon. I'm doing other things that have to be done on the computer. You have horse stuff and your supplements.

This afternoon, seed-timing it up with the neighbor. Yes, little community. The seed time garden planting session has turned into a community gathering. Rebecca, are you just emptying that whole bag of beets?

That's what it feels like. Oh my gosh, she's taking my whole bag.

Why don't you just keep them in the bag?

Well, I'm splitting with her. I'm splitting the bag. I came straight from the Azure Drop.

What are you going to make with beets? Borscht?

I'm going to roast them.

Did I say it right? Borscht?

I have a great recipe for borscht.

Wonderful.

I've got a great recipe for shredded. I grate them.

Ruth, only half a mile away. Stephanie, only 3 miles away.

Local community.

She's way past Lisa's and all of that. 5 miles? No, because the gas station's 4. All right, Rebecca, fact-checking me. I gotta get out of there before they start talking about birth. Hey, where y'all going with that? We're taking it to get up to Blaze. Blaze is gonna try the carriage for the first time. Come get me. He's gonna pull that cart today, huh?

We're gonna try.

How's he doing? Man, as a cart horse, he could pull me, couldn't he? Oh yeah, he could move me.

He could take you and, and, uh, Rebecca for a ride.

How's he doing?

Not a big hill. He's wonderful. He's hot, he wants to go. And I have baler twine on there, so we're not going to rip too much.

I see. How's our raggedy old cart doing? It'll do. Jonah, we want to fix up that cart.

Good boy.

Wow.

Yeah, you're softening the reins. Never take it for granted that he won't, you know. It's like you can relax but also always be ready.

What's that like to be pulled around by a pony? It's a lot better than walking. Is this your new, uh, work, work mobile?

Turn that way. Oh, he ain't listening.

He ain't listening. There you go.

The whole time. Do not give.

Okay, good.

Make them walk.

Perfect little pony for this homestead. I escaped any baby and birth talk. Did y'all talk about birth or babies?

No.

Did you get any seat time done, or did you get a lot of gabbing done?

We talked, we talked a lot, a lot of different things.

That was a community event.

It was, it was fun. I want to contact all the homeschooling moms in our area, like in our very small community within like 10 miles.

Yeah, I was gonna say neighborhood, but we don't really have a neighborhood.

And then we can get together and the kids can play. And even if they don't have kids—

yes sir, that sounds like a plan. This local, hyper-local community we've been able to build last year or so has been— eat up, Henry! Some flossy and pork spaghetti. Next year this spaghetti sauce will be from us, and that spaghetti squash will be from us. Yeah, we don't need to buy no more noodles. You're gonna be all right without your super starchy noodles? Yeah, it'll be okay. Oh, I like it. He has a good attitude, doesn't he? He has a good attitude. Today we won. How close are you to getting seed time done?

Well, I want to talk to you about something. Yeah, and then I'm pretty close.

The garden plan. Nearly finished the mineral sled. We're just getting parts. Rebecca, we fixed all the water problems. Oh well. Except for one drainage above the pond. What a great feeling to have a successful smooth line day and get so much work done. We divided, we conquered, we got it done. Now we're gonna enjoy a nice meal together. Happy day.