The video opens with a discussion of soaring gas prices, now averaging $4.17 per gallon, and the added pressure from the Russia‑Ukraine conflict, highlighting how fuel costs affect everyday life for families, small businesses, and the broader economy. Victor Justin Rhodes shifts the conversation toward personal agency, quoting a lyric about "turning off the news and building a garden" as a way to regain control. The group then moves to hands‑on homesteading: they tend to a chicken coop, deal with a raccoon‑killed chicken, manage a broody hen and its eggs, and discuss protecting the brooder from predators. The dialogue continues with garden work, comparing cucumber varieties (Cherry vs. Better Boy) and describing planting layouts in garden beds. Throughout, the tone remains conversational and informal, mixing concern over macro‑economic issues with practical, hopeful steps toward self‑sufficiency and community collaboration.
Chapters
This morning, gas prices soaring to the highest average ever recorded, $4.17 a gallon.
I just filled up right now and it cost me $50 versus normally costing me $30.
Up 10 cents in just one day and 55 cents since last week.
It makes me nervous. Not so much for the personal gas budget. I mean, we hardly go anywhere, but I do realize that everything we buy comes on a truck.
If you thought gas prices were already high, Russia invading Ukraine has only made things worse, which sucks for everybody. I mean, it sucks for parents who need to drive kids to school. It sucks for small businesses who have to spend more money to move things around. It sucks for everyone because the price of gas affects the price of everything.
I don't get too far down that worry path because I remember this is out of my control. There's only so much I can do, and I'm doing everything I can. I remember what Lucas Nelson sings. Turn off the news and build a garden. Turn off the news and build a garden. Just my neighborhood and me. We might feel a bit less hardened. We might feel a bit more free. Turn off the news and raise the kids. Give them something to believe in. Teach them how to be good people. Give them hope that they can see. Turn off the news and build a garden with me. We're gonna get the Chickshaw 3.0 to the posse so they can train getting in it at night. Out with the Turkeyshaw, which was their roost, and in with the Chickshaw. 3.0. All right ladies, you got your coop back. Hopefully they'll go up in there tonight. This will be their perch and we can move anywhere we want because in just a few days these ladies are moving to the pasture. Look, they're already going in there. You guys going You see a dead chicken? Oh, this is why we have to make sure they don't get out. Holy crap! Oh yeah, that's your— that's what you call a raccoon kill.
A raccoon did that?
Takes off the head and eats the innards. Pick it up, let's feed it to our pigs. I think there's a breach in the poultry wire back there. Here's you some extra protein, lady, given that you're gonna have birth any day.
Here's a broody hen. We lifted it up and I said, 'Fly, birdie!' And we took her off and then she went back. Can we move her?
Yeah, I guess you could put her in the brooder. Count the eggs. If there's only— make— grab a few more to make it 8.
Yeah, see, eggs.
Get those.
I have the eggs in my pocket to keep, keep them warm.
Oh, look, the rat's in here still trying to get in that brooder. He can't do it.
No, he can't.
Put it on the corner. We're gonna put open towards the wall because she's gonna try to jump out at first. Yeah, see, she's not wanting to stay, so we're gonna put a lid on her, just temporary. Whoops, shouldn't have left the door open to the brooder. Forgot the cows were in there. All right, come on. Come on, let's go, let's go, man. Gideon took pride in this. He's got the water, the feeder. We got the mama hen on. Let's let her sit like that for a few hours, then we'll see if we can't lift that lid. I'd go one more. And get 2 eyes per, per quarter.
That's pretty good.
Well then, I'd go 8. Nope, plant on the outer grids. Like this, put it about 4 inches down in the ground on that side, and then this side, everywhere there's a grid. I see Rebecca and the girlfriends just came down to work in the— or to get plants. Are y'all plant shopping? We are.
There's different types of cucumbers, so like there's the thin-skinned and then there's like the, like, pickling. Are these two different varieties? Are they the same? Um, no, this is the whole tray is cherry and then this whole tray is Better Boy.
We did it and worked out perfect. We had 5 rows left in this garden bed and we didn't have one extra potato or one too short. What are you gonna do, Vic?
I'm just gonna pot up some of these plants and, um, keep it going.
Keep your reputation up. One last thing to do. Let's go check to see if your broody hen took. Go in quiet. I'm really proud of Gideon. You set your first broody hen, Gideon. That means you can hatch chicks.
Yeah, and then I'll take care of those chicks.
Yeah, so if you can set a broody hen, I'm not worried about you no matter what happens. Okay, okay, now let's get out. Let's get out. We'll turn her later. Let's leave her. Let's leave her. Hopefully she didn't abandon them. Okay, whatever's happening in the world, That, what we just did this whole day, it's an answer.
