GREASE FIRE

The house is full of smoke and the fire extinguisher dust is everywhere.

Oh my gosh, you can see the smoke coming out of the house.

Oh no. La la la, let me be free. Henry, where are your shoes? I think I see them. Come on, let's go. Happy day. Are y'all looking at this water drainage problem? Welcome to another day in the life of some folks doing the most important thing for our health and our family, which means we're growing our own food and eating what we grow. Put the fishing pole away. He's in delusion. If he thinks he's gonna be going fishing right now. That's this afternoon. All afternoon, bro. Right now it's chore time. Hey, what happened to our egg basket? I don't know. Never mind. On the side-by-side, Lily got it from us. Dang it, who ran over that thing? Got our chickens back in our front yard for— we will soon be back over here, guys. What are you doing?

I'm leveling it.

Started laying in here yet? Mucho. They started pooping in here yet too. This pretty shawl, I think they might be perching on top of the nest box. I have it blocked. See, did you decide to come after all? Of course he goes to the digging. Do you want to dig? Fill in that hole. Hey, are we not picking up sticks?

We are, but we gotta put wood.

Why?

For the fire.

Come on, Henry, let's go. Look, you, you have to This is busted. That's not gonna hold water. Honestly, I want to be doing the project, picking up sticks. As weird as that sounds, picking up sticks isn't very glamorous, but it is adding— what, we're at an acre and a half of pasture to our farm. Zoom out and go to the macro view. Eggs are very important. It doesn't matter that I've been collecting eggs every day for 20 years. It may not be new and exciting, but it's still very important. Both possies have a bad habit of perching in their nests at night, therefore pooping in the nest boxes. So I have a plan. Tonight after dinner walk, they've laid all their eggs, I'm gonna come get the eggs and see this opening. They get in there and they nest in here. Well, I'm gonna turn it sideways so they can't get in there at night. So that's two things: collect the eggs in the evening before they have a chance to poop on them, close the nest box off so that they can't poop on their nest box overnight. I could do a third thing, and that would be if I forgot to move the— turn the nest box, I could just come out here first thing in the morning and get any poop out. That collected overnight before we get a bunch of eggs. The long-term play would be train them up. So I really do need to come turn those nest boxes. Garlic is jamming under hay mulch. We just planted 4 rows of potatoes. Nothing's come up yet, but it takes a minute, 4-6 inches down, for that little sprout to make it all the way up. Henry, are you ready? Let's do it. New lambs. I mean, there's breakfast. Is it nursing? Yeah, this lamb is very important. This is a month of our family eating lamb, 5 pounds a week. Look at me. No, look at me. Don't drop it. Let's feed these new mamas some alfalfa. They need the extra protein. Ah, ah, no! I wish I wouldn't have dropped that because it dropped right on their poopy bedding. Even the little guys are getting in there. And we still got her babies to come. Belle, wherever you are— there you are— and your babies to come. The babies were very far spread out this year, 2 months, because of Nacho. He didn't breed them all on time. That's one reason he's gone. Look at this difference. 2-day-old, 2-month-old. Then you put some of that spent hay over here. It's getting kind of sloppy. Put it over there. You know what we have to do? Cover the fruit trees. Let's go. May not get picking up sticks, but we've got to cover the fruit trees. It's going to be 20 degrees tonight and frost. All right, you won't always be saying that, will you?

Look at them!

I don't know, 5, 6, or 7 of our fruit trees are flowering. My mouth is watering because it means we're going to get fruit. Flowers mean fruit. These ones are peaches. Scoot over, let's go! You're gonna drive? Hey, you gotta get used to eating what we grow. We're gonna cancel the grocery store this summer. You ready? One reason this fruit trees are going to be so important— this has flowered so much. Are we really gonna have like dozens of fruits? But we're not gonna have dozens of fruits if it gets 20 degrees tonight. This ain't covered. I don't know if that's entirely true. We did plant these trees above what you call the frost pocket. Frost settles down in the valley up to 50 feet. These are above that, but we're not going to take any chances. Put it on the tree. That was super easy. Got these big plastic bags for transporting carcasses to the butcher. We got a plum tree leafing. I don't know if it's done flowering or— what are we doing? What are you making us, Birdo?

I'm making some breakfast of bacon and eggs and then this cabbage, and I'm gonna heat up some squash pancakes.

You've killed those eggs. Date time. You excited?

Yeah.

The best kind of dates for farmers. Daytime dates. We're actually going to the Banff Film Festival, not to be confused with our film festival, the Abundance Film Festival. How about that? We have a festival just for us now.

Yeah, it's fun.

A festivus for the rest of us. Well, we're here at the beautiful Brevard College campus. We're here with all the old people. They like day dates too. I know, gotta get into bed. Back at the Poor Boys. We went on Friday with the boys.

I know!

They weren't nearly as good.

Every year the movies say that.

They must save the best for Sunday.

Sunday movies always the best.

There wasn't a bad one. It was so fun being in a dark room with all these people watching this movie together. Did you ever think we did it? We made our own? I thought it.

You know what I thought?

We made our own festival.

Would have been really great.

What?

Is if they would have turned the lights on and we could have discussed it.

Yeah.

This BAM Film Festival has definitely inspired us and been a template, if you will, for what—

what—

something that we would— what we would like to bring to the homesteading community.

It's been inspiration.

Yeah.

We've taken what we've liked about it, but then we put our own twist.

Right. I hope that in the Abundance Plus Film Festival that you guys can find inspiration like that. Maybe it's not a self-reflection like I was, self-reflecting, but something—

No.

That can make your life better, because I know that I'm leaving this a better person because I'm going to actively take steps to change my life and do something different. So I hope you do too.

What is this? They're coming. Uh-oh. Either they're running— they can't be this excited. They must be gonna tell us. They want to be first advocates.

Our house almost burned down.

What?

Are you okay?

The grease lit on fire. We barely got it out.

How did you get it out?

We had to use the fire extinguisher.

Everything's—

the house is full of smoke and the fire extinguisher dust is everywhere.

Oh my gosh, you can see the smoke coming out the house.

Oh no, they got a little excited with the, uh, wings. Smart of them though, they did the fire hydrant. I got a fan, uh, pushing it out. Kids did the right thing, get a fire extinguisher. But it's like it snowed in here. Everything's gonna have to be cleaned. Oh boy, I think the chicken's okay, but we're not gonna risk it. Called the emergency cleanup people. Since we can't eat anything in our kitchen, Chipotle it is. Mom's gone to get it. Justin's book club, starting that impromptu right now. The Impossible Climb. You ever saw the movie Free Solo? Alex Honnold free soloing El Capitan, which is crazy. I'm told this book will point out just how crazy that was. So far so good, it's a keeper. Kids are playing walnut ball. That is the restoration company. All right, they're set to it. And Beauty arrived with the food. Well, aren't we thankful for this? Yeah, original farmhouse. Papa was raised in this house with 4 brothers and sisters plus parents. And I don't know if they had insulation. They didn't have running water and electricity. Here's our bed tonight. I don't know if I've ever slept over here. It's pretty rough. It's not the most comfortable bed, I know. No, no, no.

Hey, let's just eat while it's warm.

We'll all start feeling better if we eat. That's my bench. That's Mom's bench. Everybody's starting to settle in. Let's go turn those nest boxes sideways. Looky here, somebody's got a bad habit of laying and perching in the nest box. Clean eggs. Just remember to open them in the morning. Look at this, it worked. Oh my gosh, there must be 3 dozen eggs in there. They're all squeaky clean. Be free.