In this homestead vlog, Justin (Speaker A) leads a crew of family members and helpers through a full day of farm work on their small diversified farm. The video opens with sorting food scraps and preparing bedding for a growing flock of 100 chicks, emphasizing rapid Cornish Cross growth (400‑500 lb of meat in 58 days) and encouraging viewers to start chickens before frost. The crew then tackles pasture renovation: mulching wasted hay, spreading concentrated manure, and seeding new pasture using a straw‑bale spreader while discussing mineral supplementation for sheep and cows and the use of parasite‑hardy breeding stock. Throughout the day, they construct a permanent hot‑tunnel greenhouse that will serve as winter housing for the chickens, using deep bedding that will improve soil fertility. A central technical highlight is the “Egyptian trick” – a simple water‑level device made from tubing that the crew uses to check and set level grades for the greenhouse foundation, with Randolph noting its ancient origins. The vlog interweaves practical instructions (building the greenhouse, using the water level, managing minerals, seeding, and handling livestock) with informal family banter, anecdotes about the crew’s relationships, and occasional health updates. The tone remains conversational and instructional, aiming to teach viewers low‑cost, hands‑on farm techniques while showcasing the collaborative spirit of the homestead.
Chapters
Thankfully Arun is here this morning to help. Uh, Arun, this is some of our scrap from harvest yesterday. Let's put these, maybe this, in a food scrap bucket along with that from our inside our house. Word on the street is there's a million chicks out. Yeah, we gotta leave that door shut, guys. Wait, let's, uh, let's get that stuff out and put down some new bedding. Nice, everybody looking good. It's amazing to think those 100 chicks are going to be 400, 500 pounds of meat in our freezer from the 58th day that they were born, like less than 2 months. So guys, it's not too late for many of you. You probably want to get your sea monsters 6-ish weeks before your first possible frost date. I wouldn't go— I wouldn't raise— I mean, they'll be 6 weeks old by the time your frost date comes. Raise them a couple weeks into the frost period. Probably not going to get any snow, probably going to be just fine. So especially warmer places like— you guys are on there kind of crooked, aren't you? So especially these warmer places like, I don't know, South Georgia, Florida, Hawaii, Texas, it's not too late. To do Cornish Cross. Find out where your prostate is. It's not too late. I'm gonna help you out. I've created a Growing Groceries Quick Start Guide, and one of the tutorials in there, of 5 tutorials, is, is how to grow a year's worth of chicken in 58 days. Oh, I can feel the blood rushing. Probably shouldn't do this. That's probably why I have Rune here. It's hard to stop. Feels good to get going, but there's a limit. It's hard to know where that limit is. That was it. All right, my mouth's itching now. Yay for Rune! The cows knocked the water water out. Okay, I cannot wait to move them. They've been in the sacrifice area 2 weeks, guys. Tomorrow the cows get out of here. They go back to our rotational daily grazing schedule.
Yes!
This area needed more nutrients. We've got wasted hay, we've got concentrated manure. I think we should mow and bring the drag here. We've got mulch blades on our mower and it would chop this hay up really fine. And make it break down faster. The cool thing about this rest is our grass has gotten bigger, and so to not have to do this again, we need to slow down, and we can do that.
I got it.
Oh, thanks. Now that I really can't bend over— here, I'll grab it from here. Yeah. So now that it's bigger, we can slow it, slow it down because we can make smaller paddocks. And I can't wait to get this one— just had her baby— back on grass. I mean, this is great hay. This is horse quality, unsprayed hay. It's the best you can get, and they like it, but it's nothing like fresh grass. Is it?
Yeah.
Good boy. Good boy. We're going to test the parasite hardiness of our sheep. You risk parasites when you stay in the same spot. That's why we're moving around the water. That's why we want to move around the hay feeder, the hay. Even though they're in one spot, we still want to kind of move them around as much as possible. Got parasite We got parasite-hardy stock from Greg Judy this time. I mean, he doesn't baby his breeding pairs. Strong survive, and those are the ones that breed without any worm treatments or anything like that. So these, these are hardy stock. Another thing we're doing during this time is been super diligent about their Minerals. BBC. Just help me remember this. BBC. I have a phone, you can take a picture of it. Oh, that's right, you have an iPod. Good morning, guys. Missed you guys. Look at this job you're doing. You're getting older, it's raining. Ah, this is a perfect till job. Not too much, not too little. Good job. This is where they were before that, and I want you to see just before that, probably not 2-ish weeks ago. Grass is coming up. Oh, and you got to see a week before that. Oh, where we planted seeds. See what we're doing here, guys? Look at this. Boom. Okay, that ought to motivate us. We gotta come through here. We gotta catch up on our seed planting. This is crazy. This is mucho comida. Oh man, they're feeling especially frisky today. Cool. Yep, Josiah, that could be the wall, so you could put that side back. I'll get this side. I'll dump the water out. Thanks, Josiah. Our pasture seed did come. Let's stop putting it off. Let's get our seed. We've got our straw bales, our organic straw. Let's go get it. You got a seed spreader? Erin's getting our seeds. Why put this off? Well, I need to make sure I mineralize the sheep and the cows tip their mineral. That'd be a reason to put it off, but I think we'll somehow get it done. So it's a huge bag. No, we don't need it all though, do we? Come here, Josiah, we'll fill up that spreader. Okay, scoop more than we need because we can bring it back. We brought them a bit of skim. They protested the cucumbers. What, do you throw them out? You refusing? So we brought fresh batteries. We'll take these out and fill it up. Sometimes that happens, you know, dark for a while, wet for a while. Oh wow, to replace these, half a year. We've dumped our organic straw. Pretty evenly along these paddocks. I'm gonna go ahead and do the seeds, guys, in one paddock, and then you can start doing the straw. Well, so much for not doing a project and rushing. Okay, we got 15 minutes. Here goes, here goes. We got 15 minutes. Can we fill up the sheep's minerals and upturn the cow minerals? Probably not, but we can try. All right, let's get every mineral because we might be able to save half the minerals, but we might not. We got our old batteries charging. We have a small stash of batteries in there. It's good. We just switch them out and get the other ones charging, and, and we're not stopped. Every, every one. Oh yeah, because the town over there is— oh, Randolph, we got it! Oh, we got one more. So, uh, Arun and my dad were especially close. They were like best friends. When Rebecca and I went on the farm tour and Arun stayed here with his wife Amy, he pretty much adopted y'all, didn't he? He did. You're like the new Justin. So what does a young Indian man have to do with an old country, countryman?
I think we have like the same taste. Yeah, because he loves all different food, we love all different food. He likes to talk about— I like to ask him all the history, you know, all the history.
Oh, he loves to talk about the history.
We used to drive by slowly and he used to tell me all like— oh yeah, you know, 1947, this bill, this old airport.
He knows who's this is, who's that is.
Oh, he knows everybody there.
Yeah. Good. This side looks wet.
This one?
Yeah, yeah, we can lift it this way or this way. Yeah, how do we save it? I don't know if we do save it. Okay, if we lift it this way, this way around, we might be able to save the minerals that are in this— these pans. 1, 2, 3. Ready? I know we spilled them all on this side, but let's see if we save the other side. Did we save them?
Yeah, some up here, some up there.
We saved him. We pull the handlebar off and it becomes our prop for our lid. There you guys go. Now don't bite the hand that feeds you, stud muffin. Don't tip this thing. He gets itching his neck. I should have done a little T-post trick, pushing a couple T-posts in the ground at the handle. He can't flip it, but you only got one more day. And then this gets moved, they're not so bored, and I don't think he'll flip it. All right, well, we didn't get done by 9, but we did get done by 9:15, which isn't bad. When you set out to do the impossible, extraordinary things happen. Hey, what do you got for me today? Well, this is vitamin C. Okay. And then some herbs to help with healing. I think a carnivore would rather take herbs than pharmaceuticals, right? Oh, I feel like it's not as hard to swallow today. I still got those fever blisters in my mouth or whatever. Just don't feel like eating much, but Feeling pretty good. I feel like every day I'm getting better a little bit. Lily, can you grab the buckets? All right, so I didn't have my apron all morning. Why do you wear an apron, Justin? Look how jacked up my clothes are. I can't go— I shouldn't go in the house like that and mess up these nice clothes. The apron protects me, and then I just take the apron off. And I'm good. Let me see that. What is that from our garden? Oh, all right. I think Lily and I are gonna go milk. I know Lily and I are gonna go milk. I think I'll leave you guys here with Randall. I think that'll be more interesting. Watch him level this out. Oh, it's hard to see it like that. Clay, clay exposed. You can see how well we build it up because he's dragged really the topsoil we built right here. Doing a good job though. Who knew Randolph could drive a tractor like this? Randolph, it's impressive. Who knew you could drive a tractor like that?
Well, I just kind of do the best I can.
Carpenter will drive a tractor. Yeah, will grade, will grade for food. Yeah, how's it look?
Looks pretty good.
Good.
I'm kind of thinking, you know, it's going to kind of be down in a hole.
Yeah.
So we're going to definitely have to put a berm, the dirt up on that upper side, and probably gonna have to do something right here, you know.
Okay. Yeah, it's going to want to come in here and it's going to definitely want to come down from there. Yeah, I didn't realize it was such a slope.
Yeah.
But it is.
Yeah, that's—
what'd you say, is 23 inches gain and just 24 feet?
Yeah, but it's, it's pretty close. It's within 6 inches all over right now.
Yeah, okay, that's good. That's doable. Yeah. All right, all right, good. Now you're starting to put the arches up.
Well, I'm trying to figure out which ones goes with this one. Ah, they don't look like they fit. I think I still ain't got the right ones down here.
Oh really?
Yeah.
Or I wonder if it springs up a little bit. Like right here, that's like, that's like a half a foot past, and down here is another half a foot.
Freaking, it's supposed to squeeze that much?
Yeah. You want to try it?
Oh yeah, look. Yeah, I guess it'll do that.
That's easy.
All right. Yeah, it's just easy. I'll quit worrying about this.
Okay, that Randolph, he's taking good care of us. But we— it was pretty easy to hold it, wouldn't you say? It didn't take much weight, 5, 10 pounds maybe.
Yeah, I think it'll work.
So you're driving these— you're driving these posts in the ground?
Yeah, with that little old hammer and a bolt. They give you a big bolt in the washer.
Oh nice. And you got to climb the stairs and hammer it in?
Yeah.
What, 2 feet?
Yeah, about 2 feet.
Okay.
I got this one.
Yeah, these are very— these are permanent.
Yeah, I got this one about a half inch off.
Okay, we're putting it in a permanent hot tunnel here, greenhouse. Um, I told Rebecca, don't, don't worry about the soil. She's all freaking out about the soil, you know, our hard work building that up. Reminding her what we're gonna do, what we're gonna do with these. That's actually gonna be the winter housing for our chickens. They're gonna be on deep bedding in there, and they're gonna break that deep bedding down all winter, and we're gonna have better soil than we started with. And then we'll move them out in the spring and plant in there.
That's all there is to it.
I think once you figure out the instructions and get the ground cleared, it's, it's, it's pretty easy, huh?
Yeah.
Look at this contraption. What's that? Looks like something you made.
Now that was that feller that come yesterday. Oh yeah, it's a water level.
Oh nice. Yeah, water will tell you what's level, won't it?
Yeah, it don't lie. So I put that on that, I got a mark right here. Uh-huh, that's it.
Oh, and then you take a—
you go down here where you want to see if it's level.
Yeah, are you serious? Yeah, and then the water will come out. Well, when it's lower.
There you open the end of it up.
Oh my gosh. See that mark?
That's the mark I want it to— that measurement's the same on both poles, so if that marks, that tells you that that's a level. So I need to—
so that needs to come up. So your pole needs to come out of the ground.
I went too far, didn't I?
Yeah, you went too far. An inch, half an inch. Oh look, it's settling. You just got to wait a minute. Maybe an inch off.
Yeah, I got a little too carried away.
That is crazy.
Yeah, and it'll work. I mean, as long as you got a tube, it'll work 100 foot. And a laser ain't accurate but about 50 foot. You get one of them high-dollar lasers, man, this would help.
This would help a lot for finding contour on the, on the hills and stuff. Is that a thing, water level, or did that guy invent that?
Well, I don't know, it's— I ain't kidding, the Egyptians invented it.
Oh, it's been invented a long time ago.
They built the pyramids with it.
Oh my gosh. Yeah, that's insane. Yeah, so how you gonna pull that out?
Just— hmm, I think I might knock that enough dirt down.
Yeah, I think this is in good hands with Randolph and his water level. I'm gonna go finish editing. All right, it's time. We got all the ingredients. Jonah, did you get mom's drink? Yep. All right, I got one big box of ingredients. Since Grandma can't come to us, We're gonna go to her. Cook up there and eat up there. Visit with Grandma. She just had her knee surgery. Can't stop us from being together.
Uh-oh.
Grandma, sit down. We're gonna make you supper. Yay! You can't hold her down. Quick, quick, Bruce. Tackle her. She was out of the air. You can't stop her.
Wait, what?
I said you do that, you're done. I'm not coming to the hospital. That's right. I said that doesn't make sense. Hey, you got to block the sink somehow. She's— all those doctors and nurses and ask, is that all right? Yeah, her walking down those little stairs, they did that, it's unlevel.
