Here’s How I’m Getting Chickens to Do The Gardening

Jonah was out mowing. He's done a good job so far. Starting to look better around here. Look down this way, looking good. It's that time. I mean, a lot of people do spring cleaning. I think we're more about fall cleaning. There's a new energy comes with the new weather. Who?

They do—

oh, do they?

They do spring cleaning and fall cleaning.

Who?

The lawyer in the whale.

Oh, well then we're on the right track. We're like Laura Ingalls Wilder. Okay, so this— what's going on there? A lot of stuff has fallen through the cracks. Let's weed these pots. Let's clear out our container gardens. Hey, Josiah, come on up! A lot of that can be cleared out. Now, how to pull this weed out without pulling the whole— I think I'm gonna need two hands. I think I might put you in the Ergo. He loves to go outside. You love it, and I love to take him with me. My feet are killing me. I need to rest for a second. Oh, I figure, you know, I should push myself. It makes it worse. It makes the pain worse.

It's chilly in here.

Push it right up to the edge. We used to have an Ergo. I think I retired it after 8 years.

It was so old.

Or was it more than that?

It was like 11.

That's weird.

11 years and 4 kids. Got a brand new Ergo.

He's like, what's coming up?

You'll like it.

Just get on.

You don't have to get He's quieted down.

We're outside. You know what, I guess we could just throw the potting soil and all in there. It's not like it's going to go to waste. We're going to harvest it.

This sucks.

Hey, maybe they'll eat the greens and we can put the soil back.

And we do like this.

Is he smiling down there? Oh, does he actually like the leaning down?

Yeah, he likes it.

Let's see. You gotta stay right there. You guys watch him and tell me, okay? Oh, he looked the other way. Henry, they're over there. Okay, does he smile?

I don't like getting my hands dirty.

Uh, you— he doesn't— did you guys hear that? He doesn't like getting his hands dirty. No, you get your hands dirty all day.

Yeah, but I don't want to get them dirty with that.

Ah, there's the truth. Haroon's wondering if we're going to keep the soil in here. I have been, but I'm wondering if we did last year. Let's try keeping it, plant into it next year. This is sweet symmetry. The garden feeding the chickens. We didn't have to go nowhere either. That's the power of proximity. Weed our garden, throw it into the chickens. In the spring, all this will have a big thick layer of compost right underneath, and the garden will feed the chickens.

Justin is over in the garden. Finishing that up, and I am gonna start packing books this morning. We have a good head start on books right here, and then we always though pack more than we need so that we always have a head start the next day. So we'll get on that too.

Look who fell asleep. I'd say he likes it. I'm happy about that. Not all kids will go in the ergo, be happy being squeezed in, being on my back, but he liked it. We got a bunch of books going out. Sales from the weekend have been crazy. Look back. Do you think I should lay him down, or do you think I should just sit down? Put him on my back.

You could sit down.

He ran out of steam. You putting the hood on just to keep his head up? A little bit. All right, all right, we're gonna see if we can sit down sideways here, keep him asleep. I think he's gonna stay asleep. I'm gonna continue signing a bunch of these, just random, uh, so a few of you— well, actually a lot of you have been signing quite a bit. I'm doing that because I wrote the foreword. A lot of people were requesting it, so it's— I mean, it's the least I can do, right? All right, there we go. International orders right there. Thank you very much, Heather. You'll handle the internationals. A little bonus for Heather. Guys, I wouldn't be able to do what we do without Heather, our assistant, longtime friend. We got some pork chops. Hey, I gave her a little one if she's gonna make broth for her, meat broth for her. Little one, you don't need a big old chicken. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And then some pork chops. Are you awake and happy? Yes, you're awake and happy now. Part of this is We have a very special guest coming tomorrow, Dr. Jess from the health and wellness community. What? Oh yeah, tomorrow— not tomorrow, Wednesday. But okay, the trick here is how are we gonna get these tomatoes out without tearing up these cages? I think we're just gonna prune them and, and put bits in there as we go. That's nice. We got the big stuff out. We could, uh, grab this and throw it in, or we could bring the chickens to this. That's what I hope to do tomorrow. I think that'll be a little easier. See you, buddy. Grandma's taking them to pick up their stuff at the fair. They're so excited. They each won ribbons, and then they just can't wait to get them from their entries.

We are going to go pick up our ribbons.

Where?

At the fair. 2 first place.

Okay, whose is that?

Mine.

That's yours? Okay, and Lily, whose is that?

Mine.

And whose is this over here?

Jonah's.

Jonah's.

We got 2 first places.

What happened to yours?

It rotted or someone stole it.

Oh my goodness.

All right, let's put them in here. Where's yours, Josiah?

Nice.

All right, you get yours. I love it. Okay, all done.

Let's go check on the luchadors. Nuts is in the garden. I can already see he's revealing some fruit, some watermelon in there. Let's get a little closer. It's been a day. They've eaten a lot out of the garden. So it's going to take a few days for just these two sheep. How you doing, buddy? They love this bank. They love it. But I'm glad to see them in the garden. Sheep are nice gardeners because they're not so heavy. They're just gentle, you know, like a cow. They could put cows in there, but they'd really tear up the garden beds. We're trying to keep the garden beds intact as possible. This is our biological tilling machine, the chicken tractor. It'll help get those weeds up. It does have some problems. This has become undone. It's probably worse looking than it actually is. Maybe not. Up front here, this screw has come undone. It's good over there. The door looks good. Back here is where all the damage seems to be. It just wears out. We have basically unscrews of Screws have come out of this one. Put that back in. And then what's this too? This needs to be— that goes probably on top of that.

This just screws right into this corner right here.

Oh, it does where that screw is. But where does— oh, this one does. Yeah. Where's this one go? Oh, okay, that's the top frame.

And then this one is the top frame.

Okay, well, that's nothing but— it's nothing but a screw job. All right, we got 20 more minutes. I think we're gonna work on that a little bit. If we can find us a star head, that might be what we're gonna do with the rest of this 20 minutes, is find the stuff, and then we'll be ready for tomorrow. Let's see if we can find us a drill driver. No, those aren't the good drill drivers. Jonah's hid them somewhere. See if you can't find a drill bit. There's your knife, butter knife. Maybe he's put them on his wall. Nope. I found a Phillips bit. I found a drill driver. Getting screws?

Empty boxes.

You're screwing it in. No, I'm not. Other way.

Backwards.

Down. Go in where there is a hole. Yeah, go in there. That's fine. All right, you got more screws? Let's do another one and toenail it in. She's asking me what a toenail is. We might not have the right person toenailing. I wouldn't do it right there either. It's got a shadow. I would come from over here, either, either down in there or, or there over. You have to start it straight in. There you go, homestead skills. Then bend it over. Yep, yep, there you go. Uh-oh, put your whole body into it. There you go. Good job. We did it. I'm super happy about that. Running a little late, but hey, we got it. Made it worth it. I feel like I'm back to my old self, Beck, pushing it too hard. Yeah, I mean, going past time. You are, you are. I was gonna put this— I was gonna do this tomorrow, but we got it now. All we gotta do is set it up tomorrow, which is the easy part. You can drive careful, you got a watermelon.

First time driving wheelie?

Henry is asleep for the second time on— I think he's found his happy spot. So you brought the baby watermelon in?

I did.

The kids are back. I want to see their stuff. I want to show you guys their stuff. Is this one yours?

Yeah.

And this is the— this is a second place. Yeah, that's because you were going against your own kind, your own brother. All right, and then who's this? Lily submitted a nice photo and a very nice drawing. A very nice little— I guess that's our house, her house in the future. This is Lily's best of show. They really liked that one. Right, because it's mostly all original except for the tractor. But yours is pretty original too. Did you guys build this? Oh, the train.

If we—

if they hadn't had it, they probably thought— they probably thought that you didn't build this. Or did you? See, but they didn't know that you built that. It's so good. I just placed an Amazon order thanks to this right here. Look, this is The OG, Animal Happiness. That was the— by the way, fun fact, fun fact— that was going to be the name of— there was something else to it. Animal Happiness, uh, something. That was going to be the name of this. Polyface Micro, Joel's new book. One thing that stuck out to me today as I review this and think about how I'm going to talk to you guys about this is I want to talk about how it's changed my life, how it could Change Your Life. One quote that sticks out to me that had underlined in here was, make efficiency your middle name, or if you make efficiency your middle name, you won't regret it. And so I just ordered drill bits and drill, uh, drills. Is it drill bits and then screw bits? I don't know. When I first read that early on, I decided, you know what, I'm gonna get a very special tool bag, very organized, totally away from the kids, in my closet, off reach of the children. I realize I'm not very organized. I'm working to get more organized. That's one step in the right direction. The 1% today, I will commit to put those tools, those drill bits that I get back in that bag from the project, walk all the way back in and put it back. Sound good to you, Becky? Now one thing, one, one idea Joel had, I was just reading it today, is he's got a little tote. He'll take a tote and he'll put all the tools and supplies that he needs for the project, and he'll take that tote with him. Hey, do we have another tool bag tote?

We do downstairs.

I saw it today. It was a DeWalt. It was pretty much empty. I have a— can I have it? No, it's empty. It's got ideas for it. I can borrow it. I need something that I can put beside my tool bag to offload because I don't need to carry the whole tool bag. Now I'm gonna have to stop making fun of Rebecca because I, I make fun of her for getting all these totes.

He does.

He makes—

I'm kind of like, well, let's just have less stuff. But turns out you need what we have in this. I'll show you that in a second. But Joel talked about like he went out one day and got 12— he got a dozen totes. He said you could never have enough totes, and this is coming from The second most frugal man I know, the first being my dad. Or do you think Joel's more frugal than my dad? Than Boots? Bucky?

No, Joel's definitely frugal.

He's more frugal? He's even more? Yes, he might be, because my dad would buy a brand new, uh, truck. Now it would last him 30 years, but Joel has never bought a vehicle in, in the decade that he's in. This is Rebecca's canning stuff. She even put a— what is that? Is that Scotch tape? Masking tape on top? And she went and put all her canning stuff in there, which is a good thing you did, Rebecca, right? Because when you first— you didn't do that and the kids just went to town.

Correct.

And now it's kind of here and it does stop them. I mean, he's getting into it right now, but he won't leave it alone. It's not until we've put all kinds of good things in totes, and I think that's a great idea. I need to, uh, be okay with it. If the frugalist man I know will invest in some— and notice we're just talking about some plastic totes. It probably didn't cost that much at Target or somewhere like that, and he said invest. Like, I guess, like, what was it, $50 maybe for a dozen totes? Maybe it was a little more than that.

I'm an organized person.

I like it. You got to keep saying to yourself that, and eventually we'll quit lying to ourselves, right? And we'll make it happen, right? We're gonna be organized. We're gonna be organized one The point of this is there's a lot of gold nuggets through here. We're gonna be going through this. I'm gonna do a little bit every day, give you a little bit of gold nugget every day until October 3rd. Okay, and then we'll have a webinar with Joel, a Q&A, but it's only for those who get this book or join Abundance Plus. So if you're in Abundance Plus, you can get it on there. And right now we're giving this book away with Abundance Plus annual membership. This is like $35, but we're gonna give it away with an annual membership. You get all the stuff that's in Abundance Plus. Oh, 10% off right now on Abundance Plus when you use the offer code, offer code JOE. You see us shipping out hundreds of books every day. Well, we only have 4,200 of them. We've probably sold half, maybe not half. But they're going fast, and they're going to go real fast now that we've officially launched. Go to Abundance Plus, get the book when you sign up for an annual membership. Well, he's a sleepy little booger today, isn't he?

Yes, well, you know, he usually takes about 3 naps.

Josiah, go get me about 6, 6 garlics. Get in, you go with him, and get me about 4 or 5 white onions. We're gonna do pork chops, we're gonna do a special sear on the, um, on the oven. And we're gonna do garlic butter.

What do you do?

You just stick it in if you can't get it apart.

That's what I was doing. Okay, I was doing it right then. All right, to get all the peel off of this, which is not easy— I'm gonna make it look easy— you smash it and then you can easily get the peel off. You want to mince garlic? I tell you what, Gideon, get the mincer and you can mince. Give it all you got. Maybe this isn't a job for you. He's trying. Mom's gonna help him. Can you do it, Mom? Oh, she did it.

There you go.

We got the garlic pressed. Gideon's got his onion glasses on. Mom, you're working on the zucchini? Yeah. Okay, you're gonna fry those onions, okay? And then we're going to get them out. We don't have so much room on this top. Then we'll get them out and do the apples. Okay, Jonah has cut up the apple, the Honeycrisp apples. 20 tablespoons of butter, it's gonna be for 10 pork chops. First thing I want to do is get some fat off this, this pork to fry it in. I'm going to do a couple minutes on each side, but let's get it good and Boy, that's gonna be nice. There's gonna be plenty of fat there. All right, well, it wouldn't be Burning Up Cooking Up show without some smoke. Little haze. Turn your onions, bro. All right, that's been 2 minutes. Ooh, that's a nice sear. I got my melted butter. I'm gonna put in my garlic. We'll mix it together, and then this is done. So let's get a, um, spoon. I had some leftover garlic and butter. She put it in there. That's going to be good. You got some onions going for your zucchini. These purple onions are hanging in there though. I'm going to have to crank them up. We've got the pork chops in the oven, in their skillets with the Oop, with garlic butter on top. How good do you think that's gonna be? I mean, if it smells a fraction of what it's gonna taste like, it's gonna be amazing. God's gone to heaven good. Wait, how is it we've lost all our help? Come on, come on over, guys. Onions are taking a little while. Well, they were off, and I wasn't gonna tell them that part. No, I moved it from that burner to that burner and forgot to turn it back on. All right, I forgot to turn that burner on. So we're gonna put that in a— she's got an idea, put it in the pan. Do we actually have room for it in this crazy oven though? Yeah. Oh my, it's looking good. And then we can cook the apples and then we blend it all back together. That's the trick to onions and apples, cooking it separate because they cook different times. I don't know if I'm a big fan of the purple onions on this one.

I don't know, the white onions you can tell when they've yellowed.

You mean when they're like brown?

Yeah, the trick is butter. Can I come on now?

Yeah, come on.

Honeycrisp, kind of a tart apple, a firm apple. And we kind of ran out of skillets too, so I'm using too small of a skillet. Stir it, Lily. The key will be to keep stirring it. Mix it all together now and put it in the oven just to cook a little bit more and to keep warm when the while we wait on the pork chop. Zucchini, pork chops, and apples and onions. And most of it, save the apples, are from the farm. Oh, you bought the zucchini? How is it now that you're almost done? Must be good. It's delicious. How is that garlic butter?

Good. Everybody love it?

Really ask for this every Monday.

When we have a pig farm, we can do it every Monday.

That's right. But right now we have a shortage on pork chops.

Yep.

So we got to get this pig farm going.

Papa, is that guy going to get us to the top of the mountain?

Yep. When you guys going to get us to the top of the mountain? See if it's doable. Let's put a date on it. Let's have a specific goal. It's Monday. This week? Next week?

Why next week?

By the end of next week. All right, I like it.