Here’s What Happened on an American Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving, Rachel!

Happy Thanksgiving! Yes! How are you?

I'm good.

Good.

How are you?

Great.

Good.

Thank you. You are so sweet. You are a very proud grandma.

Aw, thank you.

My sister's a really lucky woman.

Oh, thank you.

I know. And you're a lucky man, Justin, because you're so smart and beautiful.

That's right.

So smart.

I am very lucky.

So true.

We're both lucky. Lucky in love. Happy Thanksgiving! Happy Thanksgiving! So why'd you bring us toilet paper rolls?

I know, I brought Rebecca a gift. Why? So you can use those in the fireplace. They're good fire starters.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving! Happy Thanksgiving! Happy Thanksgiving! Where's your bow tie? I didn't bring it today. I thought that I heard that you knew I was going to put you to work. No, no, there's daylight out. We're burning it. All right, Mr. Brown, you ready?

You got your shoes?

Yes, we got two pair of shoes. Oh my. Rebecca, you getting ready for Thanksgiving?

I am.

What are you making?

This is pecan pie. Well, this is just pie crust that I'm smushing in here.

So how do you make a gluten-free pie crust?

Uh, this book right here.

Okay, just pass it on there. Just pass it on there. It's all right.

Hey, it's the best celebration. That's the best way to find a pie recipe. That tastes really good.

No, you gotta let her wear the rubber ones.

Yeah, she's gonna wear the rubber ones, the bogs, and you're gonna wear the other ones. Jonah, why don't you help her?

Jonah helps her. Okay, you have to help her like mega.

Well, you gotta like tell her to sit down.

Sit down. He just picked up her leg.

He just picked her up.

Very practical dude.

He gets it done. He's not my sensitive child.

That's kind of you to help. Did you put him on the right feet?

Yep.

Okay, good.

Hopefully her weight will push her heels down because I can't get them up.

There you go. Can everybody say Happy Thanksgiving?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving! Okay, we have a very special guest this morning. This is my niece Willow from my sister Shelby.

Yeah, look at the cat!

It's a different stage right here. We're slowing down a little bit, but that's okay. We're growing chidlers before anything else. I'm gonna lift you over. Is that all right? Ready? 1, 2, 3.

You hear that goose?

Okay, Willow, do you want to let this down?

Yeah.

Okay, there we go. Watch this. Ready?

All right.

Oh, give her her boot. And thank you, Josiah. Ready? Do I need to lift you too? Yeah. Okay, ready, set, go! You're really heavy. You, not so much. You're really light.

Yeah, because she's a little more than me.

Willow, these, these guys are easy. There you go.

You gonna catch one? Yeah, yeah, catch one and let willow petting.

There you go.

Is that it?

I'm done. We're walking pretty slow. You want to see the cows?

Yeah.

Well, good, that's what's next. How'd they go? Yeah, moo, she said. Hey, would you like to keep walking or would you like to get on my back? Okay, we're gonna get a— we're gonna get the Ergo, all right? I'm afraid she's gonna tire out. We're going really slow. I haven't wore this in a while, have I, Mr. Brown? Let's see if I still got it, guys. All right, Jose, you're so kind.

Such a helper.

She lost her boot.

Oh, I'll put it on.

Boy, I'm a little rusty at this.

Yeah, you used to be so good.

Yeah, what's going on with it? It feels weird. Okay, you comfortable, Willow? Yeah. Okay, say hi, cow.

Hi, cow.

Oh, thank you.

You staff for me? Thank you.

All right, I think her leg got caught in this.

Oh, did it? Oh yes, it needs to go. See how this one is? Yeah, here we go, let's redo this. There we go, that's much better.

There we go, we actually have 4.

That's much better. Thank you. Look at that big cow, he's looking at us. Buenos días, luchadores.

Hey, Willie, do you know what this You know what those are?

What are those? Sheep. Actually, if y'all pull and I'll push, it'd be safer for the baby.

Yeah, sure.

Willow, looky here. You see that? He's trying to just let the calf out and not the sheep. Good, I will, I will. All right, let's go, Kath. Kind of neat to have a little voice in my ear again. Good commentary. Get interesting commentary while you're working. Keeps it interesting. My little, uh, radio. Who needs an iPod when you have a niño on your back? Willie, you want to pet the calf? Have you ever pet a calf? Go ahead, Mr. Brown, show her how it's done. Gonna try it? You want me to help you? Okay. You want to give her a scoop of that? Good girl. There you go. You got to get her while she's lifting her head up. That's a great idea. You want to dump that in there? There you go. Good.

Wow, our house used to be a barn.

Squeeze one of those teats. You petting the belly?

Your hands are cold. Stick them in there.

Right here. Can you see this? You want to squeeze that? Can you do that? You do that, I'll help you. You gonna help me? Like that. You wanna try it?

Try it.

Let me help you.

Papa.

You don't have to. She's not so sure. You'll do it next time?

Papa.

Yeah.

Papa.

Papa.

You getting cold?

Yeah. Okay, that's It's fine. You want to go inside with Mr. Brown and play? Okay, we're done milking. You need me to get her out? What you making now, Beck?

Lily. Lily's— this is Lily's idea. She actually did this.

I'm just kind of helping it, making it happen.

She wanted, um, she wanted to do some sort of decorations, so we're Gonna bake these. We'll put it on top of the pie, on top of the pumpkin pie.

That's neat.

Rebecca was telling me people eat 4,000 calories, a lot, like almost 5,000 calories, I think.

Yeah.

Okay, let's join the club.

You want to try?

All right, got the milk in. Oh, it smells delicious in that house. One more chore and we got Willow back and my sister Shelby. They couldn't resist salad. Trying your new hay racks from Papaw?

Yeah. All right, ready?

Cleaned out Papaw's stuff yesterday. This is one of the cool things we got, these old hay hooks. Okay, we got Shelby now. You guys ready?

Yeah.

This is just some random hay hook. Yeah, that he never used. Okay, where Shelby's walking. You see this, guys? This was years ago. We put wood chips here and look what it's turned into.

It's just rich compost.

Shelby, did you ever have to throw hay growing up?

Yeah, remember he made me do it Christmas morning to get my car.

You probably hurried that day.

Yes.

This turned out wonderful, Rebecca.

It really did.

Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and eat one now. Let's test it.

No, you're not allowed.

Just one of the hearts.

No, you ain't holding baby Sullivan. Oh, he stopped whining. He's smiling at you.

And actually, Justin, yeah, when I was— when I was— I was in here with Aaron, I was looking at my— he looks a lot like Jonah. Oh yeah, yeah, with that big head and like those big smiles.

He's really smiling.

Oh my word, this is Jonah.

Hey, let me see this.

Keep up, Mr. Brown!

Go, Lily! You're gonna do it, Mr. Brown! Keep going, buddy! Come on, Lily! Are you helping Mr. Brown? That's nice. All right, you're doing good. Keep going, don't stop, don't stop on this hill. You got it! You get a prize.

You want a silly putty?

You want a chicken? A car?

Play-Doh.

Jonah and Josiah's race. They gotta go around this whole field. Pace yourself.

No! Not here!

There we go, boys! Pace yourself, Jonah.

Pace yourself.

They're all excited right now. Jonah's sprinting. Keep up! Just pace yourself, Josiah. Jonah's rounding the corner. Pulling ahead in second place. Josiah's third place. All right, here they come to the finish stretch. Gideon, pull for your brother. You're gonna run with him. Good job, buddy. Keep it up, keep it up, Josiah. He's gaining on you. Kick it in. This is the last stretch, buddy. Stretch home.

Here, we'll run with you. Come on, Josiah, dig in, dig in.

He's on your tail.

Come on, you got it!

Don't look back, don't look back!

It's not third place.

You better get your prize.

You better grab your prize before someone else takes it.

The pie turned out amazing, Rebecca. Good job. What do you want me to look at? Oh my gosh, holy smokes! What? This turned out good too.

This is for the, um, For the pumpkin pie, instead of leaves, we're doing hearts.

This is our polyface turkey. We didn't get to grow turkeys this year. That's totally next year. Uh, that looks pretty good. That's gonna be a tasty turkey. You think it's gonna be enough, Jonah?

Will you go get me the chicken broth? Get me some chicken broth. Sure. I'm gonna put that in the bottom of the pan. I read that that's a way to help keep it moist. Yes, it evaporates in the oven. Yeah, I'm gonna cover it with parchment paper and then foil if we have foil over the top of it. And I'm gonna butter— got my butter. Take a chunk of butter and it's soft, and you're just gonna rub it on to the bird.

What's your favorite dish of Thanksgiving?

I, I don't know.

Cornbread stuffing is my favorite.

I didn't see that coming. Are we actually eating cornbread stuffing, like made with corn?

It's fake cornbread.

Almond, almond flour bread.

Almond bread stuffing.

You going to start with L? L. Okay. O. Perfect.

Yeah, but this is a card. Oh, oh, it's a little too big.

I'm glad you down downsized the letters a little bit. It wouldn't have worked with how big they were originally. Let's move this up a little bit. There we go.

Love it, Lily. Good. All right, we're spending a little time together as a family. What do homestead families do together for fun? Shoot guns. We're gonna get practice on our guns. Let's put it up a little higher. We got a Thanksgiving turkey. A lot of little pellets into that thing. Hey, do we have any old pumpkins somewhere?

Yeah, that one right there.

Look on the porch. What you need me to do, Beck?

Nothing. I was gonna have you, um, open the—

you got it open?

I got it open.

This is— oh hey, that's our broth. Oh, this is what we got.

We got an onion.

Green onion.

This is a mockery of cornbread stuffing. Looks pretty close. Jason knows me too well, I guess. No, the animals still got to eat, don't they, Jason? It's a farm, right? They don't care. They could care less. No, Thanksgiving, you don't know. Hey, we're gonna pig out. We gotta let them pig out. Turkey might know. A turkey might know.

A turkey's worst nightmares.

Thanks, for sure.

All right, we're gonna take Sally. Maybe it won't feel so worky to Jason, right? Makes it a little more fun. Maybe it'll be a little faster. Oh, they're right there where they need to be too. We might need that hammer. Bring that. Thank you. So Jason, we're gonna herd these two in with the sheep.

Okay.

And then we're gonna herd Mama out. There you go. All right, it's working perfectly. Oh, you might even be able to get your cow. We're getting Moose back. Jason's getting, uh, Phyllis back. Keep her, keep her coming, keep her coming. Round them back up to that corner. Josiah's keeping the sheep from coming out. Wow, she's, she's not very cooperative. You know what we want, honey. There we go, there you go. That was just going too smooth at first, wasn't it, Jason? She's like, all right, all right, I guess. Give us some exercise since we drove Sally.

Oh, do not let the sheep out!

Is she coming?

She's like, get me out of here!

Thank you for doing the dance with us, honey. Now the fun part. Jason, I'll let you do this. This is so fun. Take, take this reel and roll it up. Roll that wire up. We're gonna let the cows in there. Actually, just roll it to right here. We'll get the cows in, we'll keep that up. That's happy cow eating right away. Okay, you guys are next. It's up there, paddock right here. Josiah, cows are happy in there. You can call them, Jason. You just say what they are 3 times. Sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep. Is that how you call sheep? No, I don't know. Sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep. Either way, they're not listening. Sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep. Sheep, sheep, sheep. All right, Jason, you get the honors of the sheep shawl too.

Yeah.

Hey, you want to come over for Thanksgiving? We want a little break on this holiday. You'll work for it, won't you? You know Growing up, my dad used to make us work on Saturdays and holidays. It didn't matter. And kids wanted to come to our house because we had a four-wheeler, it was the country. Don't come back, don't backtrack. And they'd come Friday after school and we have all this fun on the four-wheeler. Well, when it comes Saturday, it was working time, Jason. The next week is when we'd find out who our real friends were, if that friend came back. Yeah, you keep coming back, so you're all right. True friend. So this is just me finding out who my real friends are, Jason. That's their water. That's it. Doesn't seem like a whole lot. That would actually last like 4 days, but I just Wow. Yeah, I just replenish it just for best practice, keep it clean. Put fresh apple cider vinegar in it. I know I was sweating it. I was thinking I'm gonna have to pipe water out here. Yeah, no, my 3 ducks go through more. Yes, I bet they do. Sheep have been so easy. Yeah, they don't need any more food requirement. They barely drink any water. They've been going through the minerals, but they're getting remineralized and That'll slow down. They're cleaning up our bank, getting that grass off the fence. Hey, Mr. Brown, are you forgetting something? Mr. Brown, come get your shoes. This makes me happy. Everybody's happy. Happy Thanksgiving, guys. I'm thankful for you all. They're eating briars right now. You got the biscuits in there? Yeah. Oh boy, it's all starting to come Together. Look at that. That's looking good, Rebecca. I'm gonna cut it up now.

Oh my, right?

This is—

they're amazing. I'm gonna have to cut like right through.

You don't want to cut that, do you?

I don't want to cut it. Cut through it, babe. Cut through love right now.

We gotta get a picture. This homemade Cool Whip. Homemade? Yeah, whipped cream. Homemade whipped cream.

He thinks he's funny calling my name. One time he did do that.

Get in, get in.

I think we were dating and you called it Cool Whip. I'm sorry, not Cool Whip.

Kleenex or Band-Aid?

I've been a whipped cream snob for a long time.

Is that a pecan pie or a pecan?

It's a pecan.

Pecan.

Pecan. You want some pecan pie?

Please.

This one's yours.

Like that? Yeah. Okay.

Who you got there, Rebecca?

I've got Sully.

Hi, Sully.

I like that bow tie, buddy.

You want a smoothie?

He's just so happy.

Bless you.

Oh my goodness.

He's gonna have bad luck.

No, he won't.

Why?

He looked up about sneezing and why people say bless you and stuff like that.

Yeah.

And there's all sorts of funny things going on. Like if you sneeze after a certain time, it's bad luck. If you sneeze before a certain time, it's good luck. Good luck on a certain day. It's crazy.

How are you gonna have bad luck when you're that cute?

Stuff will come out.

And if you sneeze, stuff will come out.