How I’m leaving the Farm and my Ailing Dad

you up. What's your name and where are you from?

I'm from Belton, Texas, and I'm Mariah Barber.

Okay, wrong order, but yep, Polyface intern. Yep, so we're in good hands. You've been trained all summer, now you're going to take over this farm for a week at least.

Yep.

All right, yeah, you just want to fill this up with your grain, maybe shake it so it comes down. Yep. So I'm, uh, telling them what to do so they get a little bit of the muscle memory. Um, and we got one day today to train them for us to go on our journey tomorrow. So after that, you can just spread the food scraps about and then just let off the chickens. No news is good news on my dad. We didn't get any calls last night. I did text Ginger. He is His blood, blood pressure has stabilized. It was low yesterday. Um, he's still not peeing like they would like, so there's some kidney issues there. And he's not eating, and he hasn't eaten, and this would be going on the third day. So I'm gonna go check on him later, bring Ginger some food in the spirit of him and hope. And gonna tell you guys more about that in Friday's video, special video just about him and how he never gives up because he's full of hope. Thank you. You left your birds out. Good deal. So in the spirit of hope, we are going to still plan on going to Homesteaders of America. Tomorrow, hoping that my dad is going to be well, that he's going to be stable, uh, he's going to continue to get better, and then he's going to go home. This is the overflow water. The pond is way up there. Water's coming from the pond, it comes through this, and then it goes back down to the creek where the water was going anyway. So every day— it's not— it doesn't seem clogged at all right now, but every day just kind of reach in there and clean out the filter. You usually can pull something out like that. Okay, over time that'll build up, you'll get overflow. If it gets clogged while I'm gone, Probably you could probably just clean the filter.

Okay.

If it gets crazy, grab, grab one of these water— there's these 5-gallon waters— and fill it with your hose.

Okay.

Every day. And then just turn this off. Turn it off. You just turn it off right there. Okay.

Okay.

And water will stop coming. Good morning, Mr. Brown. How you doing? Did you see your snack I made for you on the table?

Okay, good.

You doing all right? Papa's good this morning. Okay, okay, you want to go with us? Uh, we're gonna just go help her, show her how to do the chores. So think about this order, Moriah. We're doing the chores, then we're thinking about captivity. We're all about freedom here. So you go— that's why we went to the breakfast posse first, because there's like 85 chickens in captivity. Okay, so we let them out, right? The sea monsters need feed, but they're free. So the ICs are still captivated, but there's only 20 of them, so we'll go do them now. Okay, can everybody say free the birds?

Free the birds!

Sadie's getting a bucket so we can haul water to the ICs. The water source is there, but we're starting to get further and further away, so Why not bring some water? Sadie is a good student of Joe because I gave her one bucket and she says, well, can I have two? I don't know where— I don't know if that's where you learned that, but yeah, I certainly remember that from Joel. Don't carry just one bucket when you can carry two.

We wouldn't be caught dead with a one bucket.

You're gonna leave the truck, huh? Yeah, you're gonna have to get some exercises if you get caught. I should maybe get the shot. I won't let Joel see this movie. You're missing a bucket. All right, we're going back. We're forgetting some stuff. And you know what? We're missing out on something, guys. Why carry a bucket when you can roll a bucket? Let's grab a flake of hay right there where Jonah's working. Thank you, Jonah, for remembering that stud muffin busted our lock yesterday. We put him in a stall. And he was so excited to get to Phyllis. We put a lock on the bottom rung and he busted it nudging that door open. So put that in there. Yeah, put that in there. Let's take it. This is Henry, everybody.

Henry and Bob.

Can everybody say, hey Henry? Hey Henry! This is Bob, he's the yellow one. Guys, we're gonna move these one over. We can keep that, that wall on that side, so just keep it up and we'll move the other fence around it. Free the birds, Mariah! Watch the goose. Why? Wait for it, wait for it. That's her little morning stretch. Well, there goes the cows. He's over it, isn't he? I wish I had the footage, guys. I lost the footage. Second time in my whole YouTube career. But we had a lot going on yesterday, as you can imagine. I shot a whole sequence yesterday morning of the craziness that was Stud Muffin and Phyllis. We're happy because she's gone in heat. She must have been in standing heat last night and they must have got it on because he's not like— I don't think he is relentlessly after her. We'll see when it comes time to milk them. Here at the sea monsters, you guys see we used to run them in two nets, but they're just too active. They're burning too many calories. So we got to tighten it up. You just move the coop one up. I think you did it last time, Sadie, and you'll move it tomorrow. You'll move it today and tomorrow, and you might get one more day out of it. And then basically you just set up the other net just like this down here. Can you move it by yourself now, Sadie?

I think so.

We put 4 more wheels on it. Yeah, and you're in a pretty rough patch, honestly. This is one of the harder areas. Supplement with a hay there just in case they're not getting enough grass. Just, just a fail-safe there, building up our soil. If they leave— if they're not hungry for it and they're eating grass, they leave it behind, and that just turns into food for the earth and builds the soil. It's raining, y'all. It's raining. This is a good thing. If you have that problem, you can use an umbrella right here if you want. There you go. See, you guys did it. Look, boy, it's going smooth for you. Okay, you're done.

Good lady.

Now watch your back.

Yeah, I might try to hold—

but he is—

I'll keep her moving.

And listen, don't worry about holding him if he gets crazy. Just let him come.

Okay.

And we'll put him in a stall. But look, he's staying back, dude. They made it. You know what this means, ladies? They made it last night. This is very good. She just gave us a calf. She came in heat not 2 months, and she gave us a nice deposit right here, right by our mineral.

Thank you. I mean, better here than—

yep.

Hey, that's the pumpkin pie. She's the one pooped a lot in the— come on, sister— stanchion last time, right?

Yes, yes. So we're happy she gets it out right here and not in the stanchion. Yeah, she's a little bit— that guy, he would be all over us yesterday, ladies. We, we are fortunate this did not happen while I was gone.

Got a text that they're moving him out of ICU.

Okay.

Into a normal room. So, yay! Word on the street is that it was probably some of his medications that were hurting his kidneys.

Wow. They—

he's off all medication. Yeah, everyone, which is his heart medicine that he has to take.

That's so good.

Hopefully his kidneys start working soon. I'm going to— we're going to go after breakfast and take him— yep, ginger a plate. But we're also going to take, um, him some broth.

Yeah, let's do it. These girls are awesome. They're getting the cow in there. This is awesome. This is awesome. Rain, rain! And my dad is doing better. He's getting moved out of the ICU. Oh my gosh, I can't tell you how excited we are about that. We thought it was the end yesterday. We thought it was the end. The doctors were calling the family in. The end. Okay, good, you're already on it. Washing?

Yeah.

Okay. All right, get flossy. 5 big alfalfa scoops. Hard-working mama producing milk. Half of that. Oh yeah, you did it. So half a tablespoon of RC Gold, which you just did, and then a full scoop of apple cider vinegar and just kind of swirl it around in the food. Good. Mariah, you ever milked a cow?

Not, not this much.

Okay, Sadie, you have last time you were here.

Yeah.

And you've milked cows with machines?

Yep.

Okay. Hey, you guys are doing good. You might have— you poured something in here yet? Good. Never grab the— I don't know if you did, but never grab the bucket by the bottom. Okay, good, good job, Sadie. You remember from last time. Got the rags for them. I'm gonna wash the rags so they don't have to worry about that. We want to be easy and as smooth as possible for our farm sitters. Hey, where are y'all going? We're going to our house to do a little sewing. Okay. They're nearing, nearing the end. Um, I'm prepping stuff while they're doing that. I think that's the best way to learn, just tell and have them actually do it with their hand. I mean, I've showed Sadie before, and now they're here, they're doing it themselves. It's the best way to learn. But I'm here if they have any questions or anything, and What am I looking for? What am I doing? We're gonna get them some cross fences ready. Scoured the farm for some of these temporary fence posts. About got it, almost about milked her for all she's worth. That Mariah, man, she's—

she wants to get every bit.

Getting every bit. You know, cows don't give milk. You got to fight for every last drop. Do, do that one until you've done 5 squeezes without getting anything, and then you're done. Wow. And where do I put it? Right here. There's a wheelbarrow right behind you. And ladies, when you're all done, that wheelbarrow can go to the chickens. On to Phyllis. Let's see if she's even got anything since we're capturing. She really doesn't, so that should be an easy milk too. Yeah, we're leaving the calf on her while they're doing this. Like I said, you want to make it as easy as possible on your farm sitter. We won't get as much milk, that's okay. The cows are taken care of. Really, you got to take time. You get burnt out. We would get burnt out. You got to get away. You got to get good farm sitters, paying them well. Figure it into the vacation or business travel budget. We're traveling on business, gonna go again in December on vacation, and we've budgeted in. We've budgeted in a good bit for farm sitters. You get what you pay for. Just pulled the mower out. That's, uh, this is nothing. Like, they don't need to be filling the mower up with fuel. Uh, they're gonna mow behind the cows. Let's have it full of fuel. Let's have the paddocks working right. Let's have, let's have all the wash rags washed. You know, you don't want your farm sitter doing that. You want your farm sitter feeding Here, can you see me better if I do that? You want your farm sitter feeding, watering, basic moves. I mean, in the past when we haven't even been able to afford such quality farm sitters, we've just given the animals enough pasture. If we're gone for 4 days, give them 4 days worth of pasture, and then somebody's just checking on them. They're not having to move them. But these guys, they know how to move animals. Looking for my gloves for dealing with fuel. Look what I found. You guys see it? Mr. Brown's shoes. I like it, y'all finished.

Well, we couldn't get anything off of her. I mean, we were—

oh really?

Yeah.

She didn't have much in there. Not much. Anything worth saving?

Nope. Sadie got— okay, some out of one.

Well, that's good.

We're just gonna at least make sure she don't get mastitis. So you, you've milked her? Calf's getting it. That's good. That's fine. All right, thanks. Put these where they go. I know that I told you that Flossie needs to go first because she's the boss, but if you let Flossie out now, she'll try to get in that stanchion and horn her, and she's got nowhere to go. So you gotta let Phyllis go first, and then Flossie will pass her. Okay, you don't have to walk in there and hurt her out. There you go. Good.

Fly Guy. Buzz spied a fly hiding. Do I spy Fly Guy? The fly flew away. Buzz spied a fly eating. Do I spy a fly guy?

Now the farm sitters are babysitting. Yes! Well, here we go to the hospital. We planned on going to the hospital at this time. I wish I could say he's doing as good as he was earlier this morning. He's now incoherent, so it seems like it's gonna be a back and forth game. We're bringing Ginger food either way, so we'll see. I mean, last we know he was asleep and not really wanting to wake up, right? Ginger did say she— he ate a little bit this morning. We've got him some broth.

Yeah.

We went in and right away they were doing an ultrasound. She was looking at his heart. We don't know the results. She can't tell us the results. Um, the doctor has to tell the results, and that didn't happen while we were visiting there.

He can have a sip. Yeah, let's put his head up. Let's put your head up so you can drink some water, okay? I don't want you to choke.

That's good right there.

All right, all right. Yes, that too much on your back?

Well, let me see if I can get it adjusted a bit.

He got the name Boots because he put on his mom's boots when he was, what, 2? No, it was his mom's.

Oh really?

He tromped around the house in her big old boots, and they've been calling him Boots on Hooper's Creek ever since. She had little feet, but he was a little guy.

Bye, Mr. Rhodes.

You take care.

I'm gonna sneak out of here, okay? Okay. I like what I do. I've been doing it for a long time.

That's good.

It's not even set in stone.

Good for you.

And we already— she does.

These kids help people. So you got this permaculture farming deal and go from there.

You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Nice.

You ever watch YouTube?

Yeah.

Well, you finally—

well, you marry up. Justin Rhodes.

Victor Justin Rhodes.

Oh, okay.

That's about as hard as I can go. He weighs 180. I weigh 184. When I was his age.

Yep. Thanks. Thank you.

And I could do 20 pull-ups too. But I can't do 8 now.

That's probably more than me, but I'm gonna work on that.

I know, for his birthday he asked for a pull-up bar.

Why, I saw you go out there to the barn and Jacob come up this big rope. Had it tied up there. Yeah. You just climbed up it. That's been less than a year ago. Yeah.

When was that? I remember that.

At our house?

There was a rope. Remember there was a rope on the beam? It was last year.

And you just climbed up it?

Yeah. Remember them boys dared me?

Oh yes.

Now she remembers.

It reminded me when I was in the Navy. They sent me down the side painting, and you know, every time you paint this area, the width of that board you sit on, they drop you down, you paint again. And then it came lunchtime, we were way down there. They said, okay boys, time for lunch. I said, well, pull me up. He said, we don't pull you up. So I had to pull myself up to get out. That was another fine experience that I had today.

It was a good visit. It was a great visit. He was very coherent. My sister was there from out of town. It was nice to see her. Let me pull up here. Somebody's trying to pull in here. It was nice to see her and had a wonderful visit. He had a special message for you guys.

Are any of my friends on there?

Yeah, they're all on here. You want to say something to them?

Hello, pals and friends and just Mm-hmm. Appreciate you guys. It was just— they made me some— he and Freddie made— I don't know if I— I call Rebecca a friend.

Yeah, yeah, I think we told them that somewhere along the line.

They brought me some real good food, so you can rest assured if you fix it like that, you'll have a long life.

Mm-hmm.

I love all of you. Oh, thank you.

Yeah, and they love you too. It's full of light, well wishes and prayers. Okay, hundreds, hundreds. Okay, I posted it at midnight last night and you got hundreds. Oh my goodness, well wishes.

Thank you all so much for your concern.

Yeah, some of them are going to send you cards, so hang in there. We're going to bring you the cards. Okay, they're coming to our PO box. All right, one said— one lady said she saw the picture of my— of you on the picture on the video, and she said she clicked right away. She didn't even read the title. So you got some girlfriends out there too.

Ginger, give me some real hard broth.

He's going to show off for his friends.

Oh, if you need to heat it up, you can just add a little bit of that hot broth in the thermos.

Oh, that's right, there it is.

It's so hot. It's—

that'll heal you more than anything, won't it?

Very good. It's very good.

Good. Chilly for me, but it's encouraging to see you.

Well, if you want more, I'll bring you some more later.

Yeah, tonight or tomorrow morning, Ginger.

Okay. All right.

What a great attitude. So now I've got— I got the big boy. Going to shoot some shots of a reenactment of a wonderful story I want to share with you guys that happened, I guess it was a couple days ago, when I first went and saw him when he was still okay and I was just sitting with him. Great story. Hilarious. But sums up who he is and what he's about and how it can inspire the rest of us to adopt this same attitude. So I'm working on that. It's gonna be a special movie coming out Friday. So pay attention to that. It's gonna be a good one. Bring some tissues. You're gonna laugh tears. Okay, this should go. But does it go on it?

The booster?

No, it doesn't even go on. These two don't even— It goes like that. Okay, these two don't even go together. So this is a booster, and I think this might have been a booster or a portable toilet, but we're missing the toilet. So he literally said, well, maybe he could use a bucket. I'm like, okay, all right, we're a Level Ballou compost style. That'd be great, but it's, it's missing a seat. You can't sit on this. I'm gonna cry tears. Well, I just filmed a bit. It just started raining again. We got a little bit of a break in the weather. You're gonna wonder what's a toilet got to do with, uh, this motivational message from my dad. Well, you're just gonna have to wait and see. I'm back, loving this rain. This is It's the perfect rain, just so slight, ever so slight but consistent, steady. We needed this so bad. It's been weeks. We've got about an hour till afternoon chores. Let's get in here and edit. And this is a hard edit. I cry 3 times editing this thing. Wow, I got that edited right on time. 4 o'clock, um, afternoon chore time. Not gonna hopefully be staying up till midnight again. Okay, you guys ready to do the afternoon chores?

Yep.

Okay, after morning chores, you guys feel pretty confident if you write it down to take over? Yeah. Hey, there's our van! That's nice. We're having to rent a passenger van and take our Suburban to get everybody and all our stuff to Virginia. We move the cows first. Cows and then the sheep go where the cows were, one day behind the cows. All right, this is our temp line. If it's hooked up there, we got to go and hook it or it's going to be hitting electricity.

Oh yeah, that's going to be hitting hard too.

Hey guys. Hey, hey, hey. All right. You guys are ready, aren't you? They stood up, they were napping, they're ready. Fresh grass. You don't get it, do you, Almanzo? You don't get excited about the grass, huh? You don't get excited about the grass. Best part of the day right there. You are welcome and thank you very much. So what happens when we turn our fence off? He figures it out real quick. Sadie, you got the sea monsters and the luchadors and then supper. Okay. Okay. All right, we got so much done today. Just finished supper. Gonna get going on packing all this up. Gonna close out this vlog. You want to— this is what we're gonna do. So, uh, tomorrow we're traveling. We're going to Polyface. Tomorrow is Polyface. We're doing a historic tour with Joel, Joel Salatin himself. That's going to be great. So that'll come out next, and then the following day will be this special, this special from my dad and all that's going on. So that's Friday, that'll air Friday. Joel Salatin's movie will air Thursday, and then we're at the— we're homesteaders all weekend, and that's— that movie will come out on Monday. So just keeping you guys up to date on that. We love you guys. Thank you so much for watching. Thanks for supporting us during this time with my dad. Oh, and by the way, if you want to support my dad, send him a card. I've put the, I've put the, uh, PO address, uh, down in the description. Let's give it— I'll say I'll go check that in 10 days, so give yourself out maybe 2 weeks. So right away, right away, and I'll go check it in 10, 2-ish weeks, and we'll go present those cards to him. So that'd be really nice. PO Box is down below. There's an app where you can pick photos from your phone, write a message, they send the postcard. So that would be good. What was the name of that app? Post Snap. So it's called Post Snap. We used it while we were on the Great American Farm Tour. Just went through our phone, picked a picture, wrote a message, sent it to to send it to our family back home. So check that out. I think that would encourage him greatly. He loves you guys so much. So, um, yeah, that would be fun.