How My Kubota Saves Me on Feed Cost

Woke up again last night about 10, this time 10.

Hand was throbbing and I had to take a bath to be able to go back to sleep, but Rebecca was like, why don't you try some ice?

And that actually, I craved that, so here we are and it feels pretty good.

I was able to go back to sleep last night and it seems like it's not hurting as bad.

I feel like maybe we gave up because like when we found out it was reactive arthritis, we're like, does anything that we were even trying to do help it? And actually I think it did and I realized last night that like, we were, I had kind of stopped doing some of the things that we had been doing for his hip that probably made it feel better. So we've started those back up. Now it's in his knuckles. It's not so much in his wrist. It's still, his wrist does still hurt, but it's like, it's not just his wrist anymore. Like, it's moved into his hand.

You wanna help me with my sock a little bit there?

Rebecca, what day do the, uh, chicks come?

They ship next week.

Okay, that means we have to catch these rats. Good news, they did get our— we set cheese in there because they weren't getting the chicken in their traps. They got the cheese, the traps didn't click on them. So that's good news because we got a bait that they want. Bad news, they ran away with it. But the good news is we could probably rig it on there a little better. Or you— let's try peanut butter. July 14th, Joel Salatin is coming with our rabbits. This is our to-do list. How about that? So we've got hutches on here. Hutches are going to be here hopefully any day. We've got stands on here for those hutches, those rabbit hutches. We've lined up Randolph for the— you know, I don't know how my wrist is going to be Thursday and Friday. To help us. Let's do this too, Jonah. Um, it was put the yard, which— guess what? How am I doing?

I'm driving with my left hand.

We did yesterday. We planted the grass. Keep on losing my chalk. We did it, so we get to mark something off. We gotta catch the rat. Let's set up the Everflow to demo for Joel. Jonah added landscaping. Anything else? That's probably ambitious enough given our current health state. Let's stick with that. We've got one done. Let's go work on the overflow waterer.

Get in.

Put the scrub on me, bud.

I don't wanna— is that good?

Okay, that's good. Interesting, the cheese is still in that, but the trap has gone down. The cheese is over. Did it snap them and they get out somehow?

No, Papa, did it go like that? What if he ran in there and then he, and then he wanted to get the cheese, but he actually put this closed behind him and that didn't, and he ran out?

That one is gotten by a mouse, I bet.

Shoot. Oh, that, that trap set off, but nothing's in it. That trap still has cheese on it, so I wonder actually if we got a mouse And that's how come it didn't catch it. All right, let's try peanut butter.

Papa, do you think a mouse is on that one?

The big one? It's possible. Um, okay, let's leave that here on this. Thanks.

We got 15 minutes to milking.

Not enough time to do the overflow, but maybe enough time to assess the situation. We have an automatic water turner on, or sophisticated term for it. We just have to, uh, oh, does that mean it's been on? Oh no, we have a water timer for our drip irrigation. I just need to install it. I probably should put that on the list. It's not on. That hose must be to something else. Yeah, hose is missing. Ah, kids played.

I told them to put things back.

Come here. Now they don't need no motivation to set this What's up? Get in. I'm pinching it here because it's on. There you go, there you go. No, wrong way. Yeah, you were going right. There it is, you got it. Now you hang on to that nozzle, okay? Not having your right hand forces me to be dependent on them. That's probably a good thing. Right here, right here. We got to put it right here. It'd probably be tomorrow's vlog, I'm watching this and I'm like, oh, the water's still running. That's why we need to get the timer on here.

Can you like pinch?

Are you serious? All right, it's working. Just like— look, Gideon, grab our nozzle. We'll give it to Arun. He'll hide it. Yeah, that's why I'm gonna give it to you, buddy, because we need this for a chicken booster. I know, right? They find it when they want it. I know. There's our line coming in. Let's see how much we have of it. Let's pull it out. We're gonna go along the fence. We'll probably go along this side of the fence. We'll bring that line behind that, and then I think right through here. Yeah, it's gonna be— have to go across Mom's sidewalk. I don't know if she's gonna be thrilled about that, but then we can, we can come down in here. Well, hopefully I didn't bite off more than I can chew. How are we gonna get in here? Because we have the Wire buried. Maybe we don't have wire buried right there. We do. Shoot. Oh, right there. Right there is a breach. Okay, we can get in right there. Maybe we'll set it up right there in the middle. It'll come out, down, and into the culvert. Now let's get our draining line. Okay, everything's in place, kind of going really smooth. Let's see if we can drag it up there. Right here is where we want to come out for our drain line so that we can get access to shutting it off and on, just to grab a siphon. You'll see that in a minute. So it'll go up through that line and then across the road to the chickens. See the chicken pin right there, and that'll be a lot of fall on the downside, which would be a good thing. Yeah, y'all just shove it. I'll go to the other end and say when it's come through. Uh-oh, it's not long enough to go through, huh? Did it come through? Oh, that's lucky. All right, yeah, just pull it up to the bank. That's too bad we can't go through that culvert. I wonder if we could if we got the siphon going. We should be able to. The problem is the culvert comes in above the road, so the overflow would be there and it'd have to go uphill for a little bit. So you'd have to have a good siphon going. All right, I reckon we got to stop the fun and go milk. But all we lack then, two flexible hoses, one for the supply and one for the drain, and that should be it. Done milking Flossy. Now we're gonna do something interesting. We're gonna wean the baby lambs, so we're gonna put the ewes over here with the cows. We're gonna have a flirt, and then we're gonna keep the calves because we don't want Studd Muffin to breed them, and the babies in that paddock. John, you want to be right here at the pail calling sheep, sheep, sheep? We've got two lined up already.

Yeah, we need to see the opening.

Arun's gonna— is this not an opening? Shoot, it's not, is it?

There we go. Let the calves go.

It's time.

The cats are easy.

Okay, there's Ryder. Ryder just came through.

We only got one more.

Okay, here comes Dixie. Yay, we did it!

We left Jonah on baby duty. Rebecca, I think we can do this Everflow water. It's going incredibly smooth this morning. First thing first, hoses. Oh, this hose has been cut. And nobody told me. So let's go see if we can find a hose somewhere else. We've got one hose. I think we can grab one up at the butchering. We might even have one actually in the corn crib. One is going to the line right there, just across the road. It'd be great if we could find a 50-footer. Why are we using a 50-footer when we only need like 15 feet? Do you want to make a short hose?

I don't care.

Is there any sense in that? I mean, I feel like a long one we can just roll it up.

Yeah, um, yeah, that's true. If it's going to be like a thing that we do every year and like it— but maybe it's—

yeah, I don't want to cut it because what if we do something different? What if we run it a different way? Yeah, yeah, let's not do that.

Uh, all right, so yeah, I mean, it's not gonna hurt anything if we have—

cut this. Do you know how weird it is not to be able to use my right hand and be so weak?

You're me, Justin.

See, watch other people do it and I feel like I could have done it a lot better and faster. Yes. Yeah, that's how this is a trial of my patience. I mean, you guys are doing good. I don't know how well these work because these are made for metal. It's a tough material. Now don't you dull my knife going over that concrete.

I don't think it could be any duller, honey.

If I knew it was going to be such a drama cutting this thing, I think I just would have made it do. Don't you get cut though. Now we have to because it's slit. Let's try this razor. Is that an old meat saw? It's working, isn't it?

Or not? Mom, do you want me to help you?

Oh look, maybe his Leatherman's sharper. Here, let me just— Did you cut yourself?

No, I didn't cut myself.

Oh, look, look back!

Oh my gosh, are you serious? This is much sharper. Yours is really old. We need to get a new blade for that.

Now the mallet. Yep, just perfect, isn't it? All the way in, all the way in.

Can you please stop doing that?

Yeah, rubber mallet. Oh yeah, Rune came just in time.

Squat. All right, the right tools.

Yep.

All right, it was the night.

Let's do it. We've got hose, we've got— screw it on there as good as you can. Turn it on. Did you feel it? Really? Oh yeah, nothing. All right, well, it's been a while since it's rained, so let's make sure— well, let's make sure it's even in the pond. Let's make sure it's drawing. Water from there, not clogged up. It's kind of puffed up right here. I guess we're making sure nobody's ran it over with the mower.

Ah, there it is.

Doesn't feel clogged, doesn't look clogged. It's not drawing though, so we have to get her— we have to get our siphon going again. All right, darling, it's Yeah, it's not drawing. It's just— I bet it's leaked out, you know. There's probably a leak in it.

Huh, how do we do it?

Normally we run that back down to the barn, fill it up, but I think it actually might be better to get a hose and, and attach it, get the hose getting water going through it, and then remove the hose and it'll have a siphon. Go ahead and turn this on. We're gonna get water going through it through the hose. Arun to the rescue again. Now I know how my dad feels. When he had— when he putzed around with you, Arun. They got their work done. Let's go ahead and turn it on. We have a shutoff right here. Uh, let's, let's open it just to make sure it's not clogged or something. Rebecca, did you turn it on all the way? I did.

Oh, I think it's too much.

No, that's good. Let's hope that hose reaches up here. I've never done it this way, but this is going to be easier. It's kind of a pain to set up, but once you have this set up, it— the water is always clean. And in this case, in the summer, it's going to be always cool. In the winter, it never freezes because it's always moving. You gotta undo the quick connect and then connect that and then turn it on. Just don't, don't drop it down in there. Just do the quick connect. There you go. I put that one on it. Yeah, don't drop it in there. I don't know where I got those filters. I think I have a link somewhere. All right, turn it, turn it on. Oh good, now let's just give it a minute. I'm gonna pull this off and see if it'll draw the pond water. There it goes, now it's sucking.

It's raining.

That worked nice. Now we're going to come down here and water should be being siphoned right there into our road. It'll probably be pretty dirty because it's going to need to clean out the line. I can't tell from here. Okay. Oh yeah, I feel like it is normally stronger than that, but it's probably really yet to Yucky. Can you reach the culvert? All right, we'll let it drain right there. It'll go right down there in the culvert. That's where the pond water was going. All right, tomorrow we'll cook the exit line and then connecting it to the everflow. You guys want to see the everflow? If you haven't been tuned in for a while, that's the everflow water. You guys don't remember it from the winter. Before we go in, let's go check on these poor sheep. Okay, there's a lot of bleating. Hear that bleating coming from over here? It ain't the mamas, they're on vacation. You guys— oh, there you go, a little bit. You guys are like enjoying it. The baby's a little stressed. Look back, everybody else's condition is just fine. We're having a discussion about the, the rat.

Lots of people giving me great ideas on— in the comments on Abundance Plus, uh, in the vlog.

Um, great ideas from stuff you plug in to electric traps to all kinds of crazy stuff.

Becky has the idea to do wire cage. Yeah, around the whole thing.

We would basically just make like— it would look like a static coop. Yeah, and I guess we would— we would only have to do to do it, it wouldn't be that hard because we could just do a, like, a 2x4 across the top, do 2x4s just going across the top, anchoring to the walls.

Yeah.

And then just do some on the sides, and then we'd have to make doors.

My idea, if we don't catch this, I mean, even when we catch one, there's more than one, the easiest thing would probably be put a guard goose in there with them.

Or what about the cats?

The kids felt like the cats might have tussled with the rat because they said they looked rough this morning.

I don't know. Yeah, like, what if—

would the cats get the chicks if, like, we lock the cat in there with them at night? I think if you have the goose, you don't need the cats.

Um, I was thinking if the goose is not the great idea, maybe cats. Somebody said I got in a fight. There's a big— I don't think the cats would necessarily take this rat down, but I think it would detour it. I think it would detour it. Why don't we put Teddy down there with them? Come on, put yourself to use, Teddy.

We're gonna put a net over the chicks, like a wire mesh. Yeah, build like a cage over them.

Look, it's the rabbit stuff. That, or it's our feed order. We'll be happy to take either one. Oh, here we go. You know what to do. There it is. Okay, found it. Okay, you gonna nail it? A rain covered is in my ears that time. This thing makes it easy. Kubota, you know that's a 2,000-pound tote right there.

Remember that tractor used to get like—

oh, I know you couldn't do a 2,000-pound. We would have to order 4 pallets instead of 2, and each pallet's like $150 just for shipping. So let's save this $300 right here. We're going to be more efficient now that we can stack taller too. The feed, the feed's much taller. We'll have less pallets in here. That's good. All right, good, good work, guys. We got room for 2 more, which we've got some rabbit feed coming any day too.

I just did a sauna and a shower.

I don't want to get my hopes up, but I think I'm having a breakthrough. I washed my head my hand with my face with my hand. I'm gonna try to show you guys something. My ankles. Yeah, you can see that. Can you see that? One of these ankles is not like the other. Super swollen. I don't know if that's from the reactive arthritis or that gnarly fall I took on Fourth of July wrangling the cow.

That was crazy, I know. Massive scene change. Walking around with Henry now shirtless. A lot of time.

We've had supper. Took another bath. I feel like I'm, yeah, I feel like I'm having a breakthrough.

Hesitant to say it. Don't want to get my hopes up, but I think I'm gonna sleep through the night tonight. Some of you have noticed I've disabled comments. Nothing against you. Nothing against you. It's just I can only do so much. So basically I'm putting out a blog, doing Abundance Plus members text, working out content for Abundance Plus, getting the content up here, and taking care of myself. That's pretty much it. So nothing personal. I'm also working on getting you guys— I think by the time this will come out, we had an amazing Abundance Plus launch, grew our member area like 40%, over 2,000 new members. Love you guys, welcome you guys. Didn't get to push it as hard as I had wanted. And I know some of you guys may be holding back because of financial— you're just not sure. So how about a free trial? How about 7 days free trial? Like, get in there, Abundance Plus. Like, rip me off, get in there, uh, binge-rooted, watch the vlog ad-free, uh, consume the 400+ instructional videos. Chances are you're gonna really like it and keep it, but no hard feelings if you don't. Free trial at abundanceplus.com.