How we Killed Our No Kill Christmas Tree

It's okay up here. Oh my word, it's droopy mega down here. Pretty sure we killed our no-kill Christmas tree. Gosh, look at the sag, look at the sag. Hey, I wonder if the volume's working on this thing. This doesn't have to be ultra serious. This year for Christmas, we wanted to do something a little different for our tree. We decided we would get one with a ball, so a live tree. We're looking for one with a ball. I can handle one of those little ones with a ball. There's a more medium-sized one with the bottom.

How about that really big one? I wanted a live tree because that is something that we can then take from our home and put out on our property, and then we can enjoy it for years to come. There's the tree that's in this corner that was a Christmas tree that I believe your family had, and that tree got planted there, and it's huge now, and it's, and it's beautiful, and it's something that we can look at all year.

The cows get underneath it, rub on it.

Yeah, so it's just something that like, it's multi-purpose, and also then it's not a tree dying.

This is about the same time we're planting trees for my late father, right? Doing it for Boots. So I guess we're getting a Christmas tree doing it for Boots. So I wasn't sure how to care for it exactly, so I asked our jolly-looking salesman. And I just give it a little cup, a few cups of lukewarm water. It doesn't need a lot every day. I don't know about every day. No, let's say every 3 days. So our plan was in place. Lily would take care of the tree.

Who's gonna be in charge of that?

Me.

Fast forward a couple of weeks, we come back from vacation, and what's your impression of the tree? You walk right in this door.

Yeah, it looks—

you see this tree.

But I will say this, before vacation, when I was talking to Moriah about watering it, I was feeling like it was already gone before we went on vacation. What I think happened to the tree was that the burlap is actually repelling the water off of the ball. Like, it wasn't soaking into it, and I— my thoughts are maybe that it was a little bit dry when we got it. Um, so that, that's my thing, is that the water wasn't actually getting through the burlap onto the ball.

So, Lily, I gotta know, how did you water this thing? Can you show me? Show me what you did. Okay, that's how much you normally did? Yeah, that's what that guy said, but he might not know what he's talking about. So I wonder if she even got it on the ball. What do you think?

I just put this water—

I don't know, she's doing it at the trunk.

It's possible that we didn't give enough water. It's possible, but that water—

possible that it—

we probably should have put it in a bucket of water.

Yeah, we got it. It could have been dry when we got it.

So we done killed the no-kill Christmas tree. Maybe, maybe we can save it. It's worth it. Try it.

Yeah, I'd like to try to save it.

All right, so to save it, let's just try—

not for Christmas. I want to save it for—

that's the whole point. We bought it in a ball so that a Christmas tree didn't have to die for us. Yeah. How does it make us feel that we killed our no-kill Christmas tree? Like, it's still 5 days till Christmas. Yeah, is it gonna make it? I think it's leaning today.

Oh, it is. So it makes me feel sad that we killed our no-kill Christmas tree, but I think we're still gonna try to plant it. Maybe there's still life in there somewhere.

We're still gonna try to plant it.

Yeah, he's like, no, no, because you're gonna be the one manning the shovel. Is that why?

Yeah, I'm gonna plant a dead tree. I'm gonna man the shovel for a dead tree.

But maybe there's a little—

why don't you pick a 19-degree morning too, huh? Works better in the cold. Works better to plant the tree in the cold. No. Okay, so that leads me into my next question.

What— hold on, wait, I gotta say this. Grandma thought maybe I should return it. I was like, I'm not.

Grandma, Grandma, doing it for boots. Grandma getting another tree, swapping it out.

I'm like, no, I'm not. They're not taking all the ornaments off and all of the decorations and—

No, because we killed it. It's not them. That leads to my next question. What are we gonna do about it?

Well, we poured water—

Besides plant a dead tree. We poured the water.

We poured a bunch of water into— so we have it in a bucket, in a big trough thing. You guys saw what it was. And then we put rocks so that it's like sitting. And so then we just poured water in there. So it's sitting in water right now. Hopefully soaking the water into that little bit of life that's left in it. So that Justin doesn't have to plant a dead tree.

So I'm thinking if that doesn't save it, putting it in the ground, 15-degree morning.

The water's out of the Christmas tree!

The water's out of the tree?

I can feel the water!

Oh yeah, I don't think it's soaking it up. I've checked it this morning. It's not soaking it up. It's wet. Yeah, I wish you couldn't feel that. I wish it had soaked it up, but instead I think it's getting worse.

It's drooping.

It's leaning. In our attempt to save this tree, we got a—

hey!

I need to talk to your mom. What? We poured, we filled this up with water.

Really?

And it's down, it's down to about right there. I gotta see where it was. Rebecca? Rebecca?

Yeah?

Well, how do you like your new dresser?

Love it.

Hey, did you fill, how high did you fill that Christmas tree with your bucket of water? Like this much?

Yeah, why?

Oh, then it's not sucking it up. Come here. You didn't drain, you didn't soak it like I thought you would. I was thinking you'd fill that whole thing up. Oh.

Well, I didn't know if that would help it.

Well, we got nothing to lose.

I know, it's true.

Can you feel like it sucked any of it up?

Maybe, but I don't know.

I think—

okay, here's what I'm gonna do. There's only that much in there.

That's the very bottom of the water.

You put 3 gallons? Okay, so I'm gonna fill it up as much as I can. You got half a gallon jug just side? Okay, and then And then we killed it. There we go, from our trip. There you go. So fill it up as much as you can, and then we'll see if it's soaking it up, or will that totally kill it? Are we going to totally drown it now?

I mean, well, but if it's already dead, you can't kill it anymore than it's already killed. All right, all right.

So I think what we learned is next year Soak it or make sure the ball isn't ripped open.

Well, I had the thought of maybe like next year of like taking a knife and ripping the burlap open in certain places so you can like pour water in there. Also maybe like doing a good soak of the ball when we get it. And maybe I should just like look online and see if someone else has had this problem and maybe they give me some tips.

Yeah. The boys are over there bringing the cows in. Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily, you in here? You in here, Lily? You know, Mr. Brown's out here too. They must have gone somewhere. Oh, there they are. Oh, the ice skating rink! Did it work? Oh nice. Oh my— oh, I'm too big. I think it's breaking. Ah no. Okay, I'll get off. Hey Lily, what happened to the Christmas tree, honey? You were in charge. Do you think you fed enough water? How much water do you give it?

That, um, a half of— it was a big one, like a half a gallon.

You have to show me later, okay?

You broke here.

I know I did. Too big. Oh, you okay? You're tough. Here the cows come. I guess you couldn't keep Flossie home, huh? I guess you couldn't keep Flossie out. And we don't like to herd Flossie down. She's not in milk. She will be soon though. Look at that mucus coming out. You go in there. That worked out smooth. That worked out real smooth. Thank you. So you brought her down for a pregnancy check, huh? I guess get her in the routine too. She lets me pet her more than Phyllis. I like you, I like you. Oh my gosh, look at the mucus! Holy smokes! Did we say— could we give that to her when she comes into the stanchion? No. No. Yeah, because she's about to come out. Here, I'll let you do it when it's time. Okay, does that be okay? Oh, y'all gonna go play on the ice skating rink? Come on, come on.

She is not happy with you.

No, she's not. Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on. There you go, there you go. Come on, come on, come on. Hey, hey, there we go, there we go. Come on. Hey, there we go.

I'm trying to put that limb up so it doesn't stop her.

Stand behind. I know. Oh boy, is it going to work?

I bet.

Sounds like it might. Boss, you gonna mess with the camera? Second round. That's a good gallon and a quarter. I called it, 1 gallon and a quart.

Is there more milk left in the bucket?

Nope.

Look, my knife is still holding out. It's still in its case and everything.

And you left it outside and it's still holding out? Yeah, chopping ice.

Yeah, it's fun. That's why we like winter.

You like winter because of ice? Are you really taking a picture? See how huge her vulva is?

I know, she's really looking.

It's twice. She's really 2x. Hey girl, touch the, the, the udder back there.

No, a little delayed response.

I have a moment.

Does this mean she's—

it just means she's—

it does. You don't even have to hit her with it. It works, doesn't it? Whoa, I think I just got the whip! I wish I would have caught that on camera. Hold on, watch this, Jonah. Jonah! So go up real slow, float it, and then whack it hard. Oh, that's impressive! Here, good job.

Take it out there and I'm gonna go start.

Okay. And gave Jonah this whip and we've been trying to figure out— we finally figured it out. So exciting. Okay, now let's see if just the popping will get them going. Whoa, that hurt my ear! I didn't hit my ear, that was just so loud. Wow, that was loud. They're not budging though. Watch this. Wrapping up Jonah's first week training steering while on top of me. All right, I'm just doing the pedals, you're doing the steering. Next week on my lap doing the pedals too. Okay, so this is where the pigs were. They helped us clear this forest. Isn't this beautiful? Silvo pasture. Now we're gonna throw hay And there's going to be seeds in that hay, and it's organic matter that they've left behind. See this? And this is going to be so lush come spring. We've seriously added, oh, I don't know, dozens of cow days per year. So we haven't spread hay in here yet. You can see no hay on the ground, hay on the ground. That's just perfect. It's just a great covering because a lot of this is bare ground. It needs to be covered anyway. She gasps. Here we go, guys. Here they come. Sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep. Oh, maybe on this hill. If I feed them above me, they'll feel more comfortable. Sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep. And I'm just gonna sit here talking to them. It's okay, we're keeping these guys. Long, long happy life on this farm. Why'd we get sheep? Well, sheep are delicious. Delicious, like the second best meat tasting in the world behind pork.

Lamb is not the second best.

What do you think's the second best? Beef. Beef. He likes beef. We also got them to clean up the parasites behind the cows. They ingest parasites that cows might have left behind that die inside your rumen. It's kind of fun. And the third reason would be to fertilize the ground. I guess the fourth reason would be to eat things that the cows don't eat. Okay, this has been fun. Let me see if I can get that piece of hay off. No, she's not gonna quite let me. Will you let me pet you, Belle? Yeah, you'll let me. I'm not gonna hurt you. All right, they found it. I think we'd be putting the calf in the back of Sally and hauling it home. What do you think? I'll bust it.

That apple cider vinegar really helps.

It does help, doesn't it? What you doing, Bernell?

Writing my friend a letter.

Oh, this feels very Mr. Rogers-esque. I'm gonna talk to you while I take off my jackets and stuff. So, uh, speaking of the 12 Days of Christmas, I got some goodies coming for y'all. Last year I gave you my Intro to Permaculture course, 12-part series over the whole 12 days. Well, I got some good stuff planned for you. I'm going to give you that whole series plus a whole bunch more, partnering with a bunch of people— Jill Winger, Amy Fjell, Jason Contreras, Alumna Morgan. Oh shoot, what's his last name? Morgan? I'm sorry, I never caught your last name. Gold Shaw Farms, the duck guy. Got a lot of good stuff for you coming for you. I'm gonna get to work editing and working on that. You see, there's not just one day of Christmas, there's 12 Days of Christmas. December 25th is only the first day, so a lot of free stuff coming to at you during those 12 days. Stay tuned. Got some business done and some editing. Mom's been cleaning in the bedroom. You've been in the bath, bro. You're gonna be able to be one big raisin. Let me see your hands. Oh my gosh. Oh my, look at this breakfast of Brussels sprouts, bacon, and eggs and broth.

Whoo!

Jonah can crack it.

I can too. Yeah, you gotta go real far back.

Go ahead. Oh, hopefully no hay got in our water. Let's put the chairs up. Everybody can go, everybody can go. All right, we got safe seats for everybody now. All right, is there any baby out there?

No.

Okay, first thing first, let's get Moose inside with the sheep. Josiah, you open the gate and make sure the sheep do not get out. Here he comes. There he goes. All right, this is our gate. We don't have a handle on it. I hate to go way back to the old barn and turn this fence on. Is this on? I don't know if I can— I think I cut the power to it at the gates, so there shouldn't be any power coming to this, right? Well, then you come touch it. He says I'm not gonna get shocked. He's got more guts than me, I guess.

Come on.

What do you say we move them from there to there? Let's get the sheep over.

Yeah, you want to move them?

They're eating together, look.

Okay, I bought sensitive wood and it fell and busted.

Yeah, we got this stuff at Lowe's yesterday. What are you building?

Something for all the Christmas cookies and stuff to go on.

Okay, a Christmas cookie platter.

It'll look like this.

Okay, do you think Mom's gonna go for it?

I think so. It'll look better. Okay, screwed in straight.

Well, let's get a picture and go find out. Oh my gosh, get him out of our raised deck.

He's the one that's from the butcher.

We got our— wait, we will harvest him tomorrow. Beautiful one.

Hey, this is what I'm pretty much gonna make, but it would be more on center and nicer.

Oh, okay.

Would you use that?

Sure.

Okay.

I saw that from 2 years ago on Christmas Story where the kid gets a BB gun.

Oh, okay.

All right, bedtime. Do you think this tree sucked up any water? I don't know. I don't know how much they put in there, but there's that much in there. It doesn't look any brighter. Rebecca seems to think the leaves aren't as dry, but they still feel pretty dry. Anyway, earlier I talked about the 12 Days of Christmas, giving you guys a bunch of stuff while I talked to my assistant Heather. Heather, you're so good. Thank you, Heather. Everybody say thank you, Heather. She got up the signup page so you guys can go sign up. And if you sign up now, even though the 12 Days of Christmas doesn't start till Christmas Day, I'm gonna go ahead and give you the first 3 parts to my Intro to Permaculture course now, immediately. Like, sign up, get that now, and then get all the goodies of the 12 Days of Christmas. It's gonna be fun. Check out that link in the description.