I couldn't Move these 150K LBS of Logs until this Excavator Showed Up

Oh my word, that's a tower of eggs. We gotta stay consistent like that or they're gonna eat it. That's a sign that somebody's eating eggs. I mean, not a whole bunch, but come on, gotta get them their calcium. I just wrapped up a bit about— I taught this system. I gave you guys a tour of the chicken system. Doesn't stink, beautiful enough for your front yard, makes compost. Compost feeds the garden, the garden feeds the chickens. Good morning, beautiful. What you listening to out here?

Listening to Joe Rogan. Joe Salton's on it.

That's interesting. What are they saying? What are you learning?

Well, he's talking right now about just the broken food system and how, um, big, big plants operate, big processing plants operate, and why, um, they're having issues right now with the pandemic and all of this. So it's very interesting.

Um, why is old Uncle Joe's on— Joel's on there? Yep, you always got something good to say.

Yeah, he does. And, and I mean, I'm learning about him. He had— they have, um, a processing, a butcher facility that they've owned for 10 years.

I didn't know that.

Like, Joel's a very complex gentleman. He, he does a lot of things. Yeah, that you don't expect. I mean, I guess I would expect that from him, but that you just don't know.

Yeah, the instant chicken garden miracle jamming. The pumpkin, I don't know, might be struggling a little bit with that leaf. Let's see what we got there, see if that helps it a little bit. A garden explosion after the rain. Oh, the carrots! What's the deal with the carrots? Did they sprout? Oh, oh, oh! Oh, we got carrots, but we also got mucho weeds. That's okay. We painstakingly weed this once by hand and we'll get our carrots cleared up. But we got carrots, guys. We got carrots. It worked. We put this on, this, the slow cover on, Agribond, to germinate them, and it worked. It also got the weeds up, but Next time I think we'll take care of the flame eater. Uh-oh, our overflow's overflowing. Hopefully it's just filters clogged. Oh boy.

Oh yeah, there's just the filter.

There we go. Good deal. All right, what chores we got left, Jonah?

Only the pigs.

Only the pigs. Okay. Hey, put our plumbing stuff back from yesterday so that next time I go to do it, it's all there like it was. We're gonna have more skin today, so let's go ahead and get rid of all that. Let's just fatten up these pigs going into the butchering on Thursday.

We figured out how this works.

Oh.

Okay, good. Now do you know how to release it?

Yeah, yeah, let's watch.

Nice, good job. Here, boys, help us get these skim milk buckets up for the today's milking. Thank you, thank you. Not today's milking, today's cream separating. Hey, you got a lid back here? Okay, do we need it? No, it's just a spare. Okay, Grandma coming down to help cream separate. Oh my word, look how tall and big! You're ready to go out soon. What about the little ones? They got their feathers. What do you think, John? You want to put them out next week?

Sure.

To put our turkeys out. Okay, so let's turn the lights off. Let's start hardening them off.

Okay, for the all— all time?

All Yeah, yeah, because the little ones got their feathers. Just harden them off over the weekend. We'll put them out next week. Hey, did y'all move the luchadors? Yeah, good job. The Holler Boys visiting us a little bit here. It's gonna be a little hard to see there, guys. Hey, where'd our snow scrape go? It was right there. Is it up there?

There it is.

Oh, there's some of it down there. All right, try the brush end though.

Kind of. Really? We need a squeegee.

Here, that's kind of working.

That'll do it.

Boy, it's good to see the sunshine. See if we got a slide today.

We're doing pretty good.

Dries out pretty quick. Hey chickens, how you like the silo pasture? That's your first time in there, isn't it? You love it too, don't you? Holy smokes, they hungry! You hungry? I had to put a little bit of a taller pig net because they were jumping over it. They're gonna see this and jump over it. Enjoy my last few days with you guys. You've been so good. You're so fun. I enjoy raising you so much. You're so fun to raise, and you're so good on this farm. Do so much for us. You don't just feed us— they don't just feed us delicious pork. They till up our pasture. Bringing up seed, grass seed that powers the, the lambs, the cows. Gosh, indispensable, indispensable. Should I get a hug for next week before they go? Bacon, will you let me hug you? Oh yeah, they can let me hug her. Oh, hey, okay, okay, okay. Why didn't I open this out there? I don't know. Bury that face in skin. Bury that. Oh my gosh, slow down. Hey, you guys, you guys see what's happening? We're feeding the pigs from the cows. That's our waste. That's our skim milk. It fattens pigs like no other.

See, they're huge.

And the pigs are feeding the cows. They're stirring up grass seed for the— Do you get it? Do you see what's happening? You don't need two operations. This is just one operation. It's all working together. And I'm finishing these hogs off. They're going to butcher next week. I didn't feed any grain. This is food scraps. This is scraps from our garden, and this is skim milk, 100%.

She's like, I have a distraction to eat skim milk.

Did you, did you feed the piglets? Yes. Good man. Will you get my cows in?

Sure.

Jonah's going to take the cows. I got fooling around last week and didn't get— we like to milk a little early on cream separating day. A little bit of trouble. Got in a little bit of trouble. Not gonna happen this week. I'm up here turning around. I can't help but notice this. Look at this. This barbed wire is practically in the center of this little tree. Well, little tree, big tree. Grandpa would have put this barbed wire up along our boundary line, and this tree would have been to right there. That's neat. They are out of water. I don't want to go turn this fence off, so let's see if we can push it down with our bucket. It's kind of hard when the bucket's full.

Yes!

Really getting full-face tobogganing today. Here you go, chickens. Chicken, chicken, chicken. Doesn't work the same. Chicken, chicken, chicken. It's not the same as sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, or pig, pig, pig, pig, pig. Chicken, chicken, chicken. Don't work, doesn't work. Look, I'm just in time. You got down here with the cows, I can open the gate for you. That was the furthest pasture. We're only getting closer now, Jonah. Should we put this back up in case Stud comes? He hasn't been going through. We are right on time for the ladies. Boys are getting the cows set up. I'm gonna go get the milk supplies. Hey, good morning! Look who's on time— me! Are y'all on time? Oh snap, that's okay. So we're so sorry, I got you.

I need to get your tumbler if I can.

Okay, do you want me to get the rest of the milks out? Oh, the tumbler. I can get the rest of the milk.

Get the rest of the milk.

All right. Hey, why am I going to get all this milk? Hey boys, hey boys, boys, can everybody come here? We got to get the milk out of the fridge real quick. If we all work together, it'll go mucho fast.

Ready to go.

Hey you guys, we all work together, get get these milks in really fast. Okay, let's all work together. Get all these milks in real quick. It's all in our cold room. Go in there and start getting stuff out. Hey, while you guys are getting that, I'm gonna look at something. We have hooks for hanging our pork overnight. I don't think we're gonna use it though. I think we're actually gonna keep them in their food-grade barrels, but we'll store them in here overnight. Mucho leche. Let's get it out. You know what I just said? No.

We're gonna get the leche.

Yeah. You know what I just said?

What?

Mucho leche.

Mucho milk.

A lot of milk. Hey, whoever helps get out milk, it's a big cold glass at breakfast. Oh, Mr. Brown's showing up. Munchie's got it. Jonah's got it. You want this milk too? This is, uh, Jack, you got it? Yeah, grab all that milk. All of it. Yep, still more here. Heads up, heads up, still more on the bottom. One, and check those coolers. All right, you dry those off. Okay, there you go. We gotta set it down there because we don't want to scratch up the counter. All right, now do it one at a time. Thanks, my man. We got a dog training session going on.

We do.

Teddy has a little hard time with guests, doesn't he?

He does. So we're trying to get him used to people.

He just get— they just give him snacks. I think Munchie won his heart though when he petted his belly. Yeah, give a hug before I go. I got it to you on time. Are you guys on time today? No, behind today. Oh my gosh, the day I'm on time, y'all are behind. And when you're on time, I'm behind. Okay, it's a race. Here's a little reward. Oh, watch this. Watch this. Sit. Good, good.

There we go.

Let him, let him scavenge a little bit. He likes a banana. That's like an ultimate treat for him, a banana or apple. Did you get it? Did you get it? Hey, you haven't gotten it yet. That's good. Give him a little, uh, work. Our dog trainer taught us that, you know, dogs, you know, in the wild or came from, they didn't have no bowl with food in it. So it's good to like mimic a scavenge, uh, scavenging situation. Situation. Now I know Teddy is far from a wolf, but still, he's still got some of those instincts. Thank you, Aunt Flossie. Hey, what y'all need?

Help us. You too.

Have you filled up that with alfalfa? Yeah. Good for you guys, man. You guys are handy to have around. All right, heads up.

All right, all right, y'all think you can get it from there?

Yeah. Okay, now don't let it fall off. Somebody's got to hold it steady.

Monkey, can you hold it steady?

Yep, there you go. How's it going in here?

We're far behind you.

We're going—

okay, going great, but this is what I like. I like it.

You'd rather me be ahead? Yeah, correct. Okay, you'd rather me be waiting on you than you waiting on me? Correct.

Yeah, because it's sharper.

Grandma's putting together the cream separator. Do you know off the top of your head what kind of cream separator that is?

It's a Milky FJ130, I think.

Wow, that's impressive.

Well, only because I looked it up in the last month.

How hot are we?

Probably not.

You got to get it up to 100 degrees.

Yeah.

Is it still considered raw after 100 degrees, or when's that— when's the cooking point?

Um, uh, it's, it's like 113 or something. Okay, I think they say.

So to switch it, you hold up the jar real close. Yeah. And then you move it over. Good job. She's a good little helper. I've got them our milk. She's got the cream separator warming up. All right, I'm gonna go get the second cow. Lily's learned how to put Flossie out. I think I might be getting in the way. No, here, let me hold this. Lily, you can put this seat here and it'll hold this door from, uh, from, from closing. I'm not gonna mess with it otherwise. Come on, Mustang. All right, she's bossing me around now. That's good, I like it. All right, Miss Thing, what, 5 more days milking you? Oh yeah, yeah, just give her a little tiny bit because you have to feed her 2 and a half scoops today. Okay, half a ration. We're starting to dry her off. Excavator guys are back. I don't think they'll be doing any excavating today, but they are working on Grandma and Big Daddy's things and bringing us some logs. They're clearing up there, getting us some logs. They're clearing for them and getting us some logs for our shed. We're going to build our own shed from wood off the farm. And let's see, is that— is that lumber? I think that's lumber. Woo!

Oh, he sink big time. Oh no, hopefully we're not stuck.

Oh, he got right out. Huge hole. Boom!

Oh my God, wow! Oh my word!

Huge hole. Oh, nothing major. A couple times, nothing major though. No. Okay, good. Look how deep this sunk in. Hopefully they'll have some ideas how to compact this. Well, all that rain, what it's done is run down and run the ditch, and I bet that's where we Dug that ditch too for the drain. What do you think? Uh, probably. So it's extra soft. They get you some milk? They get you some milk? Hey, how'd it go? Is she kicking?

No, I have to give her another scoop so she wouldn't.

Oh, oh no, we gotta, we gotta wean her off, remember? Okay, it's okay. Give her some hay if you want to give her something. Okay, good thought though. Oh yeah, well, she knocked over the bucket and just walked right out. We didn't shut— you guys shut the— you guys shut the stanchion, and she's eating alfalfa. Boy, so much for rationing you. Yeah, she still probably got less. All right, get back in there. We got to finish you off. You don't have a calf sucking. Oh boy, oh boy. Come on. Come on. All right, we're gonna have to— we're gonna have to put a little bit of alfalfa in there just to get her to go in. Come on, Jonah, go get her some alfalfa. Okay, Lily, you'll get it. Come on, Miss Phyllis. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Go give her some pressure from behind. I'll stop her from the side. Good boy, that did it. All right, come on, just a little bit. Not even that whole thing, just a little bit.

Here.

We forgot to put the, the head gate shut. All right, so she stepped in it. She's almost done. I don't think it's worth washing. I'm just gonna milk this out for the pigs. Here they come again. Well, this, this thing will help compact it, that's for sure, won't it? Big load. They didn't sink this time. Wow, much, much better that time. Barely sunk in. I just asked him what he thought it weighed. 50,000 pounds. We got 100— we got 150,000 pounds of lumber right there. Holy smokes. Grandpa's barn. Have I ever talked to you about Grandpa's barn? He bought this burl hauler 1932, Depression was on. $500. Built this barn not long after, so it's probably 80 years old. There were just hand tools, no power equipment. Rumor is no measuring tape. Locust posts from the land. Hired a mobile sawmill for the lumber. Sure, metal roof. But here we are enjoying it almost 100 years later. We need a shed. We need a shed for our wood chips, our firewood, hay, equipment. We could buy a metal kit, they come and install it, but I don't know. What if we built something in the spirit of Grandpa's barn right there? A shed out of wood from our own farm. Metal roof. What if we did that? Now I don't think I'm gonna need 150,000 pounds of lumber. We don't just have lumber, we have logs that wasn't good for lumber. Another pile over there from our silvopasture project. Currently in our house, we do have a wood stove, a 70,000 BTU Yodel heating our living areas. Doesn't quite heat the whole house, so we're heating heating with fuel, with oil fuel and electric heat pump. As much as I love the grid, it's still more exciting to me, especially if we can get rid of— not need our oil, right? And not need the electricity for heat. If the power goes out, we're all right, which by the way, we plan on getting a mega generator. But heat and hot water heat It's a big bill. And we've got all this wood. What if we could supply all our heat with a wood boiler, which is a big outdoor stove for our house? I think I see that in our future more and more. We started with food. We need it for our health and our energy. And now we're moving into the energies of the home. Hey, I'll let you in. I'll let you in. All right, go ahead, buddy. Well, shoot, there's milk right there. I can't just let you in. All right, so it's both inside and your mom's in there. I know, it's exciting, it's exciting. All right, let's go in. Peanut, they'll go right past the skim milk to see you. Hey, baby. What'd you do, burn yourself?

I did, I burned my arm.

Oh no. It's all right. All right, it's gonna be fine.

I just— I didn't do it too long ago, so that's why it hurts.

I'm gonna put him right here. Okay.

Good boy.

Good to be loved, huh, Beck?

Yeah, he loves me. He's licking the butter off.

Such an excited love.

An infatuated love. Are you infatuated with me?

But tell the wagon, buddy.

Are you infatuated, huh?

What you doing?

I'm just adding some yogurt to the cream. I'm only making a pint because we don't, we're not eating a lot of cultured cream all of a sudden.

Okay.

I want to save as much cream for ice cream as possible.

And you'll just make sweet butter or?

Yeah, I'll just make sweet butter if we have leftover, but we have a lot of butter because I've been making butter since January.

Yeah.

So we have quite a bit of butter. We're you know, drying off Phyllis right now, but, um, she'll— well, she'll calve. I'm kind of sad that we're missing out on this spring butter, but it's fine.

How many dishwasher loads is that?

This is just a second.

Just a second of 4, right?

Uh, we might not because we, um Yeah, we might have 3 today because we had less milk because we didn't use— we didn't have 4 pots.

We only used 3 pots. Okay, mint chocolate chip, is that in our future?

Yep.

The excavator's back. Y'all are back. Doing it right there. So he's going to move these logs so that I can come in with my tractor straight on and not at an angle. And we'll get— come in with my tractor to load. We're gonna hire a sawmill, a mobile sawmill. Just like that, that big machine has moved 150,000 pounds of blocks. Now they're extending our driveway here, parking lot slash truck trailer turnaround.

Time.

Still more of these.

How's the ice cream party? Is it worth it doing the chores? Just remember that when we go do chores in the rain this afternoon.

How is it, Beck?

It's just like I remember it as a child.

First time having raw ice cream, homemade, homegrown. Really good.

Mint chip is one of my favorites, and this is like spot on.