In this farm‑vlog episode, Victor Justin Rhodes and his family spend a snowy day on their homestead harvesting fresh colostrum from their newly‑born calf and the cow Harriet, then turning the first‑three‑days’ colostrum into a low‑heat, no‑bake gut‑healing custard. While the custard simmers, they troubleshoot frozen water nipples by suspending a trough heater with a zip‑tie, discuss the challenges of keeping water flowing during a cold front, and showcase a clever hack to keep the water around the nipple warm. The vlog also documents milking Harriet for the fourth time, emphasizing the importance of colostrum for a newborn calf’s gut seal and the benefits of raw, grass‑fed, non‑vaccinated milk. A dead snapping turtle found in the chicken coop is examined, cleaned, and slowly simmered for several hours to create protein‑rich feed for the chickens, with a discussion of safety concerns about cooking a long‑dead animal. Interspersed throughout are family interactions, jokes, and a project to finish a new bookshelf dubbed the “dream library,” which they attempt to load with books before the day ends. The video blends instructional content (colostrum custard recipe, milking technique, equipment hacks) with personal homestead storytelling, showcasing self‑sufficiency, raw‑food nutrition, and collaborative family labor on a cold winter day.
Chapters
We got a brand new calf, which means we have brand new colostrum. We've taken the harvest from the first 3 days of milking, which is a lot of colostrum, and we're going to turn it into a gut-healing colostrum custard. And hopefully we finish our dream library. And while we're cooking that custard, let's cook up a storm on such a snowy cold day. If adults acted like kids with the morning fire. Hey, Mom. You beat me. Is this what we're doing? Pulling the chair? Uh-huh. One foot away from the fire? Look at turkeys out there in the snow. Don't worry about your chickens. You got turkeys, wild turkeys right here. Don't worry about your chickens. They're okay. Oh, you guys gonna get done today? Yep. Are we going to be putting books on this new shelf? Yes, I hope so. It's a snowy day. What is this? We get snow now all the time? Good day for an inside project like finishing our dream library. Wait a minute, what is this? A snapping turtle? Dead? In the chicken coop? No booster turtle. Let's see what's up with this snapping turtle. Hey, do you know there's a snapping turtle in the chickens? Yeah, we found it at the lake, but hoping they would eat it. Yeah, they haven't eaten it. You think the pigs might eat it? We want— we want to keep the shell. Oh, oh yeah, you better give it to the chickens then. Lily getting water. Lily, you may not need it. The pigs' water might be working again. Maybe things have thawed out enough. Still big chunk of ice underneath. Is certainly water. See if that nipple is frozen. Still frozen. I got an idea though. 10-cent tool right here. Probably more like a penny. Aaron, a member inside Abundance Plus, joined my family inside of Abundance Plus. Niece, Uncle Justin, nieces and nephews also helping me out. You know how our trough heaters at the bottom of these 50-gallon drums— I can't do it. The cord is caught up in the ice, but the idea, which is brilliant, is to take a zip tie, just pull the heater up and suspend the heater around the nipple so the water around the nipple is the warmest. Brilliant. That little hack could have very well meant we weren't hauling water during that crazy cold front. Fourth day milking Harriet. And calf. We're calling it February. Her— we got our rain. We mixed everybody together. Calf's doing fine. Let's, uh, let's isolate Harriet and the calf for the milking time. Start with the dominant cow. All right, Miss Thing, she says thanks for the butt pat. No, I want you to move. Come on, clear the way. Sneak up on her. All right, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, go with Mama, go with Mama. All right, that was pretty smooth. Yesterday was our 4th time milking Harriet. It went very smooth. I wonder if that was— hopefully our luck will continue. I don't know if they mean to, but this pail that's always left behind in the morning is handy. Can I get this in here without being bothered by everybody? She's already putting her head through there. I think it's gonna go pretty easy. She already stuck her head through there. Too bad it's not open. All right, Harriet, come on, come on. All right, maybe she needs a little coaxing. Really, really, come on. You did so well. Come on. There you go. Oh, come on, you got it. Cap's with you. You're good, you're good, you're good, you're good. There you go. Come on, you put your head in already. There you go. Good girl, good girl. Look at that, look at that. There we go, good girl. Good girl. You don't want to make it easy for me. Do you want to get your colostrum milk from the first 3 days? There's probably not maybe much, if any, on this 4th day. Of milk. So we have plenty though from the first 2 days. I've saved at least a quart. What colostrum does, and then why it's so important for this little calf to get it in its first hour or 2 hours, just seals the gut and sets it up for good health in the future. I'm continually trying to nurture and minister to my gut. And so I'm excited though. It has been 2 times a year I've been able to get colostrum custard, but now it'll be 3 because we now have 3 cows. This kind of stuff you just cannot buy in the store. And so that's when really growing your own food sets itself apart for us, is we're growing things that you just simply can't buy. I mean, A2, A2 raw milk, mineralized, not vaccinated, not dewormed, 100% grass-fed sheep— forget about finding that. And if you do, it's going to be very, very expensive. No dewormers. No vaccines. Good luck, good luck finding that. Natural pure minerals, free of chemicals. They're not just getting a salt lick with all kinds of crazy stuff in it. 100% grass for you guys. And the reward for standing there being milked, eating all the alfalfa, is you get let go. The boys found this dead snapping turtle today. We're gonna turn it into free Chicken food. Where'd you find this thing? You want to carry this? It's getting heavy. The lake. And it was dead? Yeah, it was dead on the ice. Probably died from exposure. I heard stories of my granny grew up in the old farmhouse over there with my dad over there in the '30s. You didn't grow it, you didn't eat. She knew how to— when somebody could catch a snapping turtle put it in a barrel, fatten it up for a while, and then kill, cook, and eat. Because we don't know how long that thing was dead, we're not gonna eat it. Should probably get the stove out in the open. I recently learned this trick from the Outdoor Boys video when he recently harvested a walrus and saved its skull. That's looking better, but still needs a little bit more boiling. I think we can do the same thing with this. Get it boiling, let it boil for a while, and then simmer it for 4, 5, 6 hours. Or do we just boil it the whole time? Are you sure? It smells gassy. No, that's not good. Who knows how long this thing's been in there. They're not going to eat it as it is. Let's see if we can boil this thing. All right, you got a lid for that? Okay, don't put so much in there that we can't immerse this guy. We're gonna let the turtle come up to boil. Meanwhile, let's get going on this colostrum custard. Hey, looks good in here, honey. What is going on in here? We're building a little fort. Fort Dime. Let's at least get this out, start coming to room temperature. Boiling. That's kind of creepy. Tail's sticking up there. Hopefully that'll cook not being submerged. First time cooking a snapping turtle, y'all. Let's turn it down. Let's let it simmer for 2 hours. Come on, check on it. Kind of a pain cooking way over here. I thought I should probably sneak and cook this inside. I'm glad I didn't because it sort of smelled. The beautiful woman would freak. Colostrum, here we come on today's episode of Burning Up Cooking Show. Colostrum custard, no-bake. You keep it as raw as possible, although we're probably gonna have to go to 130 degrees. Still, it's not boiling. Got a saucepan. A quart is 4 cups of material. Thank you. A little yellow, that's good. For once, it's not high heat all the time on the Burn It Up Cooking Show. It's low heat. Low, low and slow. A cup of honey, is that too much? That's what we do in our tea. Yeah, that's probably too much. Quarter cup of honey. A couple pinches of salt. We need to constantly stir this until it gets about 130, 140, and it's gonna stick to the spoon at that point. Don't need any eggs, we don't need any starch. It's just colostrum, and there's some milk in that, I'm sure. It says it's going to solidify at about 855 or thicken at about 55 Celsius. That's 130 Fahrenheit. This is 70 Celsius. What's that? Whatever that is in Fahrenheit. Because of the immune— immune immunoglobulins. So we're looking from a milky context to a silky cushion. Hey, you doing it! High shelf. It's a really high shelf. That's okay, that could be decoration. To see what? People are gonna come up here and be like, what's up there? They're gonna say, wow, this is impressive. Is that a clock? Is that a clock? That's gonna be really neat, boys. Maybe getting books on that shelf by the end of day. All right, 60 Celsius. Still very milky. It hadn't changed into silk. I guess we'll keep going. I may need the consultation of the beautiful one. It's supposed to suddenly go into a creamy porridge thickening. I just noticed it said to stir constantly. Whoops. Okay, we gotta be on this more. Looked into it, it says don't stop for a second moving it, and I may need to go to 80 to 90 Celsius just before boiling. It says once it starts turning, it can happen in 30 to 60 seconds. So let's keep going. I guess there's Probably more milk than colostrum. It's rather liquidy and not so thick. Still see steam coming off of it, so that's good. I had to take it off the heat real quick to research, put it back on. We're approaching 70 again, and I feel like I'm feeling its thickness, and it's— it's— I can't really scoop any milk up on it. Something's happening. The magic might be happening. I think we're almost 80, and I'm feeling some magic. Okay, whoa, it's way more creamy. Oh look, it's starting to stick to the spoon. Let's see what happens if we get to 80. It's still steaming, so I imagine we're losing some water, which is good. Is this worth it? I don't know, I feel like I'm going to be stirring this for an hour. I'm thinking I'm going to call this. What do y'all think? Sticking to the spoon. Teaspoon vanilla. I think it's time to dish it out. Wow. Okay. I think I could eat all that in one sitting. Lastly, a bit of nutmeg, a bit of cinnamon, and fridge it. Wait, wait, it said let it come to room temperature first. Prevent separation and watery spots. Next up, I'm excited about this— our acorn squash. Beauty must have tried 3 different times, 3 different kinds, 3 different ways. It never germinated. So we went to the local farmers market last week and got this weird squash. It'll do for Gaps pancakes. So I've already cooked it. All I've got to do is just save it in a jar for tomorrow. Oh, they say they're done. Oh, even decorated it with some ammo, huh? Even made a stand for my guns. Yeah, this is awesome. That's a dream come true, Jonah. Look at that. Can't even get it all in frame. That's great. Gonna do webinars right here. Look at that background. That is cool. It looks so good. Yes, except for the gun. Uh-oh, what happened to my trim? Oh, that's the rough. That's what happens when you have boards flying. That's what happens when you have boards flying. Don't look for the bad, look for the good. I think you need to put bookends or something on the end, or some decorations or something. On what? All the way. See, don't go all the way to the end. Yeah, you don't want to push a leftover nacho right into making supper. Billy's doing some garlic for it. I just got the alarm for the custard. 6 overnight hours is good. I, I think I'll put it in the fridge. We'll enjoy this. Let's see if it's solid enough. Nope, it's still quite— it's a little more jello-y. Just thought we'll have to check on the the turtle real soon. Let's finish searing this, go check on that turtle. Looks good. Oh shoot, the lid's coming off. Okay, still in water though. Does he fall off the bone yet? Try him. It's been 2 hours. Oh wow, it's coming apart. Oh no, that's just a hole. Oh yeah, that's, that's his flesh. There's, there's bone underneath that. Hungry? We'll set it for another 2 hours. Henry, you want to help me put children's books on this? Let Mama work. Let's get all our books from there and up there. We got about an hour, hour and a half. Let's try it. We are making progress, although I think I'm running out of energy. I don't think I'm gonna get to the books upstairs. Shall we go check on this turtle? I think it's all falling off the bones yet. Oh wait, it's coming apart! I got the bottom off. Look at that. Yeah, I love that. Oh no, the shell broke in half. The boys will be mad at me. All right, so there's a shell. It broke in half though. Maybe I cooked it too long. Look at that, that'd probably be real tasty right there. No, this, this turtle had been dead a long time. You certainly could. It'd probably be really good. 4 hours of cooking later, I think we have something that chickens weren't about to touch. It's too tough to something they're about to go crazy on. Be warned, vegetarian-fed chickens, they're not vegetarians. You've seen them tackle that turkey. Out of the fridge. It's not as jello-y as I'd hoped, but I could have put egg, but then it's an eggy flavor. It's still good, it just didn't quite firm up, but it is really good. I'm still gonna eat it. Happy day.
