I Found FREE LAND (1/2 Mile Away)

Happy day! I cannot believe my strike of luck with finding land just 1/2 mile away. Here we're going to talk about how I did it. But first thing in the morning, we transformed our guest cabin landscape in unbelievable record time, and I finally got to eat a full, regular, normal meal with the family after fasting in the GAPS diet and so much more. Let's do this. We had to delay breakfast yesterday for various reasons. Just go watch the vlog yesterday. And we're back on eating breakfast with the sun. So good. It's hurting. We've gotten used to it. We got used to this real quick, didn't we? Eat first thing in the morning. It's nice. And then chill out. All right, I'll skip supper. They eat a lighter supper, just get digested, sleep better. And this is going great. Now we're strengthened and energized to go into the work day. Speaking of, Jonah, we better catch those cows before the calves do. Only 4 eggs left after breakfast. We'll probably use those today. Come on, chickens, come on. I ate a yogurt. Lily cooked some apples. In butter, just cooked them down. I'm at that stage in my refeeding process. I said, "Lily, did you sweeten this? It tastes like freaking candy." She didn't sweeten it, she just fried them in butter.

Oh my gosh.

Now I'm eating all the kids' leftovers. I ate yogurt and apples, fried eggs and sausage, over-easy eggs, and a bowl of soup. You taking him? Yeah, just like— gotta get going, bud. Big day today, so much to do. Here it is, crunch time on our guest cabin. The final trades are here, plumbing and electric. Then it's just floor and moving in. Cabin sidewalk, grade around the cabin, raise sidewalk steps, clean up side the cabin. We got a lot to do, but the good news for y'all is, and us, is We're gonna see transformation today. What really matters is that I learn to enjoy myself and live in the moment. That's what I'm working on right now personally. That's what these vlogs are really about, isn't it? They're not really about homesteading, although that's basically the majority of our waking life. There's a reason we homestead. And that's for health, which leads to freedom, which we have purpose, which leads to a meaningful life. But have you noticed, without somebody to share something of meaning or excitement, if you see a funny reel or have a funny joke in the movie, you notice you look at other people and you laugh with them. This wouldn't be the same if I didn't have Henry begging me to peel an apple before I go out. Wouldn't be as fulfilled. So I need to enjoy peeling this apple. You take the apple and then— A whole bucket full of protein. Protein liquids, eggs, all kinds of stuff. We have so much. It's going to be more than what they need today. I guess we'll mix it. We're gonna have to put them back on the compost because they're tearing up the pasture. We need to move them quicker. We don't have the time for that. Putting them on compost, it's fine. It'll service this pasture because they'll break down the— they'll break down these wood chips into compost, and we have material for our fields. What's your trick?

If you move them when it's hot, then they want to follow the shade.

Okay, what'd you say?

Yeah, I said make it swim away after they stole this. I want to move the chickens.

Would you do that, please? Watch this.

Whoa!

All right, don't let me down, Logan. I can't let them down either. Hopefully this protein doesn't let me down, guys. Soon they're gonna have a big jump. We're gonna have whole grains that we've soaked And then that we've sprouted— sprouting increases the protein availability. It'll get more green during the winter. Where's your clothes at? Make me look like a wimp. We did have our first full morning this morning. Get this cold exposure. That's over here recovering our— we had a little bit of wind yesterday— our low tunnels. Look at this. Why don't you look at this? Coming along nicely. This one actually might get to size by Thanksgiving. That's the goal with a winter harvest garden— get it to maturity by Thanksgiving. We have no more light, nothing's going to keep growing, and just cover it all winter. No bugs, no weeds. I did it down there and I think it's so neat I have to show you guys. We got an idea. Look. Not only does that hold it down, you could easily pick it up and get under there.

I like it.

I discovered something. You getting grounded and light in your eyes? I discovered something.

Oh, he's here.

Just roll it up on a T-post and you've hidden the ugliness of that weight. See? And you just lift it up. The leaves change, just kind of sneaks up on you. If you don't pay attention, you won't catch it. It's beautiful. We live in the most beautiful place. Four seasons, none of them too extreme for too long. Plumber here, electrician here. Now it's our job to— for us not to be the holdup, because we can control us. Filling in this sidewalk, put the gravel down, put the rocks down, fill this in with dirt, then put some compost in, grade this, clean up around here. Weren't sure if we did concrete. You know, that'd be pretty expensive. It might not be as fitting. This, this rock sidewalk is looking good next to that cabin. We've got to tackle this. Friend and neighbor Adam on the shed. We're going to divide and conquer today. All hands on deck. What do you think, Jonah? Good. Jonah's back. It's good to have you back. Yep. Jonah would probably Best get you on machines and get in. We can start if you get us— go get us a couple shovels and let's move this dirt into these cracks. But don't fill them up, leave about an inch for compost. Let's check on the trades. It's his future home. Handles are on. I mean, we could use your physical strength on this, but we need your skill more at the grading level. Jonah, you've got to— right now it's lower right here than here, so kind of needs to be built up there and just gradually, ever so gradually graded that way. There's almost a ditch right here, Jonah. It's almost like we go with that, okay, and dig that a little more, and you can just work with that, okay, to get it sloped. Nothing too dramatic. Can you get this shovel and start putting in dirt? Henry's calling. We lost him somewhere along the way. This stairs, rock stairs, that I'm really looking forward to. That's going to be really nice, connect that house with this one. But I think that's enough projects for a day, right? Clean out that shed, grade the backyard, fill in the sidewalk. We'll be doing really good if we get that done, but you gotta aim for the impossible. For extraordinary things to happen. Now, where are the socks? Okay, good, he's got the socks. Let's get your coat on.

Oh, my dinosaur!

What?

My dinosaur!

I don't know where that is.

It's up there at the bush.

Okay, well, let's get your clothes on. Dinosaur. That's what we're looking for, a dinosaur. This is what matters to him. But I gotta cherish that because it won't always be that just a simple dinosaur will be what pleases them. Haha, hot dog. Pretty soon it'll be soccer and airsoft and dirt bikes— expensive, dangerous things— and then girlfriends— really expensive things. There's your dinosaur. Jonah's grading. I feel like this is a special day, the whole family coming together on a different project. It's not necessarily food related. No, they grabbed something to put trash in. That's not terrible. Let's get the trash out from underneath it, and then you can start making wood piles here. How do you want that? But leaving room to walk through to get back there. Jenny, quickly pick up any trash. Grading this slope away from the house. Got a steel grader right there. Hey, let's get into this trash. That sidewalk actually has to go up higher there. Has to be 6 inches for code. Basically, we have a bad slope there. We're sloping inward right there. Once we get right there, it's all downhill that way and we're fine. But right here, we're gonna puddle. It's a pain to do this rework right now, but it's a lot easier right now. Here comes the boss. You think you're done? Well, I know I'm done. You know you're done? Does it still look a hair high? You want to grade this a hair more? More this way? You haven't done that yet. If you can grade that a little more. It's a little low right there where they're standing. You want to use the mini X to get rocks up here? I want to go get a wheelbarrow. It's a dumb question to a 15-year-old. Too much going on at once, and he's doing something I didn't even say. He's filling in this path, filling in our dirt path, but we're gonna make steps here. All right, I think we're gonna need more. What? We're still gonna need more. Has to be 6 inches. There's flat rocks that are down in those piles, and then there's 3 over here. Let me put them in your Mini X. Yes. Looking forward to trying this. I like landscaping like this. I think it'll be easy. You can keep doing this. Okay, we got 6 inches yet. Yep. How much is it? We should probably do a little hair more, but you understand if he comes out here and measures that, lift it up and put a tiny bit of gravel under it, but the dirt will all be on it by the end. Let's hope to God Jonah will do that. He'll pay attention, do the details, get the shovel. She likes it, Josiah. Did we rework that too where that's taller? We got the rocks down. Let's put the dirt down. Lillian, get Josiah on that. Get in. You don't need to be in the house by yourself. Come on. Check Jonah's progress. Kids like their own jobs. They like to have the autonomy with it. Can we go a little closer? Sure. Bring the rock more towards the rock? Otherwise these are great. If that's the next step, it needs to be not so high up. Oh, even Mom's getting with it. That'll be a little tiny shovel. I think you grab Gideon's— Henry's shovel. This is a little clumpy for this, so let's do a sprinkling on top. Fill the rest in with this fill dirt then. Looky here. Okay. We got dirt in here. I think we made it further than I thought we would today. How about that? This looks fantastic. Tomorrow, fire pit with our leftover rocks. The shed is coming along nicely. Randolph working on the roundabout porch, and the back house graded. We use this compost here that we couldn't put in the stone rockway. I can see a fire pit back here, people chilling in the reclusive quiet spot back here. This is most impressive of all. I didn't think we'd get this far today. Total bonus.

Nice.

It took us so long to do that. Machine helped. I guess we didn't know how easy it was going to be with that machine. You know, some projects— most of the time I underestimate projects. Today was not the case. Just keeps getting better and better. Looky here, looky here. It's been 2 weeks these have been curing out in the greenhouse. That's just 1 potato. How much? Stage 4 gaps. I mean, I can jump up to 5. I don't think there's much change. I have a burger, not in a soup, for lunch. I'm gonna try some of those sweet potatoes. Not on gaps at all, but because I'm not doing this as a gut healing thing, I'm doing this as a refeeding, I think I'm okay. Lunch! I'm excited, I get to have lunch with everybody. She's got a sweet potato recipe hooked up. Collard potatoes. Let's try it. I haven't had a burger in probably 50, 60 days. 6-year-old bull. I'm spoiled. Well, Beck, I'm excited. I get to Eat what y'all are eating. Lots of butter on the sweet potatoes. Just a little bit of sweet potatoes. This is soul food for me. We do these for boots. You did a good job sweetening them, Lily. They have a nice crisp to them, Lily. These are just perfect. You cannot, you cannot grow this in the grocery store, guys. Yeah, nutrient-dense. We're doing it, Becky. We're doing it. We got a little grocery grocery store list for you today. It's 5 items maybe, and they're supplemental. Yeah, stuff to make barbecue sauce this afternoon. Been reviewing the 40-Day Fast documentary. We got a new hack, don't we, babe?

Saving money. Yeah, buying bulk.

That's right. Our Azure drop, uh, it's over. They're truck drivers. Um, well, how do I say this? Well, I'll say the facts. They said that our roads are too— what'd they say? The roads are unsafe. Despite we probably get 1, 2 loads a month from other semi trucks for our feed. So Xura has dropped us, and I think that could be a crutch.

I think that's actually—

it was almost too convenient.

Yeah, and then I started looking at shipping and I was paying so much money in shipping.

$300.

It was— well, depending on how much you buy. Yeah, but it was negating for us. And well, no, it's 3— it's based on how much money you spend.

Right, right.

So it was $300 that one time.

Also, it's coming all the way from Oregon.

Yeah.

So here's our hack: the local co-op. You want me to tape that?

Yeah, I guess let's tape it so that I can—

You had to order this from the co-op and you think it might actually be cheaper. And it's local. We're keeping our money local.

It'll be cheaper because of the shipping. Because I'm paying about the same price at the co-op for these things that I was paying at Azure, but I'm not paying the shipping fee.

Yeah.

Which is a lot of money. I didn't realize how much I was paying. Until I looked something up and then I was like, whoa, that's way more than I thought. I mean, obviously it's not like they hid that from me. I just wasn't paying attention to it.

So things we're getting: rice, our onions. We didn't grow enough onions. We're out of our pickles.

I could buy it. I could buy a 40-pound bottle.

Just supplemental stuff. There's some barbecue sauce and ketchup. I'm proud of us. We're growing most of our own food. This is a health journey, and that's first and foremost. So happy. This is my 31 woman right here. Oh, thanks. Buying and trading, buying and selling for the household. Look at this woman getting with it. Love it. The kids will be happy. Rice is back on the menu. John came to you last night, serious conversation. He was really concerned. You thought we were gonna give up rice.

That we weren't ever gonna eat it. I was like, no, it's ordered. I have to just go pick it up.

I think Azure can almost be an excuse, like it's homesteading, but it's not because you're not growing, you're not growing it. And we realize that, and we don't want to grow our own food. But one, one thing about it though too is Rebecca and I are noticing convenience may not be our friend. Convenience may be the enemy. For example, that rice— we've not had rice for a week, and that's been inconvenient. That's been inconvenient, but it certainly hadn't killed us. And you had to go to town today. I mean, a truck didn't come down here. But the positives are we keep the money locally, we focus more and more on growing our own food, so we're independent of any kind of grocery store. And certainly we could be if in a pinch. I mean, we don't need— we could make ketchup, we can make barbecue sauce, we could, uh, we don't need— we don't need rice. We'd be okay without onions, although it's the only vegetable I like.

Next year I'm not gonna hear any complaints about my onions.

No, I'm gonna make sure.

I feel like you have—

no, I've changed.

I feel like you've been a little bit, uh, grumpy about the onion situation growing them.

I have. I'm sorry, they're a little difficult.

Well, no, I'm sorry, we're gonna use the burlap.

Okay, I apologize. We're gonna do good, but I need to review the seed time thing. Yeah, we gotta do— we gotta have some sort of plan. We decided because we haven't had a lot of germination, right? We have to have this 2-week planning week.

I want to grow my own.

One fails, we can get another one.

I want to grow my— see, look at me. This is why, because you can't necessarily get what grows well here on your land in a set form.

All right, I have changed.

You have.

Listen, you gave me that ground beef. We ate that ground beef today. I didn't like it.

You didn't?

Didn't really like that burger. I would just rather have soup.

Really?

Yeah. Wow. Oh, this is crazy. It was delicious. I'm chewing it and I'm thinking my jaws are getting tired. I mean, I haven't had to chew hard food in a while, but, but the soups are so freaking good. And if we put onions— I put onions in it and garlic.

Put that in your burger.

So what I'm gonna try to do is get y'all to eat more gaps. Chef's choice. Chef's choice. Gaps for life. Oh, when you start cooking again, I'll say, it's just what I wanted. It's exactly how I like it. So until then, Gaps is exactly how you like it.

What you mean, Josie?

Why is there someone mowing the Lynch's field? Our side? Haying it. Oh, it's that guy. He's haying it. Why'd you tell me to mow it? Why? I didn't know he was doing it. Heck yeah! Let's go see that. Let's go see. We're getting hay! We're getting hay by our own doing. All right, well, come on. Well, come on. So Josiah was gonna mow that. I didn't know this guy was gonna come. He never talked back. He never answered me. All right, open this up. Put him in the bottom box drawer. Are these getting cold? Fat old lady hens yesterday. They're appealing to me too, dude. I just used to feed those to the pigs. I didn't want to take the time to do it. Those are the best ones now. Soups, enchiladas, chicken and dumplings. Just a plain broth soup with onions and garlic in it, y'all. A little egg yolk, some sour cream, and some cultured butter. I posted a picture of my meal on X the other day. Austin and roll that. The comments— I could not believe the comments. A lot of people saying that, that's my dog food. I'm thinking if the aliens come and they see you feeding that to your dog and walking— you're probably the same person that walks behind your dog with a bag and picks up the poop behind it. If the aliens come and the dog's leading you on a leash, they're gonna wonder who's in charge. You. Let's eat the good stuff and we'll save the kibble for the dog. I'm gonna be serious about cucumbers too, Beck. Pickles. I just love to drink our brine after. Hey, you know, we could make it though. Here, I got it, I got it.

There's—

there, it's milking it now. Well, we didn't catch him, but he said there wasn't much over here worth it.

I know, he said we might have a bale.

We might have a bale. All right, well, let's see what we do have. Yeah. This will be good for it. It grew up. We have a lot of organic matter on here. Just how you'll keep mowing it, mowing on the highest setting. And maybe we'll get it in the spring. If we skip our lower pasture, it might be worth it for him to come out because he can do this pasture and that one. No, it wasn't too weedy. It was, it was good. Where'd you go? Where'd you mow, Josiah? Oh, you mowed, you mowed this whole—

those things won't cut down.

You mowed from right here over to the side. You mow from right here over, you want to knock it out for 30 minutes? Not a half a mile down the road. You just got to put stuff out there. You just got to get the leads out there. A lady's got 3 acres. We helped, we helped with some of that land after the hurricane. It's fallow. She said, go ahead, take your little cows down there and graze it. She said, we're not neighbors, you know, people aren't neighborly anymore. Putting the feelers out there. And while I caught— while I was on the phone, I think I got a call from the fella we might take our steers to. Just getting really— we're just getting really grassroots here, aren't we, Justin? Hey, we got each other! Sorry about earlier, I was— yeah. Okay, interesting turn of events. Brian, he could take our steers, but he's also got some of this unsprayed silage hay, which is gonna be really high quality hay, fescue-free. If the guy he knows has got any left, it might make sense just to keep them here and feed them hay, put them on the hurricane pasture, and just help keep our— just help rebuild the land with hay bombing. This changes everything. I mean, that hay is $50 for 800 pounds. Went around here, it would at least— right, it'd be $200 here, and it's not even silage. So it's a quarter of the price. So wait a minute, I need to mess with If that's real, why even mess with making hay ourselves? Becky, the pasture just down the road, she said just bring on— bring your cows on down, man. Oh good, let them eat. No price, I just want to be neighborly.

You should put steers there.

Okay, because it's not—

yeah, because it's not like— okay, our dairy cows need good nutrition.

We have to figure out how to get them water. How do I get them water?

We're gonna have to pump it out of the creek.

Okay, do we have a pump?

We'll have to figure that out.

Don't we have a pump somewhere? I thought we had a pump, but it— yeah, now we're in a mess, aren't we? Well, it's power.

Our children have to bucket it out of the creek and put it in something.

All right, other good news. Brian can get us $800 silage hay unsprayed for $50. For 800 pounds of hay, we'd have to pay $200. So if you can get us for $50, you can bring the beef we bought from him and hay, and we just keep the steers. Yeah, and just hay bomb and rebuild our pasture. And it makes no sense to drive them over there. Yeah, not stress them out in the trailer.

Not—

that's two— that's one hour there, one hour back, and then again. Yeah, 4 hours.

So we're gonna buy some silage from him.

Yeah, he's gonna call his guy and make sure. Good evening. Just fed the pigs. They get into Mama's feed even though we gave them this auto feeder that they can only get at. They got all you can eat. That's a testimony to soaked feed. Just smells nice and sweet, and I guess it's easier to digest, and they know it. Did you notice I've been vlogging more in the afternoon and evening? Catching more of our all-around life, not just the food growing stuff. It's because I have more energy. I can't remember the last time I've had to take a nap, and I used to have to take naps every day. Hooray for long-term water fasts! Hooray! Oh my, who cleaned the shop? Put that out with the feeders. Somehow I have it. How many eggs we get?

Uh, we got 8 from the pasture and then We got like 6, 14, 15 eggs.

Okay, let's go see. You caught somebody eating? Yes. Okay, we got to kill her. I know, feed her to the pigs.

You might still be in there.

I'm gonna kill her tomorrow. Yes, yes, right now. Yes, I thought we, we killed somebody that we thought was the broody. Whoops. I mean, not wasted, we'll eat her. Yeah, but it's not worth it. Just get one chicken for us, so feed her to the pigs. We'll turn that fat old lady hen, egg-eating broody chicken, into pork. All right, look at this. Yeah, hey, we're getting out of the egg basket to egg basket. Or are we completely out? Yeah, no, we ate every bit of the eggs. We had 3 left over. Sorry, not sorry for these terrible lights. Our bodies and our eyes go down with the sun, honoring that circadian rhythm, y'all. The sun fed me. Little pallet eggs. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. And he said the, uh, the pasture possies laid today. They must have liked all that protein we gave them, and they calmed down after the event yesterday. I mean, we did kill 20% of their flock. Set off to port. Hey, get in, get, get me some Soaked beans. We're going to soak some black beans. We're making a Brazilian black bean and sweet potato roast. What's this?

Uh, chocolate protein smoothie.

Okay, I got the black beans soaked. I can eat that with them. I won't take the rice, don't want the rice, but that'll be fun. Sweet potato black bean pork roast, Brazilian style. Let's see how it goes. Join us then tomorrow. Happy day.