In this day‑5 vlog, Victor Justin Rhodes documents a full day of living off his homestead as part of a 10‑day challenge to source roughly 98 % of his food from the land. He feeds his dogs with meat scraps, explains his diet philosophy, and highlights the environmental impact of long‑distance food transport. The video walks through numerous practical challenges: a dead electric‑fence charger and battery, testing trough heaters, dealing with frozen hoses and frost‑free hydrants, repairing an A‑arm after hitting a stump, and troubleshooting water delivery in sub‑zero temperatures. Rhodes discusses his homestead design framework, emphasizing that a homestead should be built around the owner’s “why”—whether that be environmental stewardship, regenerative grazing, or self‑sufficiency—and outlines priorities such as livestock, gardens, bees, and redundancy, offering a free PDF guide. He coordinates community assistance after a neighbor’s horse barn was damaged by a hurricane, showing how the family and friends help build temporary shelters. A brief segment introduces Kangal guard dogs, their role as property guardians, and pricing. Throughout, he shares daily chores—milking cows, feeding animals, cooking a lamb dinner with sweet potatoes and broccoli, and sending a weekly email newsletter with homestead tips. The vlog blends instructional content, personal reflection, and community interaction, illustrating the realities of a self‑reliant lifestyle.
Chapters
What I got you. Even old Winnie's eating off the land. Some meat scraps, bones. She can't wait. Go ahead. She's afraid to eat in front of me. She's still got her primal instincts. I'm the alpha. Okay, I'll leave it to it. Day of eating off the land in an attempt to be more like my relatives, where if they didn't grow it, they didn't eat it. That's what I'm doing for this 10 days, probably eating 98% off the farm. Some salt and sauces, spices, uh, salt, things like that. I walked to the general store a couple days ago like they would have had to. For the most part, it's from the land. I was reviewing the vlog and saw I was charging this, and I wondered what happened. Okay, somebody has unplugged it. We were experimenting. Is this the charger? I could probably just email Premier 1 and ask. Okay, it doesn't even turn on. Something has gotten loose in there or something. Everything looks connected. What's going on? These Energizers are very important. We want to store that for the winter. We want to charge up our batteries beforehand. These keep our animals in. It's everything. Okay, batteries are dead as a doornail. So I don't know what's up with that, but we had even— we had a red blinking light, which means the battery needs to be charged going into it, and at the end of it we have no light. Now granted, it could have been this end came apart, but it doesn't look disconnected. But maybe that jacked with it. He's drank all his water. Yeah, that's not warm. Why? I think it has to be immersed in water. See, this water is unfrozen. It's 29 degrees. You have these trough heaters in there. Why is the water not frozen? I'm gonna test it. Like he recently did this. There's a streak of water right here. Why are we down here? Be up here. I imagine that heater is working though, or the water would be frozen, right? Okay, that's working. Water would be frozen, right? What's that for? The light shows it's working, and the fact that it's unfrozen shows it's working. I guess it cycles. It doesn't— it doesn't stay hot continuously. Just said, you know where my Leatherman got put? Let's go ahead and cut this shit. I think somebody took my Leatherman. Somehow somebody left this kitchen knife out here. That's the way to do it. Yeah. Last night I just kept our heat turned up. We usually turn it down in the night. 157. Yeah, because our insulation is so efficient, it doesn't call on this wood stove enough. Is there like a fan feature? Keep that thing running. There it goes. Look at you, you're getting with it, girl. It's 13. She's singing. Get in, come shoot these sheep out. Oh, what the— can't have anything bump into you while you're about to handle electric fence, even if you know it's not on. Well, milk filtered like crap yesterday. We were trying to milk all 4 quarters. Look what I just got to come out of one of them. Yeah, we need to keep— oh wow, and you keep milking that to the ground. What? Let's let the cows have the minerals. While we get them water. Grab that cow by the horns, buddy. She's come a long way. She wasn't done with that alfalfa, huh? You weren't done with that alfalfa. Unfortunately, the hose is not going to work. It will work eventually. No, they're— I know, but they're thirsty now. You got to help me get water. It's going to be hard. I'll go strain that milk. It's going to warm up, and then— not fast enough. They're completely out. The freezing Somebody might grow their own food is for the environmental impact. You might not be comfortable with the fact that your food is— a lot of your food is coming from California and you live in North Carolina. That's a lot of trucked miles to get your food to you. From the farm, probably to the warehouse, to the truck, to the— across the country to the warehouse, to the grocery stores, to your house. It's a lot of miles. You'll probably even more so because there's less dairies. And then you have the, the environmental impact of huge factory farms. I want you to come. You can come help us get ready. I'm gonna watch Henry. Okay, and what are you gonna do? I'm gonna get rocks. I gotta go get a picture of Salma's broken arm. You guys help me out. If you're growing for the environment, I mean, I like that it's better for the environment. It's not one of our chief reasons, but maybe it is for y'all. Tell me, what reasons— what other things am I missing besides food getting trucked miles upon miles? Well, I mean, I guess the conventional way of growing food can be quite destructive. Oh boy, I forgot we still have this water to do. I'm having a hard time getting help. I need somebody else to help. I was going to fill up a tank, but that takes 2 people to lift. That's not going to be possible. Josiah wants to work on the retainer wall. Jonah wants to go get the part for Salma. I think this is empty. Broken. I need to fix that. Oh no, all the places to park right in front of the dumpster. It would have came this morning. Hoses. Hopefully these are empty of water. That one might be. This one's definitely not. It's not empty of water. We need to lay it out so it will be because cold weather's coming. This is my only chance being able to do this project by myself. Otherwise I'm gonna have to haul water, which means I'm gonna have to get help. There was a 1 in 3 chance. It was a 1 in 3 chance. Drain water out of it. We need to straighten it out down the hill. You go that way, I'll go this way. Once it thaws out this afternoon, it will run out. It is going to thaw this afternoon, but we're fixing to be to where it doesn't get above freezing for a few days. You think any of these are empty of water? Let's try it, it won't hurt. I guess I really don't want to pick up and haul water. There's ice right at the tip. Hey, that was crazy! We have an empty hose. Oh shoot, this is bad. Forgot to turn this off. Forgot to unconnect this. This is going to be frozen. Yep, it's frozen solid. Frost-free hydrant— do not forget to unhook them when it's going to freeze. Water is all up in there when they're hooked up, and so it freezes. The only reason these frost-free work is when you shut them off, the water drains out of them and goes down below the frost line. This is the routine somebody has to do after using a hose. See, we got the water to come out. Okay, let's roll them back up. Maybe if we store this in the house somewhere, we don't need it. If this is empty, it could be stored outside. You think this hose would reach from the other side? Why not from here? We can unplug it. I admittedly left this one hooked up too, so this is probably frozen, but we'll try. Yep, hopefully it doesn't break any side— anything inside there with all the freezing water expanding. I have ever done this. See, it's just a bit of a pain. Designing for environment— think about how you might design your home. If you know your why and you design your homestead according to your why— see, that works fine when it's shut off at night. If your reason is environmental, you're going to design your homestead in a different way. You're going to prioritize the growth of certain things that maybe have a harsher environmental impact. You know, there's concerns on the way conventional beef are raised, for example. So you might be wanting to raise your own beef in a regenerative, grass-fed, rotational grazing way. That might be one of your priorities. If I'm buying groceries in the grocery store, ain't nothing from my state that I'm in. A lot of it's coming from California. So then you're going to want to then prioritize the garden, always keeping your filter of, of course, grow what's close to your heart. If you don't like to eat it, don't grow it just because of the, the, uh, your environmental reasons. And certainly if you're in, in it for the environment, you're going to do this in a regenerative way. You're going to move the animals around, you're going to put them on deep bedding if they stay put, do compost. You're not going to spray any harmful chemicals, uh, you're going to do this in a regenerative, beyond organic way, and that's going to be your priority. Oh, that's probably too much. Hey, there's somebody. Hey, Where's that hay lifting girl? We're going to her friend's house. Her horse barn got hit by a hurricane— by the hurricane. We got to put some shelters up for now, help them put up some shelters before this crazy cold weather. I know it seems obvious to design your homestead according to your why and goals, but a lot of people don't think about that. If your goal is to grow most of your own food, don't get honeybees. Oh no, I know I'm gonna get crucified. Put it down. Don't not ever get honeybees, just put it down more on the priority list. Get out the gate going with meat chickens, gardens, layer chickens, eventually the honeybees. Now if you're in for the environment, honeybees might make sense and be way on top of the priority list. I've got a booklet, Design Your Best Homestead Ever. It's a free PDF, abundantpermaculture.com/honeybees. Link in the description for that. It's free. You're joining my email list. You want to open that gate for me? It really brings up a good point. We could have done buckets. That's another redundancy. I believe we talk a little bit about redundancy in that PDF. Don't knock it over, He-Man. Enjoy it. I should get them through the afternoon. Soon. Obviously she's not too parched. That's everything you need to know for designing your best homestead ever. Let's make 2025 our best year yet, right? Shoot, it's a little after 10. That was 45 minutes. Yeah, I think it would have been quicker just to take 2 loads of buckets. In our journey to be more self-reliant, we're trying to fix more of our own broken down equipment. Don't get me wrong, I am all for tapping into the community. What I believe it's called the A-arm. It's supposed to look like— this is what this A-arm looks like. I hit a stump, I didn't see it. Boys think it's as easy as just taking it off and putting it back on. I'm not so sure because there may be shocks involved, tension and stuff like that, but it's worth a try. We looked online but couldn't seem to find the part we needed, so we have to go to the store. Jonah, I just texted you the Pictures. Henry, do you want to go with me to see your friends? Yeah. Now we're off to help a friend. Everybody needs a hand. Everybody around here needs a hand from the hurricane. I don't know what tools we need, so I brought a handful. Hey, my helper's in, ready to go. Lily, get in. Henry, look at these. Kangal. She's Kangal. How much do you sell Kangal puppies for? I'm gonna sell these ones for— what do we have $750 right now. And they're guard dogs, right? Yep.
But these are amazing. These dogs, specifically the Kangals, are really good at doing property guardianship. So like with no— you know, some people would say, oh, they have no livestock, they need livestock to guard. They don't. They like to guard kids, they like to guard property. Like, they're really good at just being property guardians or kid guardians.
Where are we gonna set it up at?
So down in the horse shelter, and I mean, it can be pretty much anywhere, but I would say on the lower half.
This huge tree fell. Destroyed their fence. Miss Leslie was explaining to me the horses are fine in the cold, they're fine in the wet, but not the wet cold. Let's set it up right there. We'll be in the light, and I believe it's a little flatter. Set things into their parts. Okay, we've got everything stacked and sorted. Next No words, just the diagram. Okay, y'all can do that. Look, put one of these together. We gotta put two of these together. All right, we've been working in two dimension. Got my buddy helper here, Ethan. We're gonna put up three dimensions now. All right, let's set this up. We're gonna put two together. Got to the edge. It's supposed to— we'll pull on each side with these strings and tighten up on that. Wow, look guys! Wow, we did it! Yeah, yeah, he's doing it! We got some visitors. See, you brought the apples out. We got it enough. All right, it's too late. Took a little longer than expected. We gotta rush home, get Mama her car. She's got to go to an appointment. What are we having for dinner? We're gonna have lamb leg from the land. I vote sweet potatoes. Y'all probably getting sick of sweet potatoes. Look for a quick on-farm snack that would work. You know you're hungry. If you eat cold eggs and enjoy it. Ham from last night, cold. This is nice. Lily giving Gideon a lesson. And I'm gonna get some hot dogs. Okay, very productive. Um, one thing I did is I sent out a weekly email-ish. Weekly— I got it out today. I sent out a weekly email of 3 to 5 things, or sometimes 1. 1 to 5 things I found that week to inspire the Rooted Lifestyle. Guys, if you get that homestead design PDF, you'll also be on my email list, so you'll get that. Come get your plate, Gideon. Lamb from the land, 2 legs. Hopefully we'll have some leftovers. Broccoli. From the land. Kids are supplementing with some rice. I'm skipping it, going hardcore off the land as much as I can, probably 98%. That's our butter, a little bit of supplemental cheese, and some salt. And that's the only thing off farm. We're eating good, we're doing good. Don't get more than you can eat, okay, bro? Mom's still on her appointment. We going riding tomorrow? Yeah, Friday maybe. Sure, join us for that and day 6 of living off the land. You tired? And we forgot the acorn squash. Hey, buddy. Hey, buddy. It's dry. You win some, you lose some, and you forget some. I would love to have that. I would have 3 pieces at my— I would have 3 things at my meal. Dang. All right, let's try again tomorrow. Happy day.
