The vlog documents a single, intensive day on a family homestead as the hosts juggle a comprehensive farm‑sitter training checklist, prepare organic meals for an upcoming road trip, and ready a series of talks and displays for the Farm Machinery Show in Louisville. Throughout the day they tend to pigs, chickens, cows, and heifers—managing feeding, deep‑bedding, water lines, and health checks—while also handling infrastructure tasks like fixing a jammed door, moving hay bales, and setting up wood‑chip bedding. They coordinate a land survey for a 75‑acre pasture expansion, create posters and photos for their Kubota booth, and rehearse short educational talks on space‑efficient livestock housing. Interspersed are family moments celebrating Valentine’s Day with chocolate‑covered strawberries, flowers, and homemade cookies. The narrative blends instructional farm management, event preparation, and personal family interaction, showcasing the challenges and enthusiasm of running an organic, self‑sufficient operation on a tight schedule.
Chapters
Come on in. Good morning. I've got a chore list you can try to go over, and it can also be kind of a checklist. Maybe after you're done, yeah, make sure you go through it all. Luke is our farm sitter. Last day of training today. He does the chores by himself while I'm here, so we try out the checklist. He can get me if he's got any questions or concerns. I'll be on farm. Mama provides. What are you providing today, babe?
I am pre-making all of the food for the trip so that we don't have to like cook anything. We just have to heat it up.
We're those people, organic and homegrown all the way, even if we aren't at home. Yep. This is gonna be what it takes.
Yeah, it's a lot.
I mean, It's definitely, it's definitely a lot, but it's no organic restaurants in Louisiana.
No, there's a Whole Foods, but even then there's too many seed oils and stuff.
The plan: chicken soup, Italian spaghetti, uh, pork Italian sausage spaghetti. We got some Genuine Beef Co. grass-fed beef, some of our homegrown beef. That's gonna be— oh, taco, like a taco salad. Just the big kids are going. You looking forward to it, Jonah? Yeah, he smiled when I said that. Big kids and Henry. Little kids are holding down the homestead. Soup ends up being a very interesting, easy thing to have on the road and eat at like a— well, we're going to the Farm Machinery Show. Why don't you guys come see us in Louisville? Uh, you just put it in these thermoses and it keeps it warm. It's super easy. Yeah, come see us at the Farm Machinery Show. We'll be at the Kubota booth. We have talks, but we'll be hanging out there too after the talks. 10:30 AM, 2 PM on Wednesday the 16th, and on Thursday the 17th, 11 AM. You pushing that truck? Show them how you push the truck. There it goes. First things first, we gotta take some photos for my talks. I'm gonna do one on this setup— how to raise chickens or pigs if you don't have much space. You make them even happier, put them in a greenhouse in the winter. Let's get a big good picture of this setup. And over here, let's just get a closer-up shot of the pig setup. Let's check, see how Luke's doing. He would have already done the wood furnace. Can I do it? Yeah, lift it up. Part of him doing it while I'm here is I can check on things. Whoa, that's pretty good. I think that'll last him until the afternoon. This, I'm excited about teaching this at the event. Just little talks, just little 15-minute talks, and then big hangouts. With you guys. Let's get a shot of this deep bedding system. And I'm excited about this because it's not the normal homestead crowd. This is gonna be new, kind of hopefully blow your mind kind of info for them. Also want to get the Kubota, get a big hay bale in here for him so you don't have to save him a little bit of trouble. How's it going out here, Luke? Oh, figured it out little by little. Sorry, you'll be— you'll have it dialed in by day 3. Yeah, there's all the little things I'm picking up already that make it harder or easier. So nice, you'll be running it smoother than me before I get back. Let's see when Printville opens. Maybe I can call them right now. Closed, opens at 9 AM. We'll come back in 30 minutes. We're getting posters of some photos I've taken for my talks. Cool, at the event. So we probably want a foot and a half. About 2 or something, somewhere around there, whatever the proper dimensions are. Oh wow, look, Gideon, a beheaded rat!
Yeah, nice.
I wish those cats would go over more towards the greenhouse where the chickens are. There's a huge infestation right now. How do you do on the heifers? Clean water, clean bedding. Clean water back there. Hey, you're doing good. How's it going, Luke? Good. Any questions, comments, derogatory remarks? Not yet. Every single one of those zip ties was busted off. Well, we about doubled the zip ties, but he came over here and nibbled at them. Are you breaking them with your teeth? Pigs are smart, and that's possible. But Luke was telling me about metal zip ties. We may have to go there if we need to. Thank you, Gideon, for your help. We'll do the water in the afternoon. We'll let the water lines unfreeze. Oh, we could do the deep bedding in here. And the hay bale. But let's go call about my pictures. It's 9 o'clock. How's it going in here?
Good, good.
Oh my, it's going really good. Valentine's Day, you are making chocolate-covered strawberries. I like it. Hey man, uh, can I get you 3 photos and get 3 poster boards by the end of the day? What's up, Luke? So, um, the apple cider vinegar, is that going in, uh, I never showed you how to do that, did I? It's going in her house. What's this to do with that? Yep, this is actually full. Did you do that? You didn't do that because you need to know where it is. I mean, I knew— yeah, you'll do that in the afternoon. It's over here. Yeah, and you stir it up to get the mother off the bottom or whatever. Okay, and then you put 2 scoops of that in there. We don't need to leave our farm sitter with any projects. Let's get some wood chips to the pigs. Get kind of stinky in there. There. 2 loads, maybe 2 more. Yeah, cuz look, look at their poop pile over there, honey. We got to spread it out pretty good. Luge called me over to check Flossie. Have you milked everybody? Milked everybody? Did the other cow? There's, there's probably still milk in the also the far left. Okay, all right, well then let's You're gonna have to, in that case, just give her more alfalfa. Okay, yeah, you literally ran out, but this is your first day, man. Let's get some more alfalfa. There's grace when there's alfalfa. Now you might feel her udder is hard. Yes, it doesn't mean anything. That doesn't mean it's full, it just means it's infected. All right, Luke will finish it off. Well, I just took care of those guys. Yes! Okay, those are surveyors. We're getting our total 75 acres surveyed so that we can properly— we're going to do some pasture expansion. We're going to convert some of these, more of these forests into pastures. We don't want to encroach on neighbors. We want access roads so we can access our entire property. Again, don't want to encroach on neighbors. And we want to find springs, not on neighbor properties. And it just so happens, by the all if they come across water, they have to mark it. So they might find some of the springs. Ah, ah, this joke. I've called Randolph. He's gonna hopefully come by. I don't think I have time to replace this. Can you go in there and unlock, unjam the door? It's not locked, it just gets jammed. Well, that was quick.
You need to have Randall fix that.
This isn't the first time we've had this problem. Let's move this feed back because we're gonna get the one female over here. They're bred. He kind of picks on her for the food. Jonah, you watch her.
Let me go in with the wheelbarrow.
Y'all sling some of that to their poop pile, okay? Or better yet, put it on the poop pile. Good, good job. Show us how it's done, Jonah. Pop us a wheelie. Come on, yeehaw!
Come on!
How's it going in here?
Good, we're almost done.
Smells delicious. What do we do, have some Valentine's Day decorations?
Yes, and she's chief decorator here.
Nice. You got me swinging today, Jacob? Yep, 50 swings. We did 25 last week. Big boy, big boy. Yes, jumping me right back in. That's a little more, a little medium boy. Well, Randolph's here. That's good, but he is blocking the way to get this hay bale. Randolph!
Hey!
We're gonna solve this problem once and for all. I don't know, this thing's giving me a fit. Oh, now we're doing a twisty knob, huh? Yeah, I went to a heavy duty knob. There you go. These things only make them so heavy duty though, don't they? Yeah, they leave a little bit to be desired. Can I move your van or have you move your van real quick? Yeah. How's it going in here?
It's going good.
Well, that's, that's my line today, isn't it?
I already baked my cookies.
Nice chocolate-covered strawberry display. Mama's soup. Afternoon chores. Uh-oh, either we're coming into egg season or we forgot to get eggs yesterday. We're getting the pigs the extra eggs. We've cleaned the bucket, uh, the water barrels. You guys are on it? They're gonna clean the other one. Randolph fixed our door.
Okay, we've got noodles cooking.
Whoo!
Super flowy. The chicken soup. Chicken's still cooking. Got the pork. I've got guacamole made. Salsa is already in the fridge. And then I'm going to make— I've got my tomato sauces here. And I'm gonna make, um, the tomato sauce, and then I'll mix it all together. I've got— I bought some ricotta cheese, so it'll kind of be like pork noodles, ricotta cheese, and a tomato sauce, like a spaghetti sauce.
You've been a busy bee down on the streets, tired.
I'm very tired.
I'm at it all day providing. So we have an appropriate shirt for today.
Tomato soup, chicken pot pie soup. One will stay here to feed the people that stay behind, and one will go with us.
She's got some broth, we got some salsa for our Mexican, some guacamole. I had these flowers picked up just for you. Me? It's a Valentine's Day present. Oh, so happy Valentine's Day. Will you be my Valentine? Yeah, you can do whatever you want with those. Okay, what are you gonna do with them? Probably put them in my room. Okay, and when I'm gone tomorrow, you can remember that I love you. Okay. Thanks, Grandma, for picking those up for me. Oh, you're welcome.
Happy Valentine's Day.
Breakfast for dinner. How'd it turn out, Beck? Pretty good. You want to try? Try a little bacon? Oh yeah. Time for strawberries and cookies. Look at those. Are they as good as they look? Yay! Happy Valentine's Day, everybody. Happy Valentine's Day.
