I left for Days, then this Happened

Gideon and I are off to the breadbasket of America, Iowa. Ruth and Zimmerman minimalist setup. I can get wet in my sandals. I don't have to pack socks. I don't have to wear—

what happens if they have boots you can borrow?

That's it too.

Well, do you want to wear boots without socks? No. Well, do you want to bring one pair of socks just in case?

Sure. Just that way you bring the car up. Boy, we've gone a long way from when y'all were helping me in the Soil blocks. Austin, throw up that video. Good job! You mean I don't even have to do this anymore? Thing 1 and Thing 2. You went from making soil blocks on your own to running the farm on your own. Yeah, how's that? That's good. Making roads, clearing pasture, build— building bridges. Okay, why are we going to Iowa? Ruth Ann Zimmerman, ex-Mennonite, total motivational story, now homesteading. And well, she's been doing that her whole life, so she's an old soul, and we're gonna learn from her. We're gonna make movies about her. We're gonna make a movie about her for Abundance Plus and get some instructional videos from her. Hugs! You guys have fun. Oh, I'm scared. Bye-bye. We're gonna see you. Whoa, whoa! I hear our future. Hear the plane? Oh, I wanted to take the beautiful one so bad, but we are on a tight budget. This is all I need for 4 days. I don't even have to do a check on.

Let's just say if I went, yeah, it would be a lot more happening.

Let's just say we'd have a box trailer attached to the Suburban with Yeti coolers and compost toilets. And hey, is this a good sign? Is that sign— I'm a little construction. It's gonna be rough, I think. He thinks he can go with us.

I have to do this. Well, I'll let you get out when we stop to look at the airplane. I'll let you get out and get a potty break.

Aww.

So we just dropped Justin off at the airport and Henry wanted to see the plane take off, which I don't think we're gonna wait here that long because it's another 30 minutes, but We're just watching planes.

Dona and I are coming to look at the corn.

It is time to harvest it. It's ready, Mama! Wow, look at how tall! And then we've been eating it. We had it for lunch, we had it for dinner yesterday. I think tomorrow we're gonna try to work and harvest a bunch and then blanch it. And I also want to make Mexican street corn with it. We'll blanch it and freeze a bunch, and then of course we're gonna keep eating it. We're gonna take it up to the house, and then we're gonna go up to the pond, relax a little before we gotta get dinner started. It is a scorcher today. I think the next couple of days it's going to be pretty warm here, but Jonah has been working on some things with Josiah. Lily's been helping keep things afloat in the house, so we're all just doing our part. Right there, the cilantro is germinated. We've got dill. This is the Jericho lettuce, cucumbers, crookneck, and zucchini. That is exciting that we have all of this happening, and we're gonna have a good little harvest. I need to check my email to see when my beans are coming because I gotta get them planted ASAP.

We have arrived to Iowa. The extent of the airport, it's a little thing. Look, there they are.

How are you?

We're out here with the corn.

I'm just gonna start because I'm almost finished finishing up something in the house and the boys are finishing the sea monsters, so we're gonna start harvesting the corn.

All these cartons. So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Wow. We'll shuck on the front porch. I'll meet you guys there. We are already out here shucking. Ashley is here too. Waylon's playing, so she's hanging out. 2 service trays full plus a gigantic bowl. But look at how nice— we actually had only 1 corn that didn't have to have the tip cut off. It is a lot more when your spouse is gone and you guys all work together, and so I am— I need to switch this laundry over. It's just a lot because I'm everything. If anybody needs anything, it comes through me. So, just gonna start cleaning them. Got 4 in a basket. Do you think we should— I guess let's see. Let's see how this works. I've done some internet research and it seems as though this is gonna take forever. So I think what we're gonna do is get the 5-gallon pots and we're gonna load those suckers up and we're gonna cook them for that time and then we're gonna, um, just pour all the water out. I think that would do all of them. Packaging up the corn. We're doing like 10. We've got more corn drying. I just finished the last batch of blanching it and I've got it in the ice water. I've got 2 going. I think we're gonna be good because we're gonna have a lot more and then, this is hilarious. We got all of the fresh corn off of the stalks right now. We decided to go ahead, this is what we're gonna save for fresh eating right now this week. Um, until we have more corn available out there. We've got the— oh, the corn joke has got one. I just thought I'm filming this. Come on, help me. I have too much. This is our vegetable and fruit freezer, I guess.

Yeah, that we've harvested and preserved.

Yeah, I mean, I probably need to can awesome. Oh yeah, let's check on the zucchini. Oh look, we've got a nice zucchini going here. It's kind of hard being the only parent because I'm having to think of everything, and I'm sure I'm missing something, you know. Henry is done in here. He does not want to be in here anymore, so come on, let's go. We're gonna get him He's gonna go to the boys, but first we're gonna get some water for him, and I unfortunately need to eat breakfast.

Fancy vlog setup you got there.

I know, right? It's gotta fit. I don't have big hands like that. See, it's basically the same thing.

Now, Ruthann, you told me you were gonna come out on your patio and have your smoothie.

Yeah, this is how I have my smoothie.

I was imagining you sitting down, but that was steak. She's a praying woman, so last night I asked her— I'm imagining she might have a morning devotion or something. I said, do you pray in the morning? You pray in the morning, Ruth Anne?

When I'm in the garden, yeah.

We're gonna eat outside, Henry and I. He's gonna have a little bit of my plate before the big kids get whatever they're gonna eat. It's a little difficult to eat out here because the animals. No, ma'am. Look at this. You guys be acting like I don't ever feed you. Gonna get in this high tunnel again. It is still very overcast. I do not see the sun coming out today. I did not check the weather though. I mean, it could have totally happened. I did ask the kids— they're eating breakfast— I said, please, um, when you're done eating, clean up. That's a big one. And crates to be brought down here so that we can pick this fruit and get started on this. This looks so amazing. I am done clipping up. Hey, the crates are at this end, guys. They're being dorks. Don't throw tomatoes at him, please.

This is a pancake. If I gave it to him, he would eat it.

No, no, no. Look at my green hands. Justin's not here for me to scare. You only got a little bit. The green hands are coming to get you.

So Lizzy's a heifer.

This is her first time, her first baby, and he's about 2 months old. And so this is Lizzy's mom. So Lizzy is a first-time mom. She's an heifer, so we put this on her because we don't have a stanchion to put her in, and this keeps her from developing.

Cow can't kick— is that the cow can't kick bar?

Yeah.

When you use the can't kick bar, do you ever find that you can take it off of them and eventually they won't kick?

Yeah, that's the, that's the goal. Oh, did you get the cat getting milk? Did they get— did they squirt it?

Oh good.

Yeah, it's nice making movies with a YouTuber.

Yeah.

We have been washing, we're cutting out, we already have 2 in the oven. So we're all working hard at getting this harvest in as soon as possible. So we've already got one up there. The ovens are just preheating, but we're gonna get on it. So I'm just immersion blending the tomatoes to make kind of like a thick chunky sauce. It's not super chunky, um, I will get all of the chunks out, but it is a chunkier sauce because I'm not like super blending it. But Lily, so this is— we just poured all this water off of— off out of this pot, and then you can show them that we've gotten 2 gallons of juice. I'm saving that Randolph loves tomato juice, so Randolph— those are going to Randolph for him to have to drink. And then we still have a ton more. We still have 1, 2, 3, 4 trays, plus we have these 3 trays, and I'm gonna do those and crushed tomatoes. We are cleaning up this mess. It is such a disaster in here. I've got 2.5 gallons of tomato juice that I'm going to give to Randolph. I have a lot of tomato juice that I canned from last year that I think I'm gonna give them as well, just because we're not, we're not using it. Superb actually sent me these jars, and so that I've just been waiting to can, and so I'm gonna try these out. I have got my canner full. I mean, it's— I'm using it as a water bath canner. I don't even have my pressure gauge. You guys probably caught that a long time ago. My pressure gauge actually was bad. I bought a new one, I just haven't put it on. I actually need to put this away and not use it as a water bath canner because it's not what it's for. You can, but once I get the gauge on it, I don't want to break the gauge like I did with the last time. I think I'm going to call it on the tomato sauce cuz because I got to get going. Like, we can't live like this. It's so difficult with all the canning and stuff to like cook dinner and can at the same time. It's just too much. That's why my garden kitchen needs to get done. It's on the to-do list for this coming year. We obviously had big plans and they just got derailed by many things, one being Hurricane Helene. We had to then do things that we, one, didn't think was— so like it took up our time, but then also it took up some of our money too. I feel like I have come out of like a funk from it all. I feel like I was just really like needing to deal with a lot of things emotionally, and I feel like I dealt with them, and now I feel like so different and so much better, and like my thinking is clearer and all of that. So I felt like Justin and I are both in a better place to like emotionally, physically, all the things to like get some different stuff done. So if that's why you're like, why is she not using her garden kitchen? Well, that's why. Because like just things have come up that we had no idea were gonna affect us the way they did.

Anne is showing us, giving us a real horse and buggy experience.

One day Mitchell was giving me a hard time because I didn't know how to change my wiper blades on the car. And I said, listen, I can harness a horse, drive it to town, bring it back, take the harness off before you ever figure out how to put the harness on.

These are slightly wider, like around this section right here, so I could not fit just regular mouth in. I ended up having to— so I can get 3 wide mouth and then 4 regular mouth. And then over here, I didn't have another Superb regular mouth, so I just went and got a wide mouth ball. I dropped one of the jars on top of another jar that was in the water bath, and this was before I, um, like, had filled it, obviously. Anyways, I chipped this, so it's going in the garbage. That's a big bummer. We've got Jonah over here, he's cutting the meat. Lily has been working hard. Josiah is working hard, playing with Henry. We've all been working together as a team. We're missing Gideon and Papa. Tomorrow is the day. Oh, Lily did such a good job with this.

Looks yummy.

Yum yum. I have destroyed my clothes today. Like, they are covered in filth. It's just all part of the job. I should have worn an apron. I don't know where my apron is. That's part of my problem. It's 8 o'clock. I was like, Lily, I'm gonna go plant the green beans. And she's like, you're not going to bed, Mom? 8 o'clock, aren't we going to bed tonight? And I'm like, okay, I guess you're right and I'm wrong. I did get 24 quarts of tomatoes canned, which is exciting. I'm gonna finally plant my beans, which I'm very excited about. I am just wetting down the soil here. We, um, this just stays in here and I don't want to get it too wet, but it's too dry, so— All right, I got stung. I don't know by what, I didn't see, but it was a pretty nasty sting. I'm gonna go and put some clay on it. Back at it. I can feel a difference already. It hurts less. It's of course in a very sensitive spot. Oh, it's right there. Anyways, I'm gonna be fine. It's just more annoying.

This is goodbye.

Bye-bye.

Well, y'all were a lot chattier on the way to the airport than on the way home, huh?

The camera is on.

Okay, bye-bye.

Bye.

It was so nice to have you.

It's a great house. It's gonna be a great movie. Yeah, I'm gonna tell her.

I am on my way to pick up Justin. I've got Henry in the car with me. We're trying to go and watch his plane land. Henry wants to see it, and so that is what we're gonna do. Looks like this is as good as we're gonna get.

There it is!

There's the airplane!

Look!

Look! We almost missed it! It's landing! Did you see it? Ah, we got to see it land! Did you see it?

Yay!

Okay, let's go get them. Got back in the car and I just got a text and I'm pretty sure that it's Justin saying landed. It was. That's fun. I'm gonna respond, we saw it!

You nervous?

No, why?

I don't know, seeing the family again. I know Henry's excited. He came. They watched our airplane land. All right, look out for him. Hey, hey everybody! Hey, hey Henry, you being shy? We brought your dinosaur. Hey, do I get a hug? Can I get a hug? You've been holding it down nice. Look how nice it looks in here.

Yeah.

Thank you for helping with supper.

Yeah, I did it all by myself.

Oh good.

La la let, la la let me be free.