In this informal farm vlog, Victor Justin Rhodes narrates a day of hands‑on chores while explaining why he’s stopped using the toilet for urination, opting to add his urine to compost for nitrogen. He leads a small crew—including Ben, Jason, Jonah, Lily, and others—to replace problematic arch gates with sturdy bolt‑through gates, describing the design issues that cause cows and sheep to knock them down. The group then builds and repairs a mobile sheep pen they humorously call a “Luchador ring,” welding a bent leg, bracing the structure, and installing mega bolts while coordinating tool use and locating missing drill bits. Rhodes discusses upcoming sheep breeding, noting that ewes can have up to four lambs and that a ram will be removed to protect newborns. He also performs a milking routine, treating a cow’s teats with udder cream, and checks on baby Henry, sharing affectionate moments with the infant. Throughout, the vlog blends practical farm instruction, collaborative problem‑solving, and personal family touches.
Chapters
Thawing out some chickens is really making me have to pee. I don't want to just pee in the toilet because we're making compost and it could use some more nitrogen. Accidentally left 2 chickens out yesterday and overnight. I can carry these. And all the milk supplies. You guys, can I carry you too? Oh yeah, just barely. Oh my goodness, I've got to put those chickens in there, but I don't think it's that time. I got to go to the bathroom. It's off. Finally, project for the day, placing these gates. Hold on, guys, I got to pee. All right, Jonah, feel better. Okay, to answer your question, so these gates, they had these arches and they're nice and they're working, but you can't take them off.
But why do you want to take them off?
Wait, good question, boy. You really— he's really helping y'all along, isn't he? Okay, so because— uh-oh, we don't want her in here yet, cuz you can open them here, but it's it's kind of in our way of our platform. You could open them in, but no, you can't because it's hitting that. This one you can open in, but let me show you what it does. It hits the mulch. Well, it hits it about right there, and then the cows or sheep accidentally shut this, and we want this to be able to open during the day. And this one's even worse. We open this, you'd have almost no room to get by the fence, and they'd still knock it. I got us gates, gentlemen. So we're gonna take this down and put up gates. So you're gonna put the gate so you can like lift the gate up? Exactly, we can lift it off its hinges. A cow could theoretically lift this off. It's happened before. They're going to be bored in here, it's quite possible, but I think it's going to be a rare event. We don't really close it except for to be out here milking time, keep people separated. Here's our gates. These little dinky dog things will never do. We've got some big bolts that go all the way through the pole. All right, before I get into this and before I forget, had some friends out to see the baby. We, um, did some work on the— I call it the wrestling ring for the luchadors— the ram and the wither. Normal people would maybe call it a mobile sheep pen.
But you're not normal.
Yeah, I know. I got the Homestead Dream Team here. Jason Sutherland, Ben from Holler Homestead. Guys, let's move a sheep pen. Who called middle? We got a Jason sandwich. So the problem is we have this leg bent over. Ben knows how to weld.
Must have hit a, uh, pretty good bump, right?
I don't know, these have held up just fine. This isn't the first time it's happened. Ben has braced one before. Actually, he's braced two. So we'll just keep Bracing, I guess.
Yeah, I could, I could see the weakest spot in here. All of the, the middle bottoms are all starting to kind of cave in.
Yes.
I don't know how we could fight against that.
You know how that is. We get pulling it and the grass is tall and it just, it bends it back. I reckon we raised it higher than what it was ordered, but I think it could even be higher.
Well, if we could go high enough and we could put these underneath the corners. Oh, I don't know, that's pretty high.
That's like— that would be so high.
That's like 10, 12 inches.
How do you like that paint job? Looks good. Just been growing on you a little bit.
Uh, actually, in all honesty, I'm kind of jealous. We're too— we're too hilly. I can't build something like this.
Oh yeah, you could totally put one cow in here. Oh, you can do 2, 3, 4 sheep. You could put a couple pigs in there if you move them once or twice a day. All right, we got Sally hooked up. What's the plan here, Ben?
So this all snapped. The weld basically buckled the metal, so I'm gonna re-weld this. I'm gonna take one of these pieces and I'm just basically gonna give it support this way. Yeah, uh, that'll keep it from pulling. Corners are probably all right because you have extra tubing on the corners.
Yeah.
So that's probably what's going on. But yeah, I'll just get this all cut and notched and be on our merry way.
Ben is done. Not only did he do one leg, he did two. We'll see what happens with this thing. We're talking about maybe raising it up to prevent the buckling here. But if you raise it up too much, that ram— if those ewes are in heat, we're risking it, him finding a way and crawling under. Basically show you what's going on. We're not using this, but see that? Traditionally you point that one down and that one up, and then the cows can't lift it up. But if we do it both that ways, Lily would lift it straight up, the boys would lift it straight up and set it to the side during the day. Hey, I hope you didn't lose my drill bit. It's kind of a specialty thing. Where are our long bits? Here's our hardware, but I also had these long drill bits, but I would just like to know where they are. Okay, can you go get them just so we can account for them? What would you guys run off with that drill bit for? It's like a 5/8 or something. What would you need that for? Found our half inch.
Is this what you want?
You know, that is That's a 3/8-inch. That might have been what it was, but we had a used one. I mean, it's good that we have this. Uh, that's the 1/2-inch. I found that. Let's just keep it here and we'll know where it's at. There we go. Now we're committed. There's no gate. We gotta make it happen. This won't go all the way through, but almost. So I'm going to take my angle and I'm going to make a line the rest of the way around to over there, and then I'll know where to go measuring in. Let's, uh, see. This is the only way to know I did it right. Boom! Johnny, you work on screwing that in. Let's do our other one, Lily. We got our mega bolts in. Let's try it. Hopefully I did— I measured right. Boom, boom. Okay, now Jonah, see if you can easily lift that off. I would suggest putting more of your effort over here on this side. A little too easy for you, huh? Yeah. Is it easy enough to put back on? It's a little tricky. It's a little tricky, but I don't know what else to think of. Can you do it? Yeah, we did it! It looks super nice. By the end of chores, we're gonna just be taking these gates off and just setting them right there. Look at the sheep on it. Which one's this, Jonah?
It's, uh, I mean, Floppy.
Floppy, you're huge! How many sheep do you got in there? Let's let them out. See our problem there? No, just set it to the side. There we go, no gate to get in y'all's way in or out. Now the reason we're messing with the Luchador's ring is because these guys are due— these gals in a week get out babies. Yeah, one week they could have bred. As early as— we could be expecting as early as 1 week. It's not that Nacho would be a problem per se, it's just I want to time our breeding. The ram wouldn't hurt the lamb, and I'm thinking let's go ahead and get them out of here just to clear some room for some lamb babies. Belle, you don't look that big compared to you. This one doesn't look too big. That one's huge. Which one's that? Ryder's pregnant with a bunch.
I think Floppy has one.
The cool thing is sheep can have up to 4 babies and it's not abnormal. I'm done milking. I just realized though, we can't put— we can't undo these gates yet. We got to keep Polly and her separated for about an hour. I treated her teats, uh, just with some udder cream. We'll have to come back and say an hour. Let's go take care of the milk, check on little Henry. Baby's mama forgot to cook these chickens. Hey boys, hey, how you guys doing taking care of your mom? Good, making her eggs. Oh good. Wow, that's over the top! Did you make that for her? Yeah. 100%. Looky here.
Oh wow, it looks very nice. Thank you, Josiah.
Is Mr. Henry awake?
He is.
Is he in a good mood?
He is.
Sleep good last night?
He did, and I did too. We both slept amazing.
Oh look, it's almost smiling. Are you almost smiling, or is that just gas?
No, he's smiling. He's happy.
We'll take it as a smile. He is a happy baby. We're very fortunate. He's in his little dress. Sweet boy. It's not— this is not his color. Yeah, no, don't guess. It is. Are you washed out, Ness? Are you a happy boy? Okay. All right, hold you close. Hold you close. Rock you. Am I not the bobos? Just give me one eye. Oh, two eyes! Yay! Oh, you gotta poop.
Or I might need to burp.
Let's try to burp.
Ahh!
Ahh! Ahh! He does not like burping. You don't like burping? We got you happy? Do we have you happy?
