I Survived 30 Days Off The Land - Day 3

Happy third day of living off the land. Although, I'll be honest, well, I had some peanuts last night. But yesterday we ate fantastically, and overwhelming majority of it was from our land. I think that's something not to be missed. Something to be proud of, something to give myself a little bit of grace for. I probably ate 99% off the land, 1% being a couple handfuls of peanuts at the end of the day. I'm looking for the Big Henry cart. Since I ate peanuts and you can grow them here, I really didn't get off of row 30, just went to level 2. And let me honest, I'm trying to develop a 30-day program to encourage ourselves and folks to just eat more from their land. I don't think 100% is going to be sustainable and certainly not marketable. I mean, we're extra, you know. Most people are gardening and homesteading a little bit after work, maybe a project on the weekend. You can do a lot with that. You can do a big percentage. You're certainly not going to do all of it, and should you anyway? There needs to be some point where supporting the local community or the community at large— it's good to be up depending on some people. The weather though is fantastic right now. Let's get a bucket of trail and a little pig feed. I'll be honest, I wonder if I have this series falsely named. If I'm gonna eat a handful of peanuts, I'm not surviving off the land. I'm just not. And I didn't get it within 100 miles because we're allowing exceptions with salts and minerals and spices. You guys probably understand those exceptions, but I'm not really surviving off the land. It's been mine and Rebecca's goal since last year to quit the grocery store. That's certainly doable and is pretty amazing feat for us since we grew up on it and are foodies and find ourselves dependent on it, at least for supplementals. I've noticed since we don't have that crutch of the grocery store, I'm more diligent about making our homemade yogurt. I'm more diligent about making butter. I'm on that. I'm harvesting every cream out of the milk, drinking milk, just relax. I need to go. I need to stop what I'm doing. Need to be better about this. I need to cut a chunk of fat to add to the sausage so it can be thawing out. It's going to take planning. That's what I'm gonna have to be in— change in my life. Forethought and planning around the meals. Thinking about changing this title and series to We Quit the Grocery Store for 30 Days. That one, although that's hard too, not as hard and maybe more realistic. But as I sit here and think about it, I think it's okay to have a struggle. It's okay to have a struggle, and I'll just be real about it with you guys. And maybe I'm trying to cop out, and my style is aim for the impossible and extraordinary things happen. So we've aimed for the impossible these 3 days, and I'm already being more diligent about getting yogurt going and milk. It's good to get them the weeds before the grain comes out. It's like making your kids the vegetable before they eat the meat. They'll actually eat it if they're not full on grains. I'm going to the extreme for this 30 days for experience, but like I said, I want it to be a 30-day program for a broad audience. Grow 30, similar to Whole30, but in Grow 30 you eat what you could have grown or grown or found local, and it's encouraging you to, to grow, eat what you grow and grow what you eat. Honestly, I think for most people it's probably just something. Let's, let's, let's eat something at every meal. So do you have mint? Could you have mint tea? Maybe you don't have chickens, maybe you don't have for eggs, maybe you don't grow any of your investment. Do you have mint? And if you don't, could you start with mint? We gotta get these sheep over and listen to them all about bleating. They get so upset if they lose just one or two. I came out this morning, this guy was nursing. Here they come. Why will they not go? No, he isn't. There they go. Okay, when I saw that calf nursing, I ran and got in between them. That's our butter. We need butter really bad. I think we're down to that much butter. Their trough. They slid it down the hill on the sheep's net. That's where the calf was. Hopefully she figured it out just right before I came and there's still some milk in there. She could have been on her all night though. That means she'll have no milk and we'll have no butter. It's my fault. I gave the boys a break yesterday and I didn't put the stakes in the water. What do you need? My, my wetter toilet. Okay, well then let's put you in Sally. That's my fault. Nobody's fault but mine. That's nothing. All right, okay, I think we need to be out here at daybreak. There's a lot of pressure on the fence when light comes up. It's our second milk cow. She's not quite in milk yet. This is what, third day after the calf? She's still giving colostrum. Just stay by mom, she— you're stressing her out. You're stressing her out, Annie. We have milk yet. Oh wow, you're gonna get a gallon. Oh, I think she must be in milk, bro. Yes! I'm thinking I need to go out in the evenings and check on the cows better. You'll try to help them with the cooking this morning. Continue to make my mission make this ground pork we got back fat enough. I've done 20% of its weight so far, and that's not been enough. Today let's try 30%. So I need— shoot, I just did the math— I need, uh, about 9.5 ounces of fat. That ain't even enough. You want it to be able to be fatty enough, doesn't have a grainy taste, and it cooks in its own meat. Wow, this is telling me we need to add that much fat to that, and there's already some fat in that. We've been efficient. I'm going to put this in the mixing bowl. Now I've dirtied 2 bowls. Got the spices, the fat, and the pork. I don't know if this is going to work or not. I didn't let this fat get thawed out enough, and so it's chunky. It doesn't seem to be getting any smaller. Gideon wants to try a little thing we learned at Ruth Ann's. They just did potatoes and sausage. I'm still going to try patties for the beautiful one. A patty is the ultimate test to see if we got the sausage right. There's plenty of eggs down in the fridge, but there's some in there in the meat drawer. There is, there's They're better, dude. I'm also gonna have to take over egg collection. I'm learning we're gonna be serious about this. It's grow 30. I need a better pulse on the cows, a better pulse on the eggs. Good news, these are cooking in their own fat. Moment of truth. Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, what? 30 is where it's at, so it's a little too salty. Maybe a keeping handful of cheese. We avoided the grocery store. We just got this huge block, also save money, from Azure Standard. I'll leave a link in the description for that. And I don't know if a handful of something or another will get you to eat a pound of pork and a dozen eggs and really put it over the top. We'll do it. But during this 30 days, I do want to try to get enough milk that we can start making some of our own cheese. How is it, bro? Good. Come on now, 1 to 10. 8. Let's start with a bed of fried cabbage, a ton of protein, and a little bit of homemade ground sauerkraut on top. I'm gonna have to— this 30 days is good for me. Never has it been so urgent to make sure we get eggs and make sure we get milk. We ain't playing no more. Eden was supposed to do this. I can't quite trust him to do this yet. I don't want to go out in the cold rain. It's actually cold though. Hi, today's 72. Leftover beef and vegetable soup, perfect. Farm milk, uses broth, uses meat, uses this whatever seasonal vegetable. It's delicious. This is bad. I just walked by this. Here's my peanuts. Oh, the satisfaction. Just grab something, a little salt on them. This is gonna have to go by the way of peanut butter. Even more of a sucker for it. Out of sight, out of mind. Those don't go bad. Just delayed gratification, that's all. Just delayed gratification. Then maybe I can get through it. Let's do turkey. We've set out a turkey since butcher. We haven't cooked it yet. We got some friends coming from out of the country. They live in Japan. Salt, pepper, and thyme. Get it on the black. Just wrapped the premium monthly webinar. I loved it. Rebecca, did you love it? The people loved it. It was just Q&A. That's a lot of— you want access to us once a month, Q&A, ask about our health insurance, ask what to do for health insurance, how do we manage putting our lives on the internet. Well, we're asking the good questions. How do you dry off a calf? Uh, pig training to an electric fence. Yeah, pig training to electric fence. Where should I start? Favorite book? What should we be planting right now? Yeah. If I want to have a winter harvest garden, what do I plant? This is great, that's in abundance. Plus, what are you doing, Rebecca? I am making squash casserole. Should I make a lot? Can you do yellow squash too, or does it just do— I guess we have a bunch of both. You should make a lot. We're having special friends tonight, old, old friends. Oh, that we have not seen in a long time because they moved to Japan. Yeah. He was 2016. Remember he wrote a song. Remember he wrote a song for us. He wrote a song for the Great American Adventure. He wrote a song off the dome. He can do that.

Admit it, we will go like maple trees, we will grow. Climb aboard and learn with us. Join us for these next days. Let's learn about the best ways to farm across the nation. Then teach a generation to plant their life just like seed. And from the farm, get what they need as we go from shore to shore on the Great American Farm. God bless this sour maple. Keep us laughing as we roam. A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men. Keep us laughing as we roam. Join us for These next days, let's learn about the best ways to farm across the nation. Then teach a generation to plant their life just like a seed. And from the farm, get what they need as we go from shore to shore on the Great American Farm Tour. Woo!

Now, what do we make? We're on Grow 30. What do you make of normal people for dessert? When you can only eat what you've gotten within 100 miles. Well, this is my idea. Ice cream. We have milk, we have cream with— tell them your idea. Oh, um, I'm gonna make like a— how did I do that? I'm gonna make a blueberry sauce.

We can have some ice cream and vanilla ice cream.

I mean strawberry ice cream and blueberry ice cream. We could do a strawberry topping too. We could. For choices. Yes. Oh, do it, please. But we've preserved lots of blueberries, so we got no shortage there. Strawberries too. Heck yes, I'm feeling very proud at the moment. If there ever was a farm-friendly dessert, it's ice cream. Too bad it's a little cold today. That's why we're gonna make these warm sauces. So cream, milk, 4 egg yolks, and then the only supplemental is maple syrup and, uh, vanilla. Lily's teaching me tricks. Since we don't have enough for 2 batches of ice cream, you're gonna make a blueberry crumble as well? Yeah, I'll just make a blueberry crumble and then— yep, you can just take some of the blueberries underneath the crumble and put it on here. I love it. And then the normal people can have the crumble. I'm gonna stay strong today. Started out weak, but but I'm gonna end strong. I hid the peanuts and everybody's gonna eat pie, but I'm gonna get ice cream, blueberry sauce on it. That's eggs and milk, egg yolk, farm casserole, milk, summer squash, and some cheese. And folks, that makes summer— that, that makes summer squash go from it. Whoa! And whoa, we ain't suffering. Our friends are here. Come on, boys, come greet them. Hey, bud. Oh, friends. So friends. Super proud of this meal. Love having people over and you can feed them from the farm. Yeah, goodness too, right? Yeah. Turkey, tomatoes, squash. Do you eat a lot of turkey in Japan? What a lot of meat do they eat? Uh, beef. A lot of beef.

Beef, pig.

I mean pork, I guess. Beef, pork. Um, chicken. I mean, ate chicken, but fish. Fish. What do you miss eating over there? What do you like? Sushi. Sushi. Okay, for sure. They're good at that. Unbeatable, man. And it's like, it's like the cheapest snack you can go get. It's just a piece of fish on a a little ball of rice. It's not like the sushi rolls or any of that stuff. Oh, okay, nice. Levi, how was supper? This is the best food I've had in a long time. You want to say it again? Levi, how was supper?

It was amazing.

Lexi, how was it? So good. Kids, that's the best one you had since you came back to America? Pretty much. Yum. All right, I like it. Pretty much. And then now the pie. You like it? We have more pie. You cannot get more ice cream. I'll have more pie. People are killing the pie and the ice cream. Oh man, this is going to be as good as you're going to eat in America. It is true. I will have to come back just so I can eat this. You will have to come back. Happy day. Let's get up and do it. Who's coming with me at 6:30? Uh, maybe Levi will get up. We'll see.