I was Scared to Get Cows, but this is what happened

Right there, that road.

You can't see it because of the snow.

This is unheard of here in Asheville, North Carolina. The snow is staying around this long.

Go away, go away, because we're getting cows today. 2 cows. One has got a heifer, still very young, still very adorable. And then 2 meat cows. I've talked enough about the stress. Let's say goodbye to the stress. This is an exciting day. The cows are coming. I'm ready with a plan. We're gonna bring the cows. Well, I said, Joshua— that's the gentleman's name bringing them— Joshua, you want me to send you a picture of this road? Do you have four-wheel drive? He said, well, we had a foot in Virginia. I think we'll do it. It's supposed to warm up today. I don't know, is he gonna be able— he needs to get down this and at least backed in, backed into here, and then we can kind of use these gates to get cows where we want them. I'm thinking one mama cow in here with her calf, one mama cow in here. Let's just do stalls for a few days. Until the snow's gone, get them used to us. This is probably a blessing in disguise. And then how about the meat cows in here?

What's—

incidentally, they're coming today. We're harvesting them tomorrow. They're not handled, so I think it would be best to get them in there because it will be easier to harvest them, get close, get a good shot, do it the most humane way possible. And then I've got the tractor. I don't know if I told you guys why I got the tractor yesterday. Sorry about that. I got the tractor because we got to pull them out once we shoot them and do the work, probably right there, over there in our driveway. So guys, Strutmuffin, you're gonna get to live up to your name. You got two big mamas coming, almost as big as you.

They're coming.

Do you know?

Are you excited, man? You guys are gonna—

you guys are gonna look sharp together. You're having a playmate coming, buddy. You don't have to grow up so fast anymore.

Good morning, Isis.

Okay, they are so over this. It's almost over, guys. Hopefully it's gonna start melting today. Did you know I got good news for you? The matriarchs of the farm are coming today. The centerpiece of our farm, the very things that your life revolves around. Following them around in pasture. Gosh, the most— the cows producing the most food. It's so exciting. They give so much milk, so much milk, reproduce, improve the quality of the pasture, build our soils with proper rotational grazing. Man, that is something to be excited about. That is something we're not going to live without on this farm. Heck, even if we didn't drink the milk or eat the meat, we would have a grazing animal just for the sheer fact of how they prepare it for chickens and how they just build the soil, make it a better place. All right, my rant, my little sermon there is over. Let's go to the workout.

Good morning!

Good morning! How are you? Good. You got your snow outfit on? Are you the only one up and at 'em? No, no. Are you and I the only ones working today? You want to go with me to get the wheelbarrow? The cows are over there. I walk back to check their water and then leave the buckets and stuff there, and I come back to get my wheelbarrow.

Do you know what today is? Yeah, are you excited or what?

Yeah, there's a new calf coming too. It's 10 till 8. Joshua was going to leave at 7. He's been on the road almost an hour. It's going to take about 5 hours. I can't believe it. There are cows on the way to us. This is happening. Hey, you too, you know cows are coming. They say one pig can live off one cow. How's that, you say? Well, there's milk products. There's the skim milk that's not great for humans but it's amazing for pigs.

There's also the manure. This may sound gross, but a large percentage of cow manure is actually undigested edible stuff for them.

Thank you very much, guys.

And I guess they can eat some of the meat or the entrails or things, uh, other— or the things we can't eat or don't want to eat. They're coming. Another food source for you guys is coming.

Look, we hauled our stuff by sled.

Yay! Look at their hair. I can't Okay, look, you put ropes on it. Nice, I like it.

How'd they work?

I put handles on mine.

I put handles on mine. But how'd they work as sleds?

They work good.

Good job.

This made it much easier.

That's much better than a wheelbarrow. Yeah, thank you, alumna. You guys have destroyed it in here, the garden. And actually, we can use the cows in this gardening system too. They can go ahead and mow the grass down. They add manure. And also, in the warmer months when we start composting again, Where do you think we're gonna get a large source of our nitrogen? From the cow manure! 40 pounds a day, guys. Can you tell I'm excited? I'm pumped up, I'm pumped up. Are you pumped up? The cows are coming, the cows are coming in this video. Don't fast forward, don't fast forward. Okay, you're still here, good. All right, let's, let's come on now, let's let the chickens out. Hey, cows are coming, you know that?

Today's the day.

Oh yeah, I like it.

I think one, maybe two more days of broad forking. Well, Sunday we move these guys to their next job. Hopefully it'll be grass.

Put your hands up!

Not only did I finish right on time today, I am done. And we don't have to move them for 3 more days. I'll have to find a different work out. There it is, the driveway. They're coming, they're coming in about 3 hours, but I'm ready, feeling ready. I've got a plan, that always makes me feel better. Let's see if they actually have waterers.

One waterer, two waterers.

Am I not fortunate to have this amazing barn right underneath my house. 3 waters, just a European style. This is literally underneath my house, y'all. I could go through there and not even go in the snow to come mess around with the cows. Cows give off heat, it rises, heats us up. Very, very, very smart. I don't know why I don't see more of this in America. But anyway, look, there's, there's the stalls. There's our house. Okay, that only took 5 minutes. I'm feeling pretty good about that. Have you tried that stand-up sled yet?

Yeah, I tried it on the dam. See how it goes?

Nice.

You try it.

Let me show you how it's done.

Yeah.

He's doing it!

Yeah!

Tomorrow we'll have milk. Normally don't vlog on the weekends, but we're gonna.

How can we not? We gotta document tomorrow milking.

Tell me, how excited are you to get the milk?

Me!

Who's, who's the most excited?

Me!

Wow!

You and I don't drink the milk much, but we're excited about butter. Like he said, they're— the one cow, the Friesian, is drying up.

She's about to have a calf.

Yes, he thinks like February, so we'll probably dry her off. But the, the Jersey is going strong. It has a calf, and he thought if we calf shared with her, she'd give us about a gallon and a half this morning.

We'll take it. That's enough for butter.

A gallon a day is enough for us to have milk to drink and butter. 1 hour and 5 minutes until he's supposed to be here. Let's get some editing done. This what you do when you're bored? Don't jump on the couch, silly. Okay, where are they? 7 after.

Uh, okay.

No, are you gonna stay right there? Why don't you stay right there and say bingo when they come?

Oh yeah, he's here. Are y'all excited or what?

Wait, where's your shoes?

Hey guys.

Hey, I like that one. Yes.

All right.

Hi, I'm John.

Bad guy?

Yeah. Okay, you want to sing? Here, probably what I'll do is bring my trailer up here.

I'll put the trailer down here, maybe keep at least the front tires on the road. Oh, and then, uh, and then that door opens that way. Yeah, so if we have something like a Okay, feather net we could set up. Yep, starting there, coming up here. Yep, we just let them out, walk them real easy.

Okay, what are you guys doing that?

We're gonna put it across there.

Can I help you, Papa?

Sure, you make sure I get it in good. Okay, we've got our net up and we're thinking if somehow they get out, they won't go past the creek. We'll run over there. We'll somehow herd them into the eyelets pasture.

Stud Muffin's on to us.

I've heard him bellow.

Yeah, I know he did.

He was like, I've never heard him do that.

I haven't either.

Oh look, the Friesian came right out. Welcome home.

So the first one is our milk cow, the second one is the beef cow that's going to leave tomorrow.

Those are the two meat cows. That's exactly what I want. We want them to go first, and we want them to go all the way to the stall.

I hope I can pet them. I hope they went into the stall.

Oh look, she busted right through. That's exactly what we want. We want her to go in there. She can go in either stall. And we want the two meat cows in the last stall. Okay, so they all went in the stall.

They all went in the stall.

Maybe we can arrange them later. They all came out of this stall and went in that stall, shutting them in. Yeah, she's nervous about the snow.

She got down, she fell down, and, um, she was laying weird on her leg the whole way, so she's gonna be a minute. She's— her leg's asleep.

You're gonna try to get the Friesian out?

Yeah.

Okay, take your time.

Oh, look at her belly! Papa, look at our cat!

I see it though. She's gotten scuffed on the trailer or something. All right, yep, be perfect. She can go in that one, it's fine. Oh yeah, where is the calf? We've gotten the Friesian in there. The two beef cows in there, that's exactly what I wanted. We're gonna get Brownie in there when she gets feeling better. It's gonna get her— catch her some water. Yeah, if you can get the calf out.

You don't think we can get her out?

I mean, I can, it's just I'm risking letting the other ones out, that's all.

Brownie's getting her chapped head.

Yeah, just—

we've never had them locked up like this, so we're not sure if they're gonna just start charging them, you know?

Okay, yeah, yeah, I understand.

So we're just trying to be careful. The calf's just way in the back corner, so if we could somehow shoo it out, you know, and we'd probably be fine. Okay, but we just don't want to get in there.

Yeah, yeah, don't want anybody getting hurt.

You want to put them together, Josh? They'd probably be happier, wouldn't they?

Yeah, these two guys together, this is what they want.

They can be together or apart, doesn't matter. Want to put water in here?

You want water in there? That's your pool, Willie. We got pool.

Yeah, she's crazy.

Yeah.

That's crazy. She's going to try to jump. Shutting those stall doors. Watch out, Lily, she's a little crazy.

Come on, you bring your—

there you go. Think that'll make them feel better? Oh yeah.

Well, you got water and hay in there, so you got water and hay and nothing Yep, I'll check on them, you know, this afternoon, a couple hours, maybe more hay or whatever.

But, uh, and we're right there.

Yeah, yeah.

Uh, the thing with the calf is I would go in there and grab her for you, no problem. I'm not afraid of the calf. I can grab her, pick her up, carry her out here. But that white one in there, she's had limited, uh, interaction with humans. So, you know, she's just pawing the ground and all that good stuff. So I don't— yeah, I don't want to get trapped in there with her. Yeah, I don't want to run her for it either.

Okay, so the plan is then in the morning—

my advice would be wait until the morning. That calf's gonna be bellowing, and then you open your door and the calf comes up to the— you know, have your mom standing like right here, have the mom standing right here. Mom's gonna be screaming, calf's gonna be screaming. Open your door, calf will come right out.

Okay, you think she's calmed down enough to open the door? Top door?

Uh, yeah, she's all right since she's got her friend in there, you know what I'm saying?

Yeah, they got some water. Good. Still, I'll give them some hay. I'm surprised these one didn't— wow. Yeah, see here, see that? Putting their heads down.

Wow.

You're gonna— which one you're gonna milk? Maybe you'll milk the Friesian since we're gonna dry her off. That's what they did with my dad when they wanted a cow to dry off. They had the kids milk. That's when the kids learned how to milk. You want to see?

Because if you don't get it all, it's okay. You see it?

What happened? Did she get scraped by the horns?

Yeah, they can't be in here too long together, so I think we'll move them out tomorrow afternoon.

Yeah, the more, more walking she can do, the better she'll do on that leg.

True. So if it stays like this, it's gonna be slush.

Yeah.

I don't want to watch YouTube Kids.

No, not watching YouTube Kids.

It's 4 o'clock.

Let's check on the cows. You just chillaxing? Are you just chillaxing? You're kind of crazed. Okay, I'm gonna get you guys some fresh hay. You're good on water. The game is getting this calf out of here. I'm gonna have to wait. These guys have calmed down a bit.

What one's dying tomorrow?

Both those. Hey, be careful, we don't want to spook them and then start jumping out. Okay, come on. Uh, they're good on water. Let's get them some hay. All right, okay, we'll see.

Tell him the house is on fire. Tell him to wake me up.

Tell him the house is on fire. You want to get up in the morning with me?

Yeah.

You want me to tell you the house is on fire?

Yeah.

Will that wake you up?

Yeah.

That's his trick. That's his trick.