I WAS WRONG

Man, that's the spot. All right guys, after your snack, bundle up and come. Maroon warming up Sally. We're looking for our lid for our swill cooking pot. Nope. Here it is. I've thawed out some of these guts and old meats and various whatnots for the pigs. Watermelon rinds, apple cores— they'll like that better too, cooked. Onions, old onions, definitely. That's the difference between them eating it and not eating it. There we go. All right, we'll do the pigs last. Let that cook for a little bit. Rebecca, pretty much which for as long as I've known her, we've met when we were 16, has always wanted a golf cart. But I'll admit, I kind of scoffed at it. Rebecca's golf cart idea for two reasons. One, because can you imagine driving a golf cart around on this? And this time we didn't even have a farm. What you gonna do with a golf cart? Time out for my golf cart story for a second. That's frost. September 22nd. The first possible frost date is supposed to be October 10th. This is crazy. Of course we're not prepared for that. I hope it did not get our garden, which we have not covered up yet. But it feels frigid right here in this little pocket here at the bottom of this valley. Don't they like popcorn? They do. Put it in their next paddock with the cows because that's where they're going. Hey, Mr. Brown, you came out! Yeah, good boy! You dressed yourself? Good job, you're getting big. Oh, I shouldn't have turned that off. Why did I dump that? They're going again. I was supposed to just get the hose. That's plenty enough for the sheep who are coming in here. I was just supposed to get the hose to fill up the next one. The cows in this paddock going to that one, the sheep one day behind. Coming into the cow's paddock. Why'd I do that? Jonah, is that enough for the sheet? Okay, you fill that up for us, Mr. Brown. Let's go get our nets. All right, the second reason I scoffed about the golf cart is, well, I just couldn't afford it. Okay, we're gonna build off that net to keep it in place, put the nets up down through here and get them over. All right, looks like we need a 50-footer instead of a 100-footer. I think they're at home, which is way over there. Hey, Mr. Brown, you want to go home too? You're looking kind of cold. All right, I did not see a thing out of there, but you know, when Rebecca wanted this golf cart To be fair, there was no such thing as side-by-sides. At least we didn't know of any. Go get warm, man. Get warm by the fire. Fast forward a decade and we go on the Great American Farm Tour. We see all these farmers with side-by-sides. Rebecca's kind of like, hmm. And I'm kind of like, well, maybe if you want one of those one day, it might make a little more sense. But I think our farm still— I think, I think it's still too small to justify a side-by-side. And there are no 50-foot nets here. It would be a shame to run a 100-foot net for only like a 30-foot gap. But I think this is one. Yeah, there's a 50-footer. So we get back from the Great American Farm Tour, we were a lot more serious about growing our own food. Rebecca is involved involved on the farm like she never has been before. Rebecca's back and we're like— she brings it up, she brings up the side-by-side thing again. Oh, I should tell you, I remember what happened. Okay, here we go. So the mower, I said, you know what, we need to mow behind our animals. That's a really nice mower. Okay, so I said, you know what, what could we do? Well, we could get a hitch on this mower and we'll get a trailer and that'll be a side-by-side. That'll be a multi-purpose, multi-purpose everything, right? That's the permaculture creed. Only problem, this is not very family-friendly homesteading. There's only one seat and it's loud and it's kind of hard to get off of because of the bars and all the safety stuff, and it's only got two wheels and it gets stuck. And we went in to buy a certain level of mower and the lady upsells me and I go away with the best mower there is. I think it made a sore spot for Rebecca. I know there was a sore spot. It was very clear. Look at this, nothing to do while I'm gone. No, literally, we finished our work. I'm waiting for you. You guys ready to move or what? You look ready. Yeah, I gave them, uh, too little of a paddock that time. See how they mowed everything and it's down real low? You want them to leave some, so We've given them a bigger paddock in here today. Come on, stud. Come on, did you grab her? Right there. That couldn't be any better grass. He didn't even step in and he's starting to eat. Stud's letting them through finally, going a little forward. They love it. They really let me through down there with Sally. So I finally remember the garden of peace, which, gentlemen, is a happy wife, a happy life, pretty much. You gotta put her at number one. If she wants something, you gotta work your best to get that something. So I say, all right, let's go to the store. And let's have a look. But I don't think I'm going to use this thing, so you get whatever you want. I mean, I was into the ethos of just being able to do everything by hand, get some exercise. You have this, honey. If you want this, you go ahead. Thankfully, there was a sale on a 4-seater. And the guy ended up talking us into it because we're— she was pretty set on this two-seater, like four-seater, five-seater, or—

I was just— we were just gonna do the one bench.

One bench? Okay.

Yeah, because we'll just all scoot in.

Okay.

Together.

Rebecca, do you think we're all six gonna be able to fit in there?

Um, I think enough of us can fit in here and then some people can sit in the back.

I mean, we could get double bench. But that's just a— that's just a circus, isn't it? That's just crazy. That's just a ride at Disney World.

Could we look at the price of adding that extra bench thing in it?

Yeah.

And what that is, we can go inside and look.

And do you think— impress this one because it's like the one, the white one we drove?

But it is, but it has this extra thing here for when we want to give a pop to that A-frame.

Is that a kind of a push there. So you just pop that A-frame back down, pull your seat up.

But it is nice to have that extra bench.

You got you a little truck, Beck. This is not a monkey jungle gym. The side-by-side has ended up being way more family-friendly than we imagined. Everybody pretty much goes. As for the Tough Guy, I use that thing every single day. Jeep, Jeep, Jeep, Jeep, Jeep. Because the cows pretty much ate all the food in here, I brought the sheep some hay. They don't seem to care. They seem to be finding something, and that's the cool thing about sheep. They'll eat what cows don't. There's a big patch of greens there, balmagillia, fescue. You don't go straight for the hay, that's for sure. Look, Jonah cut down a limb, pine branch for them. Look, they love it! How cool! And you gave them the branches— the, the— where is that? The poplar branch?

Oh, it's down here.

Let me go get it. Just started getting them another branch. That's awesome, they love it! Sally, as we so affectionately call our side-by-side, has been a complete game changer that I did not expect. Moving heavy shade shelters, operating, being able to get our, our animals far away from the house, being able to go back and forth, being able to get hay in different areas of our pastures. Before, we had to just in the winter feed our hay nearby on a sacrifice paddock, but we were able to rotate our animals all last winter feeding hay. Now, I don't know seriously what I would do without this thing. People said that before, you'll never know what you did did without in a hut. Yeah, this thing, 4-seater, it can also collapse, make this a bed. Like, this eliminates a need for a pickup truck. Really, guys, it's that insane. You want to feed the pigs? Yeah, that's it too. See, we have the feed cooking for the pigs way at home. No big deal, we just drive and get it. 2 minutes. 2 minutes. We must have left— parked this outside. That's when the window gets foggy. Yeah, and we're boiling. That's good. You want to pour it in there? Pour it all in there. Nice. And we have some milk too, right? Yeah, so we'll feed them two separate things and that can cool off. It's too hot. So we have the milk too. So yeah, pour that in this and then we'll put the— here, we'll pour it kind of both together. This milk will help cool it off. And now put a lid on that and we won't spill it. A little hot, maybe a little warm for him, I guess. A little warm. Okay, we'll cool it off next time. All right guys, I need to be cool off in in just a few minutes out here in this cool air. Y'all be all right. Y'all will be all right. Almost, guys. Almost. Oh, one's getting it a little bit. Hey, uh, I guess I owe Rebecca an "I told you so." Maybe even a little bit of a "I'm sorry." "You were so right." And— Thank you. Let's go. Let's go make it up to her. Look at this woman cleaning out the fridge. Come here, Rebecca. I owe you something. You were right. What? And I'm sorry.

About what?

And thank you. It's Sally. Oh, you know it, don't you? Oh yeah, I've told you that before.

You have it.

Yeah, I don't ever use it, do I?

No, you never use her.

I stick with the farm fitness program, don't I? Nope. I think I got the Sally side-by-side 15— the side-by-side 15. I think I shed that. I think I shed that. I do. I think I gained weight when we got Sally's.

Maybe.

It's been the most, if not the best, investment for our farm, has it not? Yeah, for the productivity, the food system. All the food, more food, high, more efficiency. Yeah, I dare say she's gonna pay for herself very shortly.

I know. Why didn't we think of it sooner?

What do you think? I thought of it 18 years ago. Why didn't I give in sooner? I don't know. Sometimes I can be stubborn. That's why— what's— that's why I'm confessing. I'm making this— I've told her before, but now I make this official. I'll put it on tape. A public confession. She was right.