If She Can Do it (single mom, HOA homesteading) You Can Too

And I saw a lot of support during a time that was honestly so hard. I was just gonna do a little bit at a time and hopefully have a garden this summer. For Justin and Rebecca and all of our old friends, even folks I didn't know, to show up and put in my garden beds in one day, something that would have taken me weeks and weeks and weeks to do, was such a huge blessing. And it's actually fed my family. So as everyone's just putting their heart and souls and sacrificing an entire day off of their own farms, which is a big deal, to come and help me. I just was filled with a lot of gratefulness and relief that I was going to be able to have a garden, not just for financial reasons, but also because it's a place that makes me happy. It's a place that gives me a respite from my problems.

Enjoy that trailer. It's awesome. It's going to be an amazing show this weekend. Premieres. It's got to take the air horns. Don't worry, we're going to get to it. Lily is calling me though for more hay in the egg baskets that we just replenished yesterday. Are you gonna let me get hay? We'll just get this hay. I'm curious if since putting hay in here they started to lay in here. New, new layer chickens. What, did they start laying in there? Yeah, let's see if they're still laying in their bush. Yeah. Hey Lily, still laying in the bush? It's still a little too bushy over here for them.

Well, I, I'm gonna have to have like a round bell where my horse is.

Okay.

And every day I'll have like my hay bag.

Okay.

And every Okay, I'll put some, um, the hay in the bag until the bag is full.

Okay.

And then when the bag's full, that's how much I'll feed.

Okay. She's always crazy. She is always thinking about horses. Any more rogue nests? No. The goal is to make the nesting box the darkest, quietest spot in the enclosure, and then they'll lay in it naturally. Oh, the goose is looking out for her and that rooster. All right, crew, let's go feed these acorns. Henry, how Oh boy, he's hiding in a corner. Get some privacy. Away he goes. I don't blame you. While we wait on Henry, I'm wondering, do you identify with Brianna? We're gonna highlight 4 different people this week. Brianna is doing this out of knowing her personally as a friend. It's provision, certainly, for her and her 7 children. But it's also, it goes deeper than that for her. It's connection, it's experience, it's this whole romantic thing with her. How many of y'all can relate with Brianna. We're gonna have 4 different types of growers highlighted this week, and Brianna would probably be the most— should I say dreamy, fantastical? Ready? We're gonna have a baby do tour. Come on, let's go change you. On our way to the pigs, I thought one more thing for Brianna. When we were doing our final tour with her in August, she was like, oh, we'll get some snacks together. And before you know You know what, Brianna is an hour in the kitchen just having a good time, talking, cooking up a storm, and we've basically had lunch from her land. Finally, the moment you've been waiting for. Are the pigs gonna eat these acorns?

I know Beefcake will eat them.

I've already fed them acorns before. I guess I'm pretty sure they're gonna eat them unless they're full on grain. You know, if you want Brianna's abundance, you want to watch Elevated, see how she did it. Listen, If she can do it— at the time it was just her and her 7 kids. She was single momming it at the time. And so if she can grow that kind of abundance, I don't see why anybody can't if they put their mind to it. Here, you want to try it right here? Big, big, big, big pig. The only reason they're not is because they're full on grain, I bet. Oh, they're getting it. I'd like to finish some pigs on acorns, huh? Hey, I don't think it's their choice. The old-timers butchering after this time, you know, after the acorns fall, they fatten them up on acorns.

Oh really?

No. Yeah, they were out of grain. Oh, maybe they had a little bit left. Yeah, a little bit left. That's enough for probably a day or two right there to get Brianna's abundance. Now mind you, it's just a garden. She's not allowed to have any chickens or any kind of livestock or anything like that. Soap. Soap in here for the— for the sheep. That's a maintenance dewormer, Shaklee H, basic Shaklee H, not the new stuff, the old stuff. I need to show you how steep this is. That's about right. These trees are leaning left. Stop, stop throwing at each other. This is about 35, 40 degrees right there, I think. Do you want to milk where they are? It's a little more reasonable. To accomplish what Brianna has, you just gotta have a little bit of Gumption. And if you're watching this in October, you're watching a homestead vlog, you have the gumption. Also, to help you with the gumption, just need a little inspiration. That show will do it, and many of the other shows inside Abundance Plus. You know, inspiration will get you going. I guess gumption will keep you there because Like I said in yesterday's vlog, it's this hot, it's hard. What Brianna did isn't— wasn't easy, and it's not in the sense of hard of like, well, I mean, it's not impossible to learn it. It is going to be up to you to find the gumption to actually put in the work. Not need a hose for a trough? Yes, yes, always two hoses, Josiah. What? The alfalfa's not here. I filled it this morning. I guess I didn't put it back in Sally. Something inside of me is like, climb this hill, drive Sally all the way back, pick up that alfalfa bucket, come all the way back and walk down that hill. A little real talk with Justin Rhodes during milking time. Really, you've got to find that gumption. Gumption is the ability to do things you don't want to do over over and over and over again. You've— to do that, you've got to have a big why. Now, not this kind of fad why that I've been seeing lately. You know, in 2020, everybody went crazy for homesteading. Homesteading went from fringe to like the cool thing, necessary thing to do. And, you know, views on this channel were up 60%. Hatcheries were sold out, seeds were sold out. We still have a lot of that momentum, but look, we also have a lot of what I call COVID gardens. Thank you, Lily. You guys know what a COVID garden is? You're driving down the road this time of year and you see an abandoned garden. It might be 2 years old abandoned, might be just this year abandoned. That's a COVID garden. Things went back to normal and people didn't have a deep reason why to continue because it had become hard at that point. And they needed a deep reason. You see, fear, I don't think, is reason enough. Because when you're operating out of fear, it's this urgent, it's this press, it's this adrenaline, it's this heavy breathing, anaerobic activity. You're gonna burn out. Like, you're either gonna get caught or, or you're gonna escape and then slow down. For all those who are, who are maybe discouraged burnout. We just got to dig into our why and find a more positive why. It might be for health. It might be to regenerate the land like we're doing, to make better, uh, better for the next generation, for my grandkids. It might be to, to save money, to be connected with your family, to be connected with food. Let's find a very positive reason why. Now that was all bonus That's not in the notes, so to speak. You gotta dig for the gumption, but then you do need some know-how. So you'll learn some things by watching Brianna's Elevate show, but we've also got a massive learning library inside Abundance Plus on how to garden, if that's your shtick, if that's what you want to do. But we all have things on chickens and permaculture design and cows. I mean, we got a whole documentary on, on, on the milk cow and how to manage that. Come on, Lily, just bring the alfalfa bucket. I'm out of breath. We gotta go to the dentist. Rebecca's getting her final Invisalign attachment removed. We're gonna see some straight teeth on the beautiful one. You don't want to miss that. We gotta go to the dentist. I've been talking all about Abundance Plus and the new show Elevated in the community inside Abundance Plus. Link down in the description or abundanceplus.com. And then once you sign up, be sure to go on any of your smart devices, get on, uh, the app, and also watch Elevated on TV with, uh, casting or Amazon Fire or Roku or Apple TV, any of those things. 18 minutes till I gotta go and I still gotta change. Can you go finish doing the cows? Sure. Look who I picked up, the beautiful one. How could you get any more beautiful? Beautiful in and out, but about to have straighter teeth. Time's a little ahead of us.

Hurry up and wait.

So now that you won't be wearing them 24/7 per se, yeah, you only wear these at night, right? There's going to be a little bit of a settling phase throughout.

We're gonna eat snacks. Yeah, you have the brush.

I will take no responsibility for any waking.

Yeah, she was on the She was on the—

I know, people are like, how are you losing weight? I'm like, I got the vlog.

One down, four to go. What's this? It's your nighttime retainer. You have to wear the rest of your life.

The rest of her life.

Wow.

It is.

See ya.

See ya, man.

Take care. Can we look at your teeth? Look at the beautiful one where they're straight teeth. Yes, I am hoofing it down our street. A mile from our house, telephone pole down. The beautiful one has to drive probably a 45-minute two-mountain-climb detour. But there's no reason all of us be driving around in the car like that. Gideon had a good idea. Let's get the boys to come get us. I can't seem to find a good connection. They coming to get us? Mom must have had the sense to call them. Who are you? Want to pick up a couple of Well dressed. Well dressed.

Okay, what happened?

There's a phone line down at the end of the road. We're gonna ride. Show me this road he's been working on. Yesterday we started an access road project to our pastures so we didn't have to drive this in them so much. Wow. Oh, this is stellar. And we got a little permaculture trick taught us by Ross. We're gonna have a little tiny ditch in there to have this road serve as a swale to capture the water. Sod is going back on because we want this to be a little grassy knoll.

Putting the sod back on— sod is a pain to deal with.

If anybody can do it, it's you. How did you get under our beloved branch? I'm trying to keep this branch for you guys. Ross wasn't sure if we'd be able to save that branch, but the kids love it because look— well, look, we got to clip those extra branches so you can keep playing on that. Good job, Jonah! Very impressed. You getting the hang of it? Getting a little faster? I think we've got to keep going at this. November 1st, things start getting wet and don't really dry out. Henry! Hey, don't worry, Mom will be here soon. I've just been here 5 minutes.

That's so funny.

I thought it was gonna take you like 45 minutes.

I know, I did too. It wasn't that bad.

You didn't have to climb Bear Wall Mountain. I did. What does he want? Yeah, and you— I figured you remembered us and called and told him to come get us. No, but Lily was just calling for a recipe.

Yeah, well, it's not great cell service anywhere I went, but I did find a regenerative farm and there's apple trees right next to it, so I wonder if they are doing that.

Did you get their name? We can call them.

I mean, no, I was not sure back there. I was driving and I was like— but then I was driving, so I found you a source of apples.

It's good to be back together again. Eating lunch together on this beautiful, perfect fall day. Hopefully that line is cleared before the roofing and siding man comes. With lunch behind us, Jonah is going to go back and work more on that road. Will you put a time lapse on for him, Jonah?

Thank you.

Anything new down there, honey? Hey, we were gonna look at the window. You want to look at the window? He's been wet here. We're trying to decide, do we take the siding off down here because sheetrock, or do we put sheetrock on top of it?

Because we have to sheetrock it like this.

Wow, this can be our entrance to the garage.

This is our entrance to the garage.

Is he opening that side too? It's a homesteading mudroom right here. That's it, Randolph. He didn't poop, he pooped early. Oh, you doubled today. Let's see this new window. We got a new window in the little library. It's already so much brighter over here.

Can we get that tractor back?

I love this house. And roomier. I know. We're in one of those lulls between projects. It's just driving us nuts. Doesn't seem like much is going on.

Whoa!

You know, I imagined that window sideways. I did too, but it's alright.

It's what it is.

But it's vertical. Can you do it?

Yeah.

Can you do it, you monkeys? Josiah, you're going to have to tell us how it is up there. It's nice. I don't think I could pull a Gideon and get up there. Hey, do you think I can hand you the camera? I'm going too far over. Dang, Donna, look how much further you got. Wow. What is this? Says his back hurts from driving so much excavator today. May hurt right there, but it probably stems from elsewhere. What does this say in my future?

Well, hopefully onion rings.

Hey, how do you feel after that massage? Good.

Better.

Better. Homemade lard. Homegrown lard. Looking good.

Yeah, I don't know, I've never tried this batter before, so it's a little—

What inspired you?

I just looked up what are good things to have with hamburgers.

Did they say green beans? They didn't actually have on the farm.

This is what we have on the farm, but they did have this green bean, like, in like breaded green beans.

There's that green bean casserole. How's the onion ring, Henry? How's the gluten-free onion ring bet?

I'm good. Sorry.

Use the same recipe next time?

Find a different one?