I'm Pre-Diabetic, and Could Be Worse

We've been talking about focusing more on Justin and trying to get him, you know, his feet feeling slightly better.

That was us on our phone with doc— my doctor after blood results. You want to process this?

Mm-hmm.

A review. It's probably good to review right after we get done. The good news. Let's start with the good news. I got the metal out of my body.

Yes.

We got the mercury out of my body. With what supplement was that?

It was a quicksilver silica, I think.

I got rid of the mercury.

Well, she said it's come down substantially. We're gonna, you're gonna finish what is left in the bottle.

The bad news is I'm pre-diabetic.

We had blood work done in June and your A1C was 4.7, and we just had it done.

We came out here to be alone. I thought we'd have a moment out here, but maybe not. Two pieces of bad news. So, pre— So, hold on a second.

So—

Pre—

But you also had a lot of pain in August and September, and you're still in pain and you're coming out of that now. So because of that, she wants to do a connective tissue, a comprehensive connective tissue blood workup.

But for anybody that doesn't know what that means, which I didn't even know till then, Could be a— autoimmune issue.

Connective issue. Yeah. Connective tissue.

Yeah, because of the problems I've been having with joints and you know, the flare-up I had.

An inflammatory response.

I'm prone to this kind of thing.

Well, for whatever reason, your body is sending out inflammatory things, and I really hope that this comes back negative because it's just a whole nother world that I don't want to deal with.

Yeah, cuz that's then going to a rheumatologist. Rheumatologist. Some ways you want it, cuz then maybe that's what my problem is and we can get to the bottom of it. But you don't, cuz you can't really get to the bottom of that, can you?

I mean, you can, I think. I don't know. I just, I've never dug into it and I just don't want to learn another diagnosis.

She like talked about lupus, threw that out there.

Well, that's some of the things.

You can control that one?

I have no idea.

So that's what's so frightening, right?

I don't know, cuz I don't know anything about it. It's very frightening. And I just have a lot of medical anxiety.

Yeah.

I just want you to be well. Like, I just want you to feel well, and I want you to be happy and healthy. But we're trying some things, and we're gonna try some other things, and then we're gonna retest your blood glucose. But you have inflammation in your body somewhere and it's affecting other issues, it's affecting other things. Like, it could— that could be why your glucose and your A1C was high.

Yeah.

Because of the inflammatory response.

Like she's saying, the way we eat, you know, I'm eating more like they do now and it's very clean. It's, uh, you know, I shouldn't have—

These issues.

High blood sugar.

Well, your HSC CRP is down, but it's not down—

She said I could be genetically prone to that. So basically she cut out my sugar for 6 months. No weekly dessert with Lily.

You've had your sugar cut out.

No honey.

And it doesn't seem to help.

I've done it for maybe 60 days. I've never done it for 6 months.

I know, but like, there's no joy.

Like, come on! I'm gonna have to find joy somewhere else.

I'm just sick of it. I'm just sick of health issues. I'm just sick of it. Yeah. I just don't want to deal with any more health problems.

Yeah. What are you doing in the truck?

Uh, there's no other space to eat.

Sally's in the shop. Just make sure you don't run over anybody. A little clunky for this nook and cranny farm. It's got heat. It's 27 degrees. Let me grab scissors real quick. It's 27 degrees. That's unusual this time of year. That's a little early, but we still got to do chores. We got an exciting project right off the top of the block. We gotta clip chicken wings, we gotta count them, and we gotta identify the old lady hens. Oh, does Winnie got her pig— stop, I can't see. She keeps being behind that tree. Where'd you put the pig guts? Up in the thing. Let's go see what she has. That might be interesting. She's carrying something. Is it Is it a predator? Is it her feed pan? Or is it the pig guts? Whatever it is, it's something big. Winnie! Got her to stop. Winnie, what you got? Don't, don't walk off, Winnie. Welcome to another vlog where you journey with us growing our own food and eating what we grow. What are you eating? It's something big. Oh, what is it? Oh, good for you, Winnie. Good for you. It's the pig head. Well, we won't have to feed her for a couple of days, will we? She's getting into those pig guts from yesterday's pig butchery. Yeah, she's, she's going totally different route now. She says, they're on to me, I'm gonna hide it different. Remember when the beautiful one accidentally ordered this? Show them the size of this thing. That's only half of it. That crazy immersion blender that she thought was a normal— look at this thing. I'm totally not endorsing this, actually. And actually, I don't recommend Beaver based on on our experience with this. They said they have a hassle-free return policy. They don't, and we cannot return this. They gave us like a partial credit, very partial. We're gonna do with an immersion blender like this. And then I watched the vlog where we were washing the walnuts. Now you don't have to do it unless you want to. Go ahead, do it. Yeah, let's do it. We were washing the walnuts and we put them in a— we soak them in the bucket and stir them with a stick. Well, let's stir them with this. Don't tell me it doesn't work. How do you turn it on? Probably something right here. Are you kidding me? This thing doesn't even work. Could be because it's 27 degrees out here and that's been outside. It could be because that's a piece of junk. Our goal is to grow the most amount of food possible for our health, for the health of ourselves, for the health of our family. So you never know what a day could hold. Today we hope to mark our chickens. Let me explain why this is important for the food grower. There's— there have been zero eggs in this. This is where most of the old ladies are, so it would be their— is this their second winter? I think it's their second winter. But if you want eggs in the winter, it's got to be the chicken's first winter. So you definitely don't want to keep a buck— end up with a bunch of only old ladies. What? Well, you're not going to be able to count them in the box. We also need to count people. Hey, we're marking old ladies. So that we harvest them next fall. Okay, we don't need a bunch of moochers. Now, do you see any old ladies in here? No. We should make sure people don't need their wings clipped. How do we tell an old lady? Well, they're not raggedy. I'll do it. Still got all her feathers. Her feet are generally smooth. She's a hair smaller.

23.

Most of them are very youngest chicks. It's funny how putting these 3 different pussies together in the same run, they still kind of stay in their little cliques even though they could intermix. Some of them did, not much. It's on an old lady. For one, she's molting, See this? See the thinning of her feathers? She's very heavy. She's a dense feeling. See, she's had some mating action there, perhaps. She's a little more scruffy around the head. Oh look, she's marked, so that could be a sign too. I don't know what I was marking for there though, but look how scaly and rough her legs are. Definitely an old lady. So everybody doesn't have a zip tie is only a year old, is only just born in 20— born, call the Inquirer, a chick is born, hatched in 2023. To go for this one, look how just smooth and feather, the head feathers are. You can just tell. You gotta decide when you get into homesteading, are you running a petting zoo Or are you growing food? You might have got into this to have extension of your pets, and that's okay, but don't be confused because you can't really be both. You can have some dedicated pets, I reckon, but you can't all be that and you have your efficiency. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Old lady egg production goes way down. See, this one's heavy, but she's not as dense. And the, the feathers are really smooth. They really, they feel like silk or something. That one's pretty much grown. I can still tell it's, it's not an old lady. I might even talk to the beautiful one, and we might have to go ahead and cull those old ladies because they ain't, they're not laying. This one's a little harder. Okay, she does have smooth feathers. She's got a little scruffy there. Head's a little beaten, maybe a little frost damage on her comb. I'm gonna call her old. This one was a little harder to tell though. I could be wrong, but if I'm mistaken, it's only going to be on one, one or two. Remember when I bought those wood string mats for the nest box? It is keeping it cleaner, but they're tearing them up. It's not going to be worth it, like $3 for this. I think I'm gonna try something like this. This turf something or another. These are my old ladies. We need to mark these people. She's got a smooth coat. Oh, she's got poop on her back. Oh, her is a skelly foot. I haven't hold her weird because she's got poop on her. 31 old ladies, 43 youngins. So that gives us an idea of what we need to order now. For next spring, which we definitely need to replace the old ladies. We can't just order 31 though, so because people are gonna die, little chicks die, they don't all get up. So probably to be safe, 45 chicks we need to order in the spring. And what's neat is these old ladies will still lay next spring through the summer, but then as they halt like they are now, the young ones would have started laying. So we'll harvest these old ladies as soon as the young ones their replacements start laying. Notice what I did there in my calculations. Listen, growing your own food is not a quick fix. We're thinking now in the fall about eggs a year from now. We still got to get the chicks, we still got to rate— we gotta order them, rate, uh, get them, raise them. Oh no, I'm being called. My radio's dead. You never know what's gonna happen in a day here. Must be awful though. Call me in from 29 degrees. Well, it was one of those mornings for the beautiful one. Kids left it a mess in here. Guys, you can't leave it a mess. Eat breakfast in the morning now and then they don't. Guess they didn't pick up. She opened this, dropped the mug, broke the mug, got glass in the honey. I just replaced the honey. What is this? Did you ask to do that? Is this part of the problem?

No.

What are you making marshmallows for? Hot chocolate. When are you gonna have hot chocolate?

Whenever we want hot chocolate.

Okay, well, let's not do it this morning. It's already enough, and you have horse lessons, and we need to get out there, and I still got to finish the chores, let alone the project. That'll occupy him. That's good. Rebecca's classic breakfast: cherry tomatoes, green onions, Fried, a little bit of scrambled eggs. Jonah, keep scrambling those eggs. Well, we got the beautiful ones up. The kitchen still needs a way to go, but we got Josiah. It's his turn in here. Come on, Jonah, let's go get on your shot. Rebecca's still down and out with her thyroid being imbalanced. Jonah's warming up the car for her. She's gonna go to acupuncture today. Perhaps that'll help some. Give me a hug before you leave. This one for the vlog. I've already hugged you me once, but I'll take another one. I know. All right, and a kiss. I love you too. Be dangerous. Come on, guys. Lily, did you finish the chickens? Okay, uh, yeah, let me get the, uh, the medicine piece for, for honey. Okay, I'll pull you through the field to hard frost, the machine, and a sled. Does it work?

We need to be pushed off. Can you push us off? They busted a hole in the ice for themselves.

Did they? Yeah, it's thin ice. Gave her a maze, didn't we? Yeah, I wonder if she found it. Last day of treatment. And then we're gonna let the calf be on her for 7 days and test again. Okay, I think she'd rather have a T injection than take a drench. Yeah, this is the hard part. Wow, she's extra not into it. Back up, back up! Watch out, just let her go, just let her go! That was wild. Good.

When he's burying pig guts, she walks down here with pig guts, dug a hole, and I presumably buried them this morning when she, uh, we caught her carrying off the head. No, just had told me about it.

So I am so glad that's the last session treating Honey. She hates that. Y'all want me to pull you? Yeah, it's supposed to take 7 days to run its course, the treatment. So we'll, uh, let's leave a calf on her. She'll be milked 24/7.

She won't run away.

And if that doesn't work, we're calling that teat done. For those that don't know, she's got mastitis. She's also our matriarch cow, probably gives about a gallon and a half a day between her and Vanilla. We're getting 2.5 gallons a day, which is enough for our milk, yogurt, cream, some ice cream. I'd say most of our butter. So we need her back.

And yogurt.

When we don't have her and milk, we're not getting butter from the farm. So we got to get her better. 10:04. We got about 1 hour to horse lessons. Jona, can you clean the shop while I start working on the pig port? Nook and cranny homesteading, you gotta always think we end up having nook and cranny time slots, so we're always sure to, or at least try to, make sure we're doing the most important effective work. The winter is coming and the sheep are going to need their deep bedding. We gotta get the pigs out. We're gonna build a pig port for them. By the crop garden.

Shame on milking idea for this winter. Sure, just a shed here and hay bales around it. Okay, I can't get in here.

We could do a lean-to off of this and then put pallets around and just build hay wall. Okay, yeah, what do you think about that?

Yeah, it'd be nice.

You could have Randolph help you with the lean-to, pig port, or cleaning the shop. Which one you want to do? Clean the shop, definitely clean the shop. Can you use some helpers, Jonah?

Yeah, they'll help.

Yeah, just help him, guys, or you're gonna come help me with the pig port. All right, Jonah. Oh boy, can you do this in an hour? You need to get this done for the remodel. I mean, it's hard to grow your own food without a house. We're gonna make the—

all work on it and not just be part today.

We're gonna make the ultimate homestead house here. But guys, we've gotta— we've gotta clear this out. Look at her eyeing this for her horses. You want a horse stall in here? Yeah, I think it needs to be on the other side, south side. Warmer.

But that's used for cows.

We'll see. Jonah, I think you can do this in an hour. Get the trash bag, go through, throw everything away. That's what I want to do. We got 16-foot cedar, 16-foot flush decking. That's good for skids. I think we can get our skids and maybe, maybe even our first post in an hour. Well, we want to aim for the impossible, don't we? Then extraordinary things will happen. Doesn't look like you're helping, Jonah.

I want to help you. Oh, I'm helping Papa.

Okay, then go get me the measuring tape. Okay, this is going to cut into your horse riding time. How about that one? I'm gonna help Jonah real quick while I wait on the measuring tape. Mainly I don't want to be embarrassed doing this pig pork project. We're going to be in here a lot. Measure twice, cut once. You ever heard that saying, guys? The taller we go though, the heavier it is and the more exposed they are going to be to elements. The cattle panel is 52, so since it'll be this tall— hold on, yeah, that's plenty of room to throw material in. We need room to throw in garden waste, produce, things like that. Go measure the skids on the milk sled. You're stuck. The goal is growing our own food. Not to get— the obstacles are this. These are the things getting in the way. Oh, you got unstuck? Okay, you're good. All right, let's go. You guys can be heroes of the cause or enemies of the cause sometimes. I guess I can be that for myself too. That makes chores a little more fun, huh? Actually 14 inches, but I think a foot will do. How far are the roofs apart? 18 inches. Oh, that's all I needed to know. This is the milk sled. I'm modeling the pig port after it. Metal skids on the bottom, a little metal puller. This is from Polyface Design. This whole contraption is— you can pull it from either side. I'm gonna have to have these angle braces up higher though. Because we're gonna get like this much of compost. I don't know, 3, 4 feet worth of compost in these pig ports. It'll be that much compost by the end of their seasonal use. Like, you'd put a couple of feeder pigs in there in the spring, add, add your compost as you go, wood chips as you go, any garden waste, any weeds, any extra produce, put in there. We've raised 2 pigs that way and only had to use Maybe 2 bags of feed. Y'all go ahead. Yeah, bye! Hey Austin, roll the people a little bit of that footage of our pig port. My pig port just got better. The 240 square foot carport turned pig port just got better. We expanded it from just in here. A deep bedding system where they eat and then they manure. Oh, let's do it now. And we cover with— wait, how'd that— that got uncovered. Oops, that's supposed to cover it at night. Anyway, let's get some mulch on that. So Justin, why aren't you building a carport again? Well, I'd like to have something custom But I would— I'd like to have something mobile. That carport was not mobile. So now port doesn't stand for carport anymore, it stands for portable. So pig portable. Let's actually do something on this pig port now. Okay, hang tight. What happened here? Show that. We got to fix it.

Can you fix it? No, just put tape on it.

Yeah, boy. How's cleaning?

You can buy a new sled.

Cleaning and organizing. Did you get that, uh, organize the fence stuff into the fence stall, please? Hey, Darth Helmet, what you doing? You look like Darth Helmet. Yeah.

Can I ride this to horse lessons?

Does your electric bike work, Jonah?

Uh, if I get a charger, yeah, that'd be a good—

hey, that'd be a good video for your channel, fixing your electric bike. Now let's put this decking on it. We're gonna put the rib side down. This is upside down so that we can put these screws through. And then this top rib is the only part that touches the surface. That's going to go through. Does this thing turn like this? 45 degrees, Jonah? It does put it on 45. Heck yes! Just put the skid plate on. Oh, and they're flat, they're not angled. Are you sure? You might have just saved me a lot of trouble. That's right, we're making the metal skid plate. Yeah, we better not cut them. All right, let's make another one.

No, no, okay, let's cut them.

Come on, we got 5 minutes.

5 minutes.

Well, I'm glad you stopped me. That would have been very annoying. Let's make one more. Come on. And then tomorrow— and then tomorrow we can start framing. Jonah's right, we should tidy up. And I've got to leave in seriously 2 minutes to give plenty of time to get to Lily's horse lessons. I'm not— I'm not gonna let her down. I've missed like the last— usually Mom and I alternate, but for whatever reason I haven't been able to go with her. I'm going today. Sure, I would love to see stay and work on this for another hour because the thing is a lot of the work is just getting set up and tearing down. So the more time you can dedicate to the work, the more efficient it is. Let's at least put these skids out in place. I think we're gonna build it in place. Yeah, we got our start! It's designed to fit in front of a 100 and— well, that's a, uh, 21-foot by 50-foot bed. Fits nicely there. Beautiful one wants to skid it this way, so the pigs will be in there, they'll be making their compost. We'll skid it out of the way, and then the compost is exposed and we can easily turn it. Hey, our tarp's gotten blown off. Who wants to cover our garden? That's exciting. First piece down. I'd like to think I'd do office hours on Friday, but this is fun and exciting. If I'm gonna get done by Sunday afternoon, I'm probably gonna need to work tomorrow. Look at what the hard frost did to these tomatoes. Gosh, is it already that time? Can you go start the truck? Can I grab an apple? There's a tight ship. Hey, you gonna be warm enough?

Yeah, I have two sweaters on.

Okay, you've been riding over a year, haven't you? Year and 5 months. Wow. Yeah, well, you gotta train. You're gonna have your first event next weekend. Yeah. Okay, Lily is going to have her very first show. She's showing— she's gonna actually show this guy. This is Smokey. Not this weekend, but next. So last minute practice if you will, although she's been riding a year and a half now. Looking good. Okay, I think she's getting ready to jump. Yeah, she loves this. That's just a step over. I don't know much, but it doesn't look like the other horse wants to jump. Here we go, here we go. Hey cowgirl, you did so good!

Thanks.

It's all those jumps. You liked it? Yeah. You ready for this event? You got one more practice. Yeah. And then you're gonna sweep the competition away. Leftovers from the birthday. Uh-oh, I think Gideon's got it. They skipped today. What the What's up with that? I thought we cleared.

He got sick, right? Yeah, then he exposed us all to it.

So you okay? She was gagging. He did throw up.

He threw up like chunks, hon. Oh, oh no, the chunk, dude. You're eating the chunk.

Oh no, it's coming up, buddy. You haven't had it yet. See what I'm talking about? Homemade naan.

Okay, well, let's get you the gluten-free homemade continuous glucose monitor.

It's probably grain-free.

It is grain-free.

My cheat is everybody else's diet. It's crazy.

Justin.

Yeah.

This is— it's like, uh, coconut flour, arrowroot flour.

I know.

Flaxseed, egg.

I know. It's my last hurrah. No sugar for 6 months.

How do I drink one of these every night and my A1C is 4.4?

I guess it's just individual substitution.

It could also be your Lyme disease creating inflammation, or it could be a connective tissue disease— hopefully not— creating inflammation.

We got us an appointment with a cardiologist.

Correct.

Because we didn't talk about that, because there's the vascular inflammation is up and we need to find it.

It's better than it was. Hold on a second. It's better than it was, and it is, it is caused by something causing inflammation in your body. So inflammation is just a symptom, it's not a good cause. So the inflammation is causing— it could— I read this afternoon after our appointment that your blood sugar being raised like that could be caused by the inflammation. And so you, when your A1C was good in June when we had blood work done, it was 4.7.

I had low inflammation.

You had very low inflammation and then you had a flare of whatever, from whatever source. We're not sure what caused it. And then now your A1C is crazy high.

Yeah.

So like, and I read that Lyme can, they can, the Lyme spirochetes can cause inflammation. that causes your blood sugar, your A1C, to be excessive.

Yeah.

So maybe that's all it is. Your vascular inflammation is caused by whatever is causing inflammation in your body. Okay, it is better than it was previous blood work. Yeah, it's come down. It's gotten better. It's still not where it needs to be. We were only 7 points from moderate.

Yep.

So that's not terrible. It's I mean, you didn't even register. You had such high inflammation.

The change is 6 months.

I gotta find the baby.

No sugar or processed carbs, and we're gonna glucose monitor for 2 weeks. Like, does this Redmond's Relight, because it has stevia in it, does that spike my glucose more than it should? Our doctor said, um, could have 1 fruit a day, so we would test 1 fruit a day. Does it, does it spike my Sugar more than it should. This yogurt spice— good. Last hurrah here, banana bread. This is Grandma's banana bread. She taught you how to make her style banana bread today. Did you enjoy it? That'll be special memories for you guys. Yay! She's working out the remodel plan. You feel like we got a health plan too? You feel secure? Are you gonna be a nervous wreck until we get the No, I feel better about it. We're gonna get a test to see if I have an autoimmune connective tissue, and you're freaked out because you have one. Not a connective tissue autoimmune. All right, but you're feeling good. We're not gonna worry about it until we have to. Correct. We're gonna address the— maybe brain fog's a symptom of it too. High blood sugar. We feel good. We got a plan. Stick to it. We're not gonna worry. Don't you worry either. I know you guys love and care for us, and thank you so much for that. I know you have our backs. For that, I say happy day.