The vlog documents the family’s New Year’s Day on their farm after Justin suffers a blunt‑force eye injury. With the local eye doctors closed, the family resorts to home remedies—flaxseed paste, lubricating drops, pain medication, and rest—while monitoring swelling and vision. Justin remains mostly in bed, occasionally checking his phone, and expresses frustration at being unable to help on the farm. The wife (Speaker A) coordinates the day’s chores: milking cows, feeding livestock, cleaning up a spilled milk incident, and overseeing the children’s tasks. Rachel, the children, grandparents, and other family members step in to handle feeding, herding, and other farm duties. The family prepares a modest New Year’s breakfast of cabbage, bacon, and eggs, then a dinner of pork burgers, black‑eyed peas, collard greens, and chocolate pie. Planned activities such as a Polar Plunge and a farm project are postponed, and Justin mentions an upcoming dental surgery. Throughout, the wife edits the vlog, reflects on the emotional toll of recent events—including the loss of Justin’s father—and thanks everyone for their help. The tone is conversational, supportive, and hopeful, with a focus on resilience and family cooperation during an unexpected health setback.
Chapters
Happy New Year! We woke up this morning and Justin's eye was still hurting pretty badly. I am on chores, the boys are helping me. Obviously he is resting in bed. We're hoping that the home remedy— the home remedies that we're doing are going to help him because today is the first day there are no eye doctors open. We're just going to treat at home. If tomorrow he feels just bad, we will go to the eye doctor because they'll be open then. We have texted with an eye doctor who is a friend, and they just told us to keep it lubricated, pain medicine, and rest. So, that's what he's doing. Hey, Justin.
Hey.
How you feeling?
Pretty good.
No, you're not.
This is a flaxseed.
Oh, good.
Ground flax.
How long do I keep that on there? I don't know.
It's just in one of my remedy books.
Okay.
It's just one of the things things we're gonna do to hopefully help it. Obviously, if there's like something stuck in there, we're gonna need to go to the doctor. We don't think that there's something stuck in there because it just— it was like a blunt trauma. But we're gonna figure it out, aren't we, babe?
Yep.
I'm planning to shoot the vlog, do the chores with the help of the boys, and to edit. And Rachel is going to help me today. It looks like she may have already pooped. Great. Flossy has left us. She does nice— no, she doesn't like it. Aunt Rachel's trying to brush her face. She's not real friendly. I'm a little afraid she's gonna kick me. You want me to do this?
Okay. Look at that beautiful marking, Mama. Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, you're splashing me, Jonah! Okay, Justin's jacket's getting in my way.
I feel bad squeezing on her like this. You just wait till you see that calf nursing her. It's rough, is it? Okay, all right, okay.
I guess I just have to be more aggressive. I just don't want to hurt her. Oh, this one is tough. Okay, whoa, whoa, you're splashing me!
Sorry, Lily. No, Lily's crazy. Have we decided on a name?
No, but I want, I want, I want Buffalo. I know, I know, H is for handsome. Why not?
Well, because we want to make sure that everybody knows that he's— we want to have him. He's, uh, he's gonna be dinner.
He's gonna be a dinner.
So Rebecca's taking the milk up. Hello kitty kitty. Too bad I'm allergic to cats or else I'd pet you. And that's to filter out any, like, if there was any hairs.
Yeah, her specs are Shut the door.
Yum.
All right, we're gonna do a mid-milking checkup on Justin. How you doing?
Feeling like it's helping.
Oh, you think it's what you've been doing?
Yeah.
Oh good.
How's Fosse?
She's good actually. Yeah, she wasn't— she wasn't too, um—
to give you a gallon?
Almost 3/4.
I'm feeling like it's working good.
I want to pet them, but they're not.
You can pet this one.
Is it okay? Good morning.
Hi, buddy. Can I get your outside?
I like—
I'll just pet the babies. Oh wow, look at this beautiful fur.
Oh, oh, don't tip it over.
You said this one's filthy?
She's disgusting.
Oh, does that one have a cut on its teat?
Tail?
Is it called a teat or—
yeah.
She's in heaven, making good progress.
Yep. Hello.
Good job. That's, that's it.
Oh yeah, Rebecca, what do you want me to do to help?
Carry that milk upstairs? Yeah, let me do that.
Yes.
Go, go, go, go, go! You're going to have to herd that one, S. It's going to go into the sand. I'm good.
Go herd that one.
Hello, handsome. You got to go out. I know you like it in here, don't you? Come on, catch up to Mommy. There you go.
He's so cute.
All right, you got the grain. Need to turn the fence off and put that dispenser inside there and then fill it up. Take your time.
Good job.
Look how excited they are, Lily. So if you're going to go ahead and clean something, it's best if you just put the energy in it, get it clean all the way. Now we know how much you do around here. Yeah, I'm sorry.
No, it's all right. I know, hard to sit there while everybody's doing my jobs.
Justin, we've had breakfast, which was so good.
You cooked so good.
We had cabbage and bacon and eggs. And why is it so washed out?
You have to unrecord it.
So we had cabbage and bacon and eggs. Kitchen timer off like crazy. Okay, okay, good. And you turned off the thing. So we're just cleaning up. So it's New Year's Day. We had, we had some plans, mucho plans, that have been thwarted. Due to this eye injury.
Now we're just—
no Polar Plunge, no Polar Plunge. That was gonna happen today. I was gonna Polar Plunge.
No farm project, no farm project.
We didn't work out as a family.
A special movie for my dad. No birthday today. Today is Papa's birthday, Justin's dad's birthday, and I can't even keep my eyes open.
Let's hope that this is not a, uh, indication of what we're gonna do all year.
Because you said that's a week— this could take a week. That's not the case.
Yeah, I mean, well, one thing I read said that if it's like a scratch, it could just take 24 hours.
But see, I thought it was gonna take— I thought it'd be better in the morning. I honestly did. Yeah, made all the plans last night for today.
Yeah, it's almost like sleeping made it worse.
And I was in denial walking around this morning trying to get up.
I know, he was trying to do it and I was like, you need to Lay down. Close those eyes. And then next— at the end of next week, you have a dental surgery. So it looks like January is going to be a little rough for him. So, but we're doing all the things.
I'm not used to being the one on the couch.
No, you're not.
You're not used to being the one up, are you?
No, I'm not. But I'm thankful that I feel good enough to do it. Now I am going to go edit. I'm here editing. Justin's in there.
He's on his phone.
He's on his phone.
He's on his phone.
That's good. That's an improvement.
Means he can see.
I don't think he'll be on it for long. He just looks like he's checking something. Justin's been taking naps on and off all day. He's been icing on and off all day. We've been putting the eye drops in his eyes. I just gave him a home homeopathic remedy. He took a nap, and now he can open his eyes. So that is amazing. He's in the bathtub right now, per my orders. This is hard for him, but I think that he needed this rest. I think that with everything that's happened in the last 2 months, you know, it's taken a toll on him. And not that, um, it, it's hard. He lost his dad. You know, losing a parent is really difficult, and so maybe this is what his body needed. It's hard for him because it's such a beautiful day outside, and he's— the light is— it's hard for him with the light right now on that one eye. Um, but maybe that's going to change and he's going to feel better this afternoon. I really hope so. I'm really hoping for him, but maybe he just needed this rest. And sometimes it takes an injury or a sickness, which this is an injury, to make you rest. So— here's hoping that he is on the mend. How you doing?
Hey, I got my eyes open.
That's right.
I'll be it under blue blocker glasses. It's a little easier on me.
Okay, keep it shut. I'm gonna look at it. Looks like it's a little bit swollen. His eyelid looks a little bit swollen, but you look better.
It's been watering a lot.
You look like you're—
Makes me feel better from this morning.
Good.
Makes me happy.
Thanks.
How's the edit going?
Edit's going long. I'm cutting down again, and then I'll have to— I had to—
I'm a—
I'm an editor that keeps too much and then has to go back and cut more.
You hate to kill those darlings.
I hate to kill stories. And yesterday was a very busy day, but there's just gonna be some things that you just gotta cut out because nobody has 2 hours to watch everything that we do that's worth something. So just checking in on you. Do you need water? Drink some water. Put some eye drops in. Back to the editing. I am finally done. It is 5 o'clock. It took me like 4 hours, maybe. How you doing? Checkup. Looking better. It's a little bit— it's a little bit more swollen, your eyelid.
It is?
Your eyelid looks a little swollen. Okay, but I mean, if it got hit with something, yeah, it's gonna make it swollen. But tonight we have pork burgers, set of black-eyed peas, which is not gaps. We are gonna have white beans kind of prepared like, um, black-eyed peas, and then greens. And then we have chocolate pie still, and I have a little bit of french fries left over from last night because Gideon was asleep. Dinner is ready. We are sitting down. We had some— since Gideon didn't get his french fries, I made some, and Grandma and Grandpa are getting to eat a little bit of those. There you go. Even the kids who got them last night are eating. But pork burger and then Beans, like black-eyed peas, collard greens. Got my probiotic. How's your eye doing, Justin?
It's okay, it's up and down.
I hope we have a miracle tonight, a miraculous, a miraculous healing in the morning. We don't have to deal with a doctor, but if not, we're going to call first thing in the morning, hopefully get an eye appointment.
Why do you have that rolling? I don't like to be down like this, it just drives me crazy. Me and not being able to help on the farm. But I want to thank everybody for stepping it up today and last night like crazy just to get it done. Grandma doing dishes, Gideon coming in and saying, what can I do for you? Jonah taking charge of the chores, even Grandma helping at the— put Flossie in. Big Daddy, I don't know, I'm sure it's a— he cooked the pork burgers. Big Daddy cooked the pork burgers.
And Josiah, we went up there and helped him out. Yeah.
Ah, and Lily helped Mom cook today, and Josiah helping Jonah do the chores, and Rachel helping with the chores and helping clean up the milk fiasco this morning. We spilled some milk. Y'all spilled some milk. And Faith, I'm sure, helping watch the kids this evening. So everybody, thank you.
