Injury Can’t Stop Me From this Blueberry Score

Um, dislocated my arm the day before yesterday. We are at the height of our farm this week. The height is the week we butcher the sea— the first batch of sea monsters. That's happening tomorrow. Did you do your chores? There's no way. No way.

I fed both waters.

I'm filling up, and that up one was good.

No, it wasn't. It was empty yesterday.

Yeah, but I filled it up last night, so it was full today.

What are you, crisscross? We've left them here too long and they've took in the grass. Okay, open this up. See, I would have left that up and then they wouldn't have come back and left. So go ahead.

I've been having to deal with turkeys getting out every day since you moved to this net.

Okay, it's fine. What are you doing? Keep picking up the net. Don't worry about this turkey. Hey, they're coming! That's good. All right, pick this one up. Wiggle it. If you can't pull it straight up, you have to wiggle it. Now go build your wall.

Look at this, Papa. This is why I like to do it my way.

She's driving me crazy. I just want to grab it. I might have to leave. Leave?

I'm gonna leave too.

Here, you're gonna leave too.

I just want to know what happened if I just done it my way.

Here, here. No, no, go, go closer to the bank. We're going to capture all this. Drop it and then go take the rest of it. Before you tangle it like crazy.

It already is tangled like crazy.

I would be careful about throwing it around like that. I would not have grabbed it like that. I want you to go along the creek bank with it, okay? Go all the way to that tall grass. My job can be make sure everybody has water. Yeah, see, they need water. They're out of water.

Today I am having a two Not looking forward to it. I can't imagine that it's gonna be really bad, but we'll see. Justin's gonna stay home. Jonah's gonna go with me to drive me home. I'm just out trying to get the light in my eyes. I'm gonna go harvest cabbages right now. I have a lot to do before I have to leave, so I have to leave no later than 11:15 to get to my appointment. But then I feel like maybe I need to do some errands beforehand. I need to kind of just, just so that I feel like everything's taken care of. Probably will be okay to not go earlier because I just ordered the vacuum seal bags on Amazon as opposed to going to Walmart. So I have to leave at 11:15, so I need to harvest cabbages, make sauerkraut, I need to test that sauerkraut, work out eat maybe 2 meals. I'm trying to think of what else. Anyways, our sweet potatoes are coming out. We still need to get this broccoli out. They're not huge heads, you know, but are we tempting fate because of heat? I went in and checked on the green beans. They're fine. We should be okay not harvesting green beans today. You know, we got a first harvest, I feel like. So, and then the cabbages. I'm gonna go discuss with Justin right now, trying to see where he's at with that, what his thoughts are. He may have better, different thoughts than me. I will say though, the tomatoes coming in— we will have tomatoes sooner than later. Hopefully I'm gonna feel good enough tomorrow to get in there and prune, because it looks like I need to prune.

I don't know where my hat is. It's one less thing to do. Sorry if I have a bad attitude. I don't want to, but it's just, it's just a part of it. I'll come around, I'll come around. Those potatoes, but a lot of weeds in there. It's crazy how it gets ahead of you. You're doing you a disservice if I didn't show you the bad attitude sometimes. And the bad attitude gets worse. It's just because I want you to know I'm not perfect, and if you get upset, have a bad attitude, points, it's okay, it's okay, it's normal.

I decided to come and water what little, little, little plants I have in here, which isn't actually not many at all. I guess I've given up on peppers this year and maybe even winter squash. I'm not sure. Life's kind of moving really fast right now. There's other priorities, I guess. At this point.

Still yellow jackets. We're trying to get that plastic up, the plastic, um, drying rack. Gideon's gonna get it. Oh, there's one after you.

You told me not to. Really?

Because we're— they're gonna try to burn that nest. You're gonna duct tape that on there. That's a good angle, right? We're gonna be more Jerry.

How's it supposed to light though?

How are you gonna keep it on? Well, you want to get underneath it. This definitely works better with a camera. How'd you get that to stay? It has a lock. It's working. Oh boy, they're mad. They're so mad. Okay, let's go do Miss Sea Monsters before the sun's too hot. Ran out of fuel. There's some of the nest still on the ground that needs to be taken care of. They're going to Ace Hardware today. They can get bee spray, hopefully non-toxic. More move for the big sea monsters. We've got to move these sea monsters now.

Are we moving this?

We're moving them because we don't want them to be in there poop going into the butchering. Okay, see this connection line? There's a strand here from the— this is where we have electricity to connect the fence. I need you to go roll the reel up so that this will be tighter. My job as the crippled is to be quality control. He's running on ahead of me, test the cows. I don't really love how this water is. Do not like how this hose is all tangled up in that. Go turn the fence off and get that out. Now you got it. No. Are you afraid he's gonna do it?

Yes.

That'd be a mean trick if he did it. He won't do it.

Come on, look, watch him.

Stop playing. You don't know how to do that? You got to push down. No, it doesn't twist. Push down while you pull up. I know it's backward. I know that's crazy, but you kind of push down with the hose. There you go. It's like that terrible game where the, the leader has to tell the people what to do and they're blindfolded or something, and you got to be really good describing it. It's super hard. These little guys can take their spot and continue to do hurricane relief here. Don't get me wrong, these kids are amazing, and they have done the bulk of the chores this morning, and they can do the chores in a pinch. How do I describe this? It's just It's just the little things, okay? But those little things can be crucial. Um, for example, the electric line to the, the one strand of electric to get electricity to the net, it was laying on the ground. Well, that's going to ground out, you know. And they didn't test the fence. It was working today. So it would have been okay, but it's not always working. And so if it doesn't always get tested, the cows seem to know it and that they get out. I'm blessed to be in a spot where my kids really can do 90% of the chores, 95, 100% if I'm just out there telling them what to do. But we're 5% away from them taking over the farm. That 5% is just going to take maturity and a sense of ownership and pride in the— in their farm. So we'll try to figure out how to facilitate that. Probably just takes time. Good job, everybody! Everybody did a good job. Thank you very much.

Breakfast has been had, laundry has been started. Some of you may wonder why the older kids— I don't make them breakfast because they don't want to eat what I eat. They want to eat what Lily makes them because Lily makes them more exciting stuff. So, and they don't want to eat right when they wake up also. So it's always hard when you have a plan and then the plan doesn't work out. Like, my plan was to do these things Oh, maybe what I'll do is make, um, so my plan was to do cabbage and maybe green beans if we needed it, but they don't need it yet. And for Fourth of July coming up, I'm gonna make a coleslaw. I'll use our cabbage, but So when you have a plan and then it doesn't go that way, sometimes you can feel really aimless. And anyways, oh, it worked out. Okay, so I might go in and make the hamburger buns. And then— Winnie, what you doing? And then I'll work out while they're rising. And if I'm not lying, I'm a little nervous about today. Like, I'm not nervous about the actual, like, pulling it because I'll be numb then, like, the after. When it all wears off. And maybe, maybe a little nervous about the pulling. Hey, Winnie, you're a good girl. What are they doing? Are they getting into trouble? Did you have a good night? Did you scare things off, huh? Is that what you did? Justin had recruited me to go help with the, the chickens, but he's got the big boys and Gideon, and so I said, well, I'm going to go work out, and he said, that's fine, cuz I just feel like I got a lot to do and I don't really want to work out today, but I need to do it if I'm going to get it done this week.

When a neighbor gives— offers you some blueberry bushes that absolutely jam, you take them even if it is June and the worst possible time. You think just here where our Other blueberries failed. We've had these blueberries planted 6 years at least, and this is all we got. So they don't want to grow here, but our neighbor's blueberries want to grow here. So here's where you can dig a hole, and then you, you dig one every 4 foot. That makes it easy. Another one right here where that bush is, right there. Good job. What are they doing? He has no idea. I love how he just rolls with it. These neighbors let us come and get blueberries every year. We got a big load last year, and these blueberry bushes have been there probably 30 years. They jam, they just absolutely jam. I'm hoping to God though, you know, they've even got berries on them now. They're big, they're mature. It's June, it's all going against us. But we did have Mr. Huntley water them like crazy yesterday, hopefully help with the transplant shock. Go that way with it, set it in the middle. Did you not see how I did it?

Yeah, okay.

No, you kind of, kind of go down the line.

Wait, up like this?

Oh my gosh, that's not really in the middle. Yeah, and walk down the line with it. Okay, get over the thing. See how I'm going, doing a line? So about right here, Josie. Go from the middle of this one straight down the line. You're crooked.

I know.

There you go. Now go all the way out to 4 feet. You're only at 3 feet, but I wish you would kind of go more straight along the line. There you go. Now show them where it's at.

I don't know where it's at.

All right, right there. Come on, move out of the way. I thought about canceling this, but we've actually put him off once or twice. We just can't put him off again. The blueberries are starting to shade his garden. He's got a lot of other more blueberry bushes, so we're helping out a neighbor and getting blueberries at the same time. So it's worth pushing through and finding a way. We got 7 in there, the old blueberry row. We can cut into some of this raspberry row. Right there is fine.

Do you have enough fuel to get down there?

Yeah. Okay, I guess I'll bring the track loader. Oh, you want me to sit on your lap while I drive it? You're funny. I can drive it. Okay, that'll dig up the trees, but how do we get them here? We're gonna load them into a bucket. I was thinking the track loader, but Josiah's like, well, the tractor's faster and I think it'll do less damage to their yard. We named this tractor Lucky because it's lucky if it starts. It's been a while too, so I'm not incredibly hopeful.

Lucky started.

Start saying lucky day instead of happy day.

Okay, I have worked out, showered, and did my hairs, so I'm going to make myself some lunch. Everybody is doing blueberries, and so because I'm getting this tooth extracted and it's probably going to— I'm not gonna be able to eat for a while, so I figured I might as well eat some lunch before I go. So I'm just gonna make myself a pork chop, and I think we have some leftover veggies in the fridge, and I'll just eat those and then brush my teeth. And then I don't know when the next time I'm gonna eat is. I don't know, I don't even know what they're gonna have for lunch, but they'll have something. Um, it's like 10:40, 10:30, so it's a little early. I've got my pork chops made, and I made some sour cream gravy, and we've got leftover. And I won't eat all those pork chops, um, in case you're wondering.

What is that, 10 feet tall? These blueberries want to grow up here. Look how many blueberries are on these bushes. Go ahead and dig around it first. Wow, that's amazing!

Look at that!

Wow. Oh, wonder why we dropped it. Not only did it break our trailer, it got all the dirt soil off the ferry. Our holes are deep enough, they're not wide enough. Unfortunately, the Mini X is at the blueberries. So we're gonna see what we can do with the bucket of the track loader. These bushes make it, it's gonna be a Festivus miracle. So much against them right now. It's different soil too. This is more loamy.

Why don't we bring this—

they're clump— they're definitely coming from a more clay soil. Got this huge trench now, which I guess is a good idea because these are way more wide than they are deep. Okay, we got the second one in. It's not as bad as— I'm a little more hopeful on that second one. More root ball, but look at the clay. Look at the clay versus as our soil, so that's going to be a shock. This one lost a lot of soil, lost a lot of big branches, but I mean, I guess just one— there's so many blueberry bushes here. This is when I would have him straighten up this tree and I would start shoveling, but we're gonna have to wait. We're gonna have to get them all here and then get the Mini X to position them and then water the crap out of them. Oh, this one's made for this hole. Just had you guys go with me. We only got 2 more after this. He has to take Mom to the dentist. She's getting a tooth pulled. It's about to get real. I don't do pain medicine after— even though it said to— for 2 weeks. The reason being, pain is my friend. And so it's for— even though I'm not slowing down, it's forcing me to slow down, you know. I'm walking around things, I'm not bending over, I'm not shoveling. If I were to take pain medicine and be numb to it, I would push through the pain and make myself worse. Pain is a gift there to protect us. He put the 2 in while I got a hat so I don't get sunburnt. One more tree. 8 trees. It must be after 12. It's really hot, but we're going pretty strong. We gotta go plant that one. He's gotta come back and smooth this out. We're gonna have to come back and get the Mini X. I wish it would rain. It's acting like it. That's what these blueberries need. Lily and I are going to go ahead and get some water going to them. Josiah's bringing the Mini X. That root ball needs to be soaked. Just got as much as we could off the machine. Finish that with the shovel, please. You guys finish that, we're gonna set these trees. I don't know if I even give those a 50/50 chance. That was a lot of stress. They have berries, it's June, they're old, it's different soil. We've watered the crap out of them though. Later that same evening, it is pouring rain. Good for our blueberries.

La la la la la, let me be free.