Is It Worth It

What happened? Lily turned the fence on. I think they didn't turn it on right. Calf's are out on this rainy day. That means we probably don't get milk. Oh, you're not milking today? I think so. Oh, you don't think so? The kids have already cluttered up my training room. What's going on?

Huh?

What about my training room? I don't know. In an effort to give Josiah and Jonah a little reprieve. They work together a lot. They live together a lot. They play together a lot. It can create some conflict. Let's give them a little bit of a respite. I'll go with Josiah and big animals, and Jonah do the little end. Oh boy, it's raining. Harvest, cook, and preserve acorn squash today. Hopefully that's still going to be possible. It's got to stop raining though. Let's go hope maybe the calves didn't get to the mama.

Hurricane rains have finally hit us.

Wow. Everybody's still in, right? I don't think the calves have got to them just yet. How do I turn this fence off if it's not off? We have a breach here, but most everybody's still in. Go get the milk supplies, please. It's not hitting there. This must have just happened or everybody else would be out. I think the boys are disappointed because now they have to milk, but I'm happy because now we get milk, cream, and butter. We've been doing good lately too. We have— cows haven't been breaking over. Unfortunately, y'all only see it when they do because, I don't know, it's exciting, and I usually help when they do. There's that. I was going to sit there and spot the cows, make sure they don't break over while the fence is off. They tend to know when that fence is off, but Gideon's called me. I gotta wrap his, uh, he's got a bandage I need to wrap. Nice. Hey, your underpinning looks good. I'm gonna do this spot, this spot, and this spot. Okay, this is Winnie's little dog house under there. Winnie, you, you just— this is your dog house, isn't it? Mr. Gideon bandaged up. Josiah's out there. I better get out there before he gets mad at me. The boys don't like filming with me because I have too many distractions. Forgot to go bandage Gideon up. I gotta go get the camera. I got all the milk supplies. Yeah, I guess got the Three Little Pigs too.

They got an auto feeder though.

You just fill up. You got to get these guys' eggs and put in nest material. How long you think you guys will have to do the chores this way? A week.

A week, and then you'll want to switch back?

I think you will. Who will?

You.

Why me? Because it's a lot of work. I don't mind work. I bet they'll get in quicker because they don't want to deal with me, and I like to do it right. You bring them up. I'll go open the gate. We moved He-Man over to the new paddock so that he won't be as interested in what's going on with the cows. Instead of driving the Sally in here and to get these guys on flat, we bring them up to the access road. This is nice. He's goofing off. She gonna horn me? Besides, says I need more. 5 pounds is a lot of food, girls.

Look at this.

Okay, so we probably got 4 gallons between them both, so that's 32 pounds of food left on the table if the calves would have got them. It's raining. I wouldn't have any other way than just to milk in the rain to be able to milking the field like this. A new spot every day. They poop, we just leave it behind. We don't have to bring them— have a lane to bring them to the barn. We used to do that. Thankfully, Joel Salatin coached us out of that. Now we milk in the field. Wouldn't have it no other way. If we wanted, we could milk under the milk sled. That's another purpose of it, is we could milk in the shelter. But come on, there you go. See, they want to do what we want to do. They just don't know what that is. Let's get that milk sled over. Well, let's go get the other calf over, right? Let's do it. Because the horse needs a shelter. Yeah, the horse doesn't like the rain. It's like a sheep. Billy's concerned about her horse. Where is he? She wants to put him in a stall. He don't need to go into a stall. He gets the cribbing, which is like biting on the stall door, which is like drugs. For a horse apparently, because it gets them high. He's a druggie. It's like parking him in a bar for an alcoholic during the, uh, during the rain. All right, bring it down here, Josiah. Pull on this side of it and we'll pull it, we'll pull it down. Look at this plump sheep. Dang, girl, slow. Straighten up, straighten up. Whoa, you're gonna tear this thing up! That's enough! You gotta be careful. These are coming off. What's happening? Jonah's supposed to come help us after little animals. Jonah, come here! Where's Blaze?

You put him in the stall?

Yes.

Lily, Lily, can you process this milk?

All you have left is to move the water.

That's a lot. And that's—

and no, you don't do this.

No, come on, let's do it. They negotiated for the little animal chore guy to be able to stay, help Mama. So it's me and you, buddy. Next week you'll get to do that. Uh-oh, it's flat. What happened? I have to use a string trimmer instead. Oh, don't put it over the milk pail. Who wants to do this, me or you? Well, Blaze is like the sheep. He's going to want to be under a shelter. That's why we got the milk sled over there for him. Sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep! How you doing, Ike? Some good-looking sheep. This is how you transport hose. Tie it to Salma, drag it. Are you sure it's unhooked from everything? Okay, let's do it.

It's working.

Gonna put him in his shelter. He warm up a little bit?

Yeah, he's all dry.

She said he was shivering. I said he's got to develop his coat though, and this is how it happens. No, it's a little cold in the fall. You horses can't do a waterproof coat. Delivering temptation. Yeah, my drug addiction. He just walked right under it and right through it. I guess he knows it's there now. Here, you want to know husbandry 101? Do what the animals want to do. Let them have a choice. You want to know if he needs a shelter? Offer him one. Free choice. Check out our new parking area for these things. We just got to move this baloney out of the way for today. Let's just move this and get you in right here. Pretty soon we'll clear all that out. We have room for the two side-by-sides and four-wheeler. We do have a problem. This is a little bit of a hill and none of our parking brakes work. Looks nice right there by all the milk supplies under the shelter. Wrapped up chores outside. Hey, it's cozier down here. Look at this. Where's Josiah? He's getting something. Like what? He went to get more leather. You guys know you have the The red light on here. There's the regular light. Let's go get those peppers. Jonah's about to go on his lesson. Lily's gonna take Gideon to— they call it Creek Hollow. I've been calling it school. It's really like a homeschool co-op thing. He goes to Tuesday, half a mile down the street. I think that leaves Annie and I. Rebecca's got appointments. We're gonna go harvest these. It makes paprika, so So what kind of pepper is that? We're gonna make our first spice. Paprika. How do you say that? Paprika? Paprika? Paprika? Paprika? Paprika?

I say paprika.

How do they say it in Kentucky?

Paprika.

Yeah, everyone from home will be like, nope, that's not how you say it.

These little guys, they're shishitos.

They're shishitos, but I mean, I think really any There might be a paprika pepper that actually exists. I think maybe too the concept of just like taking a pepper, dehydrating it, creating color dust you put on your food and some flavor.

This one's kind of soft.

Well, so see, she was getting them green.

Oh, she was?

And stuffing them.

Good boy. Oh, remember with cream cheese? They're kind of soft. So are they moldy? No, but it's going to be kind of a pain to get these de-seeded. I think we're finding out our— we're figuring out our puzzle. What are these called?

Shishito.

Shishito. That's probably not for paprika. I bet those are these big boys. And these are pimento.

Uh, are they pimento?

That's what you said. They're not ready. I better go ask. This is not the most easiest thing to harvest. And they're not going to be the most easiest to process either, getting those seeds out. What happened to our okra?

I think they're just phasing out. It's getting cooler and like there's still blooms, but this one— but we also haven't been—

they're camo.

Oh yeah, we haven't been.

That's what happens when you grow something you don't like to eat, just gets neglected. Oh, the pigs don't even like it. I looked online, seems like you can use any peppers, so imagine those little red peppers will be fine. I'll be honest with y'all, I don't know if making your own spices is worth it, because what the heck, we're gonna spend a morning harvesting all these peppers, we're gonna freeze them, and then later we're gonna freeze dry them. Probably a process to get the spice. And how much of that do we actually use? Well, the beautiful one took, uh, Gideon to school. Oh, it's just down the road though.

Yeah, yeah, but were you able to get a hold of her?

No. So I did look online, you can make paprika from any peppers.

I was gonna say, this will probably be a lifetime supply of paprika, right?

Yeah, I ran an experiment with these— what do you call these peppers?

Shishito.

We like to eat them with sour cream and bacon. She go ahead and made some, froze them.

So what I did is I had made them. See, maybe there's— so this is a whole experiment that I ran when we were living at the farmhouse, but then life exploded. Yes, they're very hot.

So these are Yoshito peppers.

Shishito. So my plan—

they're not hot.

They are.

Oh no, they're not spicy. No, they're not spicy.

What are the spicy ones? Called?

All different other names. All right, my plan was to try this earlier, and then when those— if, if this works and they taste good frozen and then fresh, then I would just go ahead and prepare a bunch with the— see, that's the cream cheese and bacon in there. And then we can do that and put a bunch in a bag and then freeze them, and then we'll have them for Little treats, treats throughout the year.

Cream cheese and bacon on the red ones. I'd prefer that, it's easier to digest because it's ripe. And how you doing, Bird Dog? Brownies coming along nicely.

Yeah.

All right, baby, let's hope this works.

That sounds good.

But look, it's a little slow. Slimy.

Yeah, I mean, cream cheese and bacon, it's fine tasting, isn't it?

Yeah, she's a baker, man. Look at her face.

What happened to it?

She's got powder all over your face. You want us to go ahead and— we should probably cut them and get them ready today.

Yeah, you could get them pre-seeded, slice them. So I'll show you what I do. I just take it and then just go down.

Oh, you just open it up?

Yeah, and And then I just— you can break it open like that.

Doesn't—

it doesn't have to be perfect.

Then you pull the seeds out.

Just pull the seeds and all the stuff out of them, which you don't have to technically, but we do.

Yeah, you don't want to eat seeds. Seeds don't want to be eaten.

They don't want to be eaten because they want to be a poo bomb.

Yeah, they want you to swallow them.

So this is what it looks like afterwards, and I just take cream cheese and bacon, cooked bacon, and I mix it together and I shove it in there.

And you can put some salt in So we'll get those ready and then you'll bring— you'll get some.

I'll get cream cheese and bacon at the grocery store.

Okay.

Rare chance to watch some TV while I do this. Might as well, right? Or should I listen to my audiobook? Hmm, I should probably listen to my audiobook if I'm gonna get— trying to read a book a week. I'm a little behind before my birthday, which is coming up. End of October. Let's do it. It's a little better because you don't have to look at something else. Listen, the wager, it's been going. It's definitely a treat food, isn't it? It's hard to work with this and all this bacon.