Is This the End of the Drought?

Oh my word, call the Enquirer, it's raining! Maybe this is the beginning of the end of this dreaded drought. That was the dry heave run rain dance celebration. You didn't miss it. Is that water in there? We have packing bubbles coming down. I think we have some water coming down. 45 years. I've never been able to walk in this creek without water, let alone without high boots. I'm standing on bare ground in a creek. This is not supposed to happen in Western North Carolina. Problem for our homes that are very food supply. Our food is our energy and our medicine. As we only have so much hay, we have hay for a normal extended time of bedding the animals in here for the winter. If we have to put these animals up early, it's costing us dearly. We are on our last rotation for the cows, so this is a little bit too little, a little bit too late for the most part for feeding the livestock. It's not, however, too late to jam out the starting seed from our grading pasture project earlier this year. That feels good to be able to do that. So let me show you my grazing strategy during this drought. Classic rotational grazing strategy is: when grass is growing slow, move the animals across the landscape slow. When grass is going fast, move them fast. We were here just a couple of days ago, and as you can tell Well, we've grazed it just right down to the ground, got every single edible thing that we could. I better keep moving. Jonah wants these poles. He's gonna be mad at me. I mean, that's turf. That's like AstroTurf. That part's not good. Ideally, you want the top third of the grass, but when is it ever an ideal situation? When you're moving slow, that means a smaller daily paddock. So I imagine the trade-off for the damage of grazing all the way to the ground. He is two things. One, look at that manure concentration. Holy smokes. Yes, we overgrazed this one time this year, but we have a landmine. Where do you want them? He's so mad at me. Right here where I'm at. So mad at me. Look at this grass though, growing right here. This is our, our pathway project this year. Rain will do some wonders to the end of our pasture rotation this year. We still have some time. Until we get there. See, this is yet ungrazed, and we didn't get a whole lot of growth. I mean, it's ready, but you know, you got some patches here, probably a foot, foot and a half tall. This though, it really suffered. It's maybe 5 inches tall. Yeah, so there's not a whole lot of food here. Yeah, this—

which is why there's this unevenness.

We made a good decision by not mowing behind them on this round because look at all that leftover. That was stockpiled, that was grazed. 1/3 up, and this is where we're coming real soon. All right, what you doing?

All right, it's already so nice not having this trench.

Yeah, good job covering it up. Did you sow seed on it yesterday? Yeah, right before the rain.

You can see it right there.

That's good. We want to go slow, eat everything, prolong our entrance into the pole barn so they don't have to come too early. See this, guys? Grazing some pretty short stuff. Now the cows have already been through here, the sheep go behind them. This rain though is wonderful in the event that we overgraze. This rain will help it recover more than anything. So I'm, I'm feeling confident that we'll be just fine into the next growing season. You got to think way ahead in this permaculture homesteading thing. But is this the end of the drought? I don't know. We need 7 inches in one month. We're supposed to maybe get an inch and a half with this. It's barely raining right now. You know, a light rain is the best. It doesn't erode anything. It's the best. But we do need a bit. We need quite a bit more than this. Did you process the milk? Um, yeah. We gotta get some butter. We need to cream separate. We need to make butter so we can have made from scratch Buttermilk biscuits, and we have plenty. I just got all the help. My dad would be so proud. John's washing the pails. Josiah's cream separating. What are you doing, Sam? Pouring the jars. Oh, he's pouring. He's pouring the skim. What are you doing? You're horse dreaming. You're horse dreaming. We're next in line. Tomorrow your potential horse goes to the vet. A couple days after that, we may be going and getting you a horse. It all checks out. Tell them the horse's name.

Peaches.

Peaches, that's such a good horse name. It's a good— Peaches. Oh, it's a pony. Oh, I'm sorry, it's a big pony. It's a big pony.

It's 14 hands.

Not one service worker, but two. Oh, and once I got down here, Randolph didn't even tell anything. Big Daddy. The boss, the supervisor.

All these are different. Yeah, because they're rough sawn. Do you care if we just made this into a 2x6 wall?

I don't think so.

Or do you? Or you'd lose an inch and a half.

Do we need that? That's what I was wondering. Let's ask her. What was going to be the coal room is now the pantry downstairs in the— okay, right in the garden kitchen.

It's 7 feet wide, so it'd be an inch and a half short.

They want to make it an inch and a half narrower to do 2x6 is your dad.

Isn't the one wall a 6— a 2x6? The one wall that's in the in-house?

I guess, yeah, they want to do the 2x6 on the outside wall.

Yeah, we wanted to— we could take down that 2x6 wall that's already there and just put a 2x4 wall there.

But we do have to fit in here fridges and then maybe something or another on this side. So is it still going to leave room for that shelves in here?

Yeah.

Maybe some shelves over here and some fridges and freezers on this side, stand-ups.

Those are— how deep are those? They're about 3 feet or— no, they're 30, 32. Shelf would only be in here, but you got to be able to walk around and you got to be able to open it. Yeah.

See this patch, Rebecca? HVAC needs to bring their stuff up through here. Right, which I knew. And they have to go to this side of the patch. You know how far it goes out, how far they need. The problem is that was going to be a little nook shoe corner where we just bench up and put some shoes on. So there's barely going to be a nook here anymore.

There's not gonna be a nook at all.

Okay, that's fine.

Yeah, it's like over here.

So if you have a bench here, it's just gonna be sticking out. We could put it in the closet. That'd be kind of nice if you only need 4.

This is the kids' closet, the boys' closet. This room's closet.

But if you had a little corner jet now, it would not be the end of the world. If it's only— how much space do they need? What if we ran that down through this closet? What would that look like?

It's still going to be what? Yeah, 40 inches wide at least.

Could we go like this? Could we do it this way instead of this way?

If we do it this way, I can come up through this bay and this bay, and then left will be return and right will come over the side of this We're more dresser people, so that's why I didn't need a very big closet. You're just gonna put a dresser in there and you won't be able to do that as easy if you put—

yeah, if you put something—

well, I mean, how far—

how much— how would— show me what it would look like. I mean, I think out here is fine.

I think, I think this is— it's unfortunate it's got to go on this side.

Could you go like this, like where it was like this, or is the pipe going like that? Do you know what I'm saying? I'm just trying to think, like, if we could save some of this space, because my whole— this was going to be like a drop zone like for shoes and coats and all the things. So it's kind of like I'm losing that.

Are you gonna do like one of them coat racks, benches?

I was probably just gonna have like a bench and like then just hooks on the wall.

Well, you're losing your nook.

I know, but it's part of it.

That'll be—

I don't know how important the bench was.

It's out there now.

Yeah, and that's fine.

You give and you take. And you're making quick work of this. I like it. Vertical space. Jonah's cleaning out the shed. Josiah's cleaning out their room. I'm about to go nuts on this living room. Total transformation, y'all. Needs attention. Do we need it? Needs desperate attention. Do we actually need it?

Your office has, um, an airsoft gun pulled up too.

Oh yeah, I'm shopping for airsoft guns. Not. But what do I have out here? A drone that needs to be sent off, a camera that needs to be sent off, an old file drive, a Leatherman that needs to be sent off waiting for a rainy day. And what is all this? I mean This is good.

What's this? By the way, I have a Goodwill box in my bedroom.

Heck yeah! Wow, you squeezed them both in there. Yeah, that's handy. You want to try to go get to it? You're gonna have to climb over.

You can go around.

Okay. All right, we got our shed backpack. As we transform this room, let's also talk about Jill Salatin's new book, Homestead Tsunami, how that can be transformational. Making progress. I don't think I've done that since we've moved over here. Cross your fingers, everyone. I want to see if that printer is short enough to fit on top of that lower shelf under there. Then we can get rid of this whole thing. So the first transformational opportunity with Joel's book would be that, well, it's an— it's actually not an instructional book, which instructional books are good, but do we need every single homesteading book to be instructional? I think not. This one is— it's more fun and motivational, and good knows, Lord knows we need some distraction from the world's problems right now.

Yes, it's nice to do that actually.

It could go down below. It seems like I ought to have more shelving, but see, I could like put my file folder thingamajig right there. It's taller. It's a little tight to go and try and grab papers. I bet I can lower this shelf. It looks like That's just braced in there. Come down, I hope so. Oh yeah, look at that. Couldn't raise this bar, but I could raise the computer. See if that helps. Let's see. I can actually reach my hand under here. Hmm, maybe I can get rid of this. Second thing I would say about that book is Joel's been around. He's like in his 60s, so he's like grandfather homesteading. When you read somebody's book, you step inside their mind and soul, and it becomes an influence on your mind and soul. And even though it might not have direct implications of everything— it's not going to have direct applications on everything. But now you'll be able to look at the world through that lens, and it will help in making life and practical decisions. Oh my word, you can breathe in here! Tell Darcy, while you're working there, that we are minimalist under all this clutter. Let's take a photo of this. And then don't look over here. Yeah, don't, don't take a photo of this side. Actually, you have to make a mess to clean up a mess. Shall we go after that next? I can tell— I mean, I did one area, got my desk clear. I've bitten off way more than I can chew. I was gonna do that shelf. I want to do this.

I just have bigger dreams.

I want to get that filing cabinet out of here, but I'm afraid that's going to be a whole nother project. But I'm going to give it a shot. We have 30 minutes to lunch. Can I make the impossible possible? I'm going to try. You're shopping for the remodel?

No, I— I've moved on to socks now.

Okay, socks.

I did—

yippee! Look at the change! Although I had grand hopes of getting that dresser out of here. Butter going in the churner. Billy's got some pumpkins cooked. She's cooking up a storm. We're cooking up a storm. She's making a 3-pie special for your channel? Apple pie, pecan pie, and pumpkin pie. Pumpkin pie. Gluten-free dough is in the fridge. You're gonna start working on the filler? Yes. I guess we're going pumpkin pie first. Something else that, uh, Joel's book did really well was he made the mundane, the simple things like composting like growing tomatoes, making sourdough bread, grand. And those things are really grand, and he excites you about those things. So I thought, hey, if folks get this book through us by the end of the month, let's give out bonuses. Okay, let's give out a PDF on how to grow tomatoes. Yours truly wrote it. A PDF on how to make sourdough bread. We have a PDF on that and a PDF composting guide from my friend Amy Landers. All that if you order Homestead Tsunami through us, link down in the description, before November 30th, 11:59 PM Eastern. Could you write me a check for my money on YouTube?

I need to spend it for my horse stuff.

I owe you some money? Sure. It's been a pumpkin pie explosion. If any Thanksgiving dessert is off the land, it's pumpkin pie. We had the pumpkins, we had the cream. It's looking good. She's got it in the oven. Mmm, buttermilk. I about forgot, I about poured it out. We got them buttermilk biscuits for Thanksgiving. Eat what we grow, y'all, right? Gotta make use of that buttermilk. Although giving it to the pigs is fair because we just turn it into pork. Hey kids, I want you guys to try buttermilk. We ended up with like a quart and a half.

Do I have to drink it? Wait a minute, is it curd?

And that's some good buttermilk. That's like cream.

It might not be fermented.

Oh, oh, we gotta ferment it. How would you ferment it? Um, is that how you make cottage cheese with the buttermilk?

You take buttermilk, you put it through a mesh, a mesh, uh and you let it drip, and then the curds stay behind and the liquid drips out and give to the pigs.

Wow, naive me thought buttermilk was just so—

no, I don't really love buttermilk because it doesn't have any fat in it.

We're gonna make buttermilk biscuits. What'd you do, put a tablespoon of yogurt in there?

Yeah, I'm just gonna—

you're gonna leave it out on the counter?

Yeah, I was thinking I might put it in the dehydrator. I need to take my pecans out of the dehydrator. Look at them, they had the best time, didn't they?

Aunt Ann visiting for Thanksgiving. Man, you're dedicated to that buttermilk.

Well, we're gonna test it out. I'm ready to see if it's gonna work.

Eat what we grow. Lily's got one pie down. Fermented your buttermilk.

I know I did.

What temperature did you put it on?

I put it at 95 because that's as low as it went in the dehydrator, and it's been about 12 hours. Yeah. Look at that.

It smells sour. Okay.

Smells like buttermilk, doesn't it?

Good to BS on Thanksgiving. I hope you had a great Thanksgiving. Happy day.