It’s Freezing, So We Got 4,000 Ft of Blankets

Look at this! It's done and it is blanketed. How much is it cured? A lot. You can easily step on that. The guys were stepping on it as they put these blankets up. I'm walking on it. What would they have done without my wood pile? The amazing thing is those boys came at 6 AM, didn't leave till about 9:30. That's some workers. That's like almost 16 hours. They sawed nice lines in the concrete. We got a bunch of squares. See, we got a bunch of squares from where they sawed. Solved. That's because concrete naturally cracks. So I guess we preemptively do it in a more orderly fashion. How come you were walking on it? Well, you can walk. I walked on it minimal just to cover it with the tarps. They're wanting so bad to ride. What do you want to do? You want to ride your bikes on there? Big Daddy said what? What did Big Daddy say? 3 days. He's very careful. Oh, let's at least wait till the blankets get off. Tomorrow. They're counting. They started yesterday, uh, today, and tomorrow. Yeah, I guess that's one way to look at 3 days.

Whoa!

Hey, they took a break for winter, but I think they're starting to lay again. Yeah, normally this time of year there's just a few in here, but they've been cranking it up. And then let's get the poop out of it. Is she broody? Yeah. No, I don't think— I don't know, she didn't peck me. If they're broody, gonna go start sitting on eggs, they'll usually growl at you and peck you. They're back in lay. It usually happens— it usually happens like this, 2 weeks after the equinox they start laying again because light gets more— show me! Now that's a score. Oh look! This one's still staying warm. Go ahead and put some hay in that one. Thank you. You already laid another egg, did they? Whoa, they already laid 2 more! We are back in eggs. Okay, one more. Wow, look at all those eggs! Gideon, thanks for bringing these in, although he's not coming with me now. Come on, come on, you still got your coat on. Let's just go milk. Come on, it won't take long. Shoot, they forgot the pig feed. Hey guys, thanks for getting all the Christmas lights down. Hey, look, how'd you feed the pigs without this? I didn't feed pigs. Haroon, how'd they feed the pigs without this?

Oh, actually we have some, uh, scrap from yesterday and today. Oh, okay, so maybe we can save this for tomorrow.

Good call. All right, Miss Thing, hopefully we're gonna milk her only one more time down here and get her back out in the field. If all goes well today, this morning, we're getting her back out with everybody else. Thank you, Lily. Lily's milking the good side. I'm about to milk the the recovering quarter. Here's the thing, I've talked with my cow guys, I've talked with the beautiful one. She's getting older, she's 10 years old. That's old for a commercial dairy cow, not too old for a family cow if they're doing really well. But she's starting to have some problems, kind of like an old car. And I would have hated her not kick this and us had to put her down in a, you know, sort of a quick, unprepared way. So we're thinking right now, we're I'm thinking let her have this calf. You need to raise the calf at least to 3 months old to wean it and, and just not breed her back. And in the meantime, to be trying to find a replacement. And, and then ultimately we'll harvest her and she will feed us in a different way. Yes, that is going to be so hard because you get attached to these big animals, you work with them every day. But I really want them to go in a dignified way. And they are ultimately here for our food, so it's what we do, it's how we feed ourselves. And she had a wonderful life, and she'll never know it's coming. It's really only me that will be left with the pain and the weight of that process and of what happens. But I feel like it's me who needs to bear that responsibility. If I'm gonna eat meat I need to do the deed. I need to feel that pain. I need to feel that sacrifice. Won't my meat be hard? Good question. It actually will be hard, uh, tough. So actually, an older cow like this will be all hamburger, a lot easier to chew. Then I'm switching sides. That one, uh, Infected teat. I mean, we just kind of drained out for a week and then test it for mastitis, but, uh, she can milk it. I mean, it's so easy to milk now. We're gonna just switch. Why are we switching? Just for mix it up? No, because I don't want to milk two teeth. Oh, she doesn't want to milk two teeth. There's only one over there. All right, let's go deal with this milk. And then we'll put her out. Good morning, Beck.

Good morning. I got good sleep last night, so I'm feeling really good, and I have cleaned up our room. I built a shelf. I'm gonna take down Christmas. I want to make Christmas cookies that I never made, and I returned stuff. And what else did I do? I feel like I've just done a lot of stuff this morning, and it's only 8 It's 9 o'clock.

We got to get the cows out and we've got to lead them up this road, across the road. She's going to want to go down there because that's where they were last when we got her out. If we can get her right up to the exit. All right, I just ordered everything I need. We have— it has to— one second. Polyface Designs. So I'm building hay racks for our pole barn, but it's pretty cool how I was able to take the book and put it in our copier and able to make copies. Why would I want to do that? Because, well, if you wanted to take this to the store— I just ordered it all on Amazon. If it's all right If everything's right, I'm actually going to give you, the customers of Polyface Design, a link sheet. So if you're going to build the hay feeders, I'll save yourself some trouble and give you all the links on Amazon if they're right. So give me some time, but whoever's ordered Polyface will get that. So, uh, where are we looking at? Um, oh, this is what I want to show you. So it has these nice little checkboxes here where you can write in your own number depending on how many hay racks you're going to build. And that's handy to print it out because I don't want to actually write in my book. So if you guys are going to build the hay racks and you're one of— and you've bought Polyface Designs through me, I'm going to get you the links to all that because that took me about, I don't know, that took a good 30 minutes finding all the right stuff on Amazon. And I'll proof it to make sure it's all the right stuff after I build it. For all those who have already ordered, when I get that link list ready, links to all the parts, I'll send it to you. But for those who are seeing this video way out in the future, well, it's already there. So polyfacedesigns.com, I'll leave a link in the description. Question of the day: so why again, why deep bed the cows? Why not just leave them out? Couple answers: putting them on wood chips, mixing that with their manure. Imagine this over their whole area where they're deep bedding. This is a pile of poop and wood chips. It's composting. We're actually capturing that nutrients. If this poop were laid— if that were laid out in the field today, by the time spring comes, because it's so cold, it's going to leach off. The ground isn't going to absorb it. And use it. Sure, there'll be some organic matter, but we won't get the fertilizer. Another reason is it's gonna snow 3 inches. I know that's not a lot for all the rest of you, but guys, if it snows, it's a pain in the butt to come out here and do the chores. It won't be a pain in the butt with all our animals in covered shelters on deep bedding. And lastly, I guess there's 3 reasons, maybe 4. We won't be doing this. We won't be We won't be tearing up and mudding up our pastures getting out to service the animals. And because the ground is soft, they too are what you call pugging. So they pierce the ground and it creates these compacted divots that's just— I don't think it's any good for the, the pasture. You know, you guys know by now perhaps I'm a pasture fanatic. I really like to take good care of them, and that really bothers me. That won't happen in deep bedding. All right, Randolph is here. We got his coffee. He had a little appointment this morning, so he's late today, but— Hey, there he is! Here's your— here's your bonus. All right, man, I appreciate that. Yes, sir. It's got our cream in it. You're ready to go. What's the plan? The plan is beat and bang the rest of the day and hopefully get all this up. Randolph, that's slow going, but you're almost there. Yep. You're gonna get there by the end of the day. I'm thinking I will. Look at this guy waiting by the door. He knows we're going to— listen, you can't— he chases cars, so we'll have to take him on a leash. Oh, Indian Wednesday!

Actually, today is Indo-Chinese Wednesday. Indi—

Indo-Chinese?

Is that what you call like a mix?

Oh nice, okay, what are you making?

I'm making some, uh, like a Chinese style but like with Indian spices, some chicken.

It is quitting time for Randolph. He got the floor done. Tomorrow, tomorrow, he and the beautiful one lay this out and you'll begin to catch some of the vision for what we have for this room. All right, Arun, what do we got here?

So this is actually a little bit like Afghani rice. Yeah, kind of like Afghanistan style. And this is dal, it's Indian like lentil soup. This is, uh, I can say my version of Chinese food, Indo-Chinese style.

Yeah, okay, nice.

Yeah, those are same. Yeah, and they're just cucumber.