It’s Happening, but did it Actually Work! FREEZE DRYING

Oh, it's gonna happen today! Our colostrum and strawberries should be done freeze drying. It's gonna get you strawberries all year round.

1, 2, 3, wheel, 5. That's all.

Keep these doors closed. We've got barn swallows this time of year trying to live underneath our house. If the door is closed, what are you, raised in a barn? Actually, yes, they're raised in a barn. All these horse stalls underneath our house. My dad's vision for this in 1995 when it was built was to be a horse ranch barn. Well, never happened. He called it the white elephant of 1994. Did I say '95? I think it was the white elephant of 1994. We've turned it into something very nice. Turkeys are doing great. Look at that one, just 2 weeks older. It's twice as big. Good job, Gideon. We need to mow this. Why not just go with their hands? After chores, we got a very important project to start on. Our pole barn is empty. We have moved the cows out to pasture to graze. It's the spring and we have all this deep bedding, 3 feet of deep bedding. We need to pile up, start composting it, using it in our recovery to build up topsoil. Okay, we were gonna saw this extra concrete. Careful, babe, it has taken concrete. That's what I'm saying, don't, don't get too close to the edge. Like, look how much higher. Look how high that had to get and how high and far over. Are we not going to concrete saw that at the edge? Okay, don't stick it in there too far, it won't fall down this way. And it'll pinch the saw. Should we, or should we just fill it like you're doing? No, because it won't quite get full. Okay, you can't get material under there, so really we need to get a concrete saw here and cut that back, drop that concrete. It could go in there and then fill this area up. And we got to do it now while we have no hay in here, so the concrete dust isn't going to get on the hay. It's not going to get to the animals. It's not— the animals won't breathe it. We gotta go check your eggs. Hey, are you sure that you've done your chores? Audiobooks on the line. He gets his audiobook if he's done his chores. One of the last projects after the hurricane— this. Jonah and Josiah, we got another decision to make. What to do with this compost material? It's not broken down all the way. We've not been great about turning compost. How can we get great about turning compost every 2 days? Bring back that excitement of when the machines first came. What's going Fun!

What? Yeah! When did this happen?

Not a very exciting project.

Uh, what, turning a big pile of compost? Not really. Seeing the steam, that's about as exciting as it gets. What kind of project do you like?

Clearing is pretty fun.

Project do you like? I like clearing. What do you want to do with that material? Do you want to put it out there and continue to turn it, or do you want to just spread that material As it is, not quite all the way broken down.

I think just leave it there.

Leave it?

Yeah, and keep it— return it with the rest of this.

Oh, you're going to add the rest of this to it?

Are we going to throw this out?

That's going to be a gigantic pile. Can you handle that? It's not an awful idea.

Or do you want to put it all in the pastures?

All this is going to go on the pastures. Well, we have some compost over there we can put on the garden this year, right? Yeah, there's, uh, we got compost there for the garden this year, so Yeah, let's, uh, put all our resources to building the soil down here. What if we put our pile out here and maybe move the chickens out to the pasture to help build it up, and then the chickens wouldn't be in your way? Would you be more likely to turn that pile?

No.

Also, okay, then we'll keep the chickens.

One little chicken turd at a time isn't going to help that pasture much.

It is one much, but it's going to help it. We're helping this pasture one little chicken turd at a time. You're kind of going back and forth. You said we're going to put it all together, and then you didn't want to have the chickens on it. So we'll keep— we'll put the chickens on it, it's fine.

Are you going to make the paddock bigger where they are? You need to extend it out to where we fixed it onto that dirt.

Okay, what needs to be leveled? They brought material here. We'll extend it, but this material is going to gradually float downhill, and I guess they will build it up, but that's going to be like premium soil. We, we don't want to build this up with premium soil. We want to take that out in the field. But it does give them more room for— they can come in and turn the pile. The chickens can escape over here. I remember, okay, we had a plan for this. We're gonna grade this. We're gonna get the chickens out of here and we're gonna grade this. See this? See how the— it's too high here. It needs to be dropped down. It doesn't need to be higher than this retaining wall. We could take all that material and it'll be well-composted material, and we can put it on the field. And we can grade this— well, we can scrape some of it out there to make that flat. Do we take these rocks for our graveyard? 4 feet in this county to have a graveyard on your farm, you got to have a rock or a metal fence around it. Could we take these rocks and then have a road around the pole barn. The boys don't like that, so I guess I'm gonna prioritize the living before the dead. And the boys want this, we'll give it to them. Hopefully we can find some more rocks somewhere. The reason I'm looking at it is because we've kind of used all the easily accessible rocks on our farm. Let's see if you're getting your audiobook back, then let's go help the boys see if honey's gonna be able to be milked today. Almost had it. And then we'll get to work on this chicken compost project. Hey, did somebody get killed? Did you notice that? And looks like somebody is hurt. Look at the dead chicken.

That's not dead, that's still alive. Oh, it's the one with the hurt leg.

I don't think it's a predator. I think it's probably going— had this bumblefoot. She was going to be old this year anyway. Just want to see this bumblefoot. Yeah. Too much for her, I guess. Nothing goes to waste on the permaculture homestead. This is the strawberries. He says he sees one. Oh yeah, he sees one. Henry, there's two! I'm gonna take these runners. Look at this. Where are these runners to go when they're on question? You found another one? We'll get it. I'm gonna take these runners and direct them towards these holes where no strawberries grew. Okay, what are you gonna do with all those?

Uh, Give them to Mama.

Oh, hey, let's hurry up and go give those to Mom and then go check on Honey.

What?

Come on.

Strawberries?

What do you say?

I said we're growing them.

We're growing them.

I thought of growing.

I said, I said, what are you gonna do with those strawberries? What are you gonna do?

You said go give them to Mom.

Oh, oh my gosh, that was so nice of you to do that for the strawberries. Let's go check on Honey. You think You think she's letting the boys milk her after the chores? Isn't there a saying? Work before play. Work first, then play. I thought so. That's good. Hey, did you have any problems with Honey?

No, not really.

I wanted to get here and see that. No problems with Honey?

No, no problem.

She let you milk her just freestyle?

Well, no, I had to get her calf her and her calf up, but it wasn't such a trauma.

Oh, you did? You had to tie them both up? It's important we get these chores done.

What?

That's it from a jet. He said an airplane doesn't make that. Are those chemtrails?

I don't know.

You settle it. Are chemtrails a thing?

That makes lights?

It's a space rocket? Yeah, that makes lights. Is that what you said? Oh, that makes lights in the night.

Yeah, okay, he's settled it.

See that? Make sure. Much better. I feel mixed emotions about this, you know. I want to come out here and be a part of it and see if, uh, Honey is cooperating now. But the boys are ahead of me, and I missed it, and they handled it, and they handled it well from what I can tell. Everybody's just growing up, more and more capable, and more and more dividing and conquering for sure. I miss the old days where they were all together and we had to all be together, and I was doing most of the work and they were helping. But I also really enjoy these days where we can really get some stuff done. This is different. Gideon's pouring the milk. Thank you. I can get out the Ribs for tonight. A rare treat, not too many ribs on a fork. You look nice.

Thank you.

Bye-bye. Bye.

I love you.

Bring us back a load of strawberries and a renewed driver's license.

I know, right?

I hope that I can have the renewed driver's license too.

We have a little problem because we have Class— we have Class B license so that we could have drove the bus, the Great American Farm Tour.

And I don't know if they're gonna make me come back or if they're gonna make me It might be tricky.

Might be tricky going back to Class C. Or if I go to Class B, she's gonna have to take a test. Come here, buddy. Give me a hug. Bye-bye. Thanks for taking my wife, taking good care of her. Oh my gosh, what is happening?

4.

Okay, but are we gonna pick it up?

Yeah, that's why I hope—

okay, I have it on tape. I have it on tape. You better pick it up before Mom gets home. Let's go finish our farm project. Everybody go, unless Lily, you want to stay and do dishes. All right, get in, let's go. Rib nuts from the cabin chimney to fill in this crevice here. This is the most important work we could do today besides our chores. Let's get the front of this, uh, pole barn down. We'll need to remember to put the chickens up tonight and move them out, deal with this material, move all this material that's in there. There. Ow! We got to get this wall off. It's a semi-permanent wall in the front, so it can be removed. We remove it every year to get the material out. And we are done! And that is extra fulfilling because it's extra hot out here. It was extra laborious, messy, And there's some sort of bug biting us. It feels really good to be done with that and ready for the more exciting stuff. Oh my gosh, we're this close. We're at 19 hours and a half. I wonder if it goes for 20 hours. That's probably it. That's happening today. Beautiful one got her license renewed. We're coming at you. Did you maintain your Class B license?

I did.

So we can go get Maple in a couple of years. We—

I did. And you're gonna— I guess because I said to the guy, I was like, I don't need a Class B anymore because we don't have the RV anymore. And he goes, well, I mean, you might want to drive a dump truck. Yeah, I feel I should have said you need a CDL for that. No, if we're just driving it for our own personal use. Oh, we can drive a dump truck. Oh, but I should have said to him, do I look like someone who would drive a dump truck?

You're not making judgments. Process complete.

If needed, select more dry time. Do you think I can open it?

We'll look at the material. It doesn't look like it. Well, that would be one thing to ask Carolyn.

Well, I will.

Okay, you're gonna try one while they figure this out. We've got a lot to learn, so we've lined up Carolyn Thomas, May 15th. We'll get to ask her ask her some questions. She's going to teach us how to freeze dry. She's going to teach y'all how to freeze dry. Put the QR code up in here for a little bit, people can scan it. They can also go to the link in the description. Can I eat one?

Yeah, try it.

Wow, this should be completely dry. It isn't, but this is a dry strawberry.

I don't know if it's my saliva.

No, I feel like the ones in the store are more dry. This is I think that's done.

That broke completely. Insoluble. Do another one. Do another one for the camera.

Check the material thoroughly to make sure it's completely dry. If just a few pieces are not dry when you package the food— so we need to make sure that everything's dry. I'm gonna put some in here for when Lily wants to add it to a cake.

And those are for keeping them in that shape.

Yeah, and you know what? Maybe we should go ahead and grind this.

How would you grind these down? Are you gonna—

in a blender.

You gonna grind some down?

Lily, bring me the little blender down here.

What happens if they're wet?

They'll spoil the whole lot.

Is that it? I think so. That's all there is to it. Wow. Interesting. Crumbly.

That's how that broth was. Well, I also did—

The broth was even more cotton candy-ish. I know.

No.

So what else are we gonna do with that? Well, I guess you could just put it in like that into a smoothie. We need to start doing that.

Let's do it. We haven't even got them upstairs.

Let's— we need to like leave it out.

I'll put it in with the like the cocoa powder and stuff so that people will know to do it.

I think just jam it in there. Okay, we'll just put a scoop.

What do you think?

That's fine. I'm totally done with that.

It's, it's crumbling nicely. One tray fills in a quart jar. Let's go put it in the baking stuff. And we're putting strawberries in the pantry right along with our other freeze-dried stuff. You getting those cleaned up?

Yeah, so when we went to do this, they were all kind of dusty and dirty, so I'm washing them all one last time, and then I'm going to put all of this stuff, including the trays when they get washed, um, because they're in the dishwasher, in a container that keeps the dust off of them.

I was just letting them admiring the view there too.

Yeah, it is so nice.

But look at the cows, they're so happy.

So tell me, how are those ribs?

They're good.

Are they fall off the bone?

Yep, just about.

Okay, how's the maple glaze on the, on the, on the ribs? They're good. They're almost like, um, okay. Ribs need some salt, bro.

It's delicious.

They—

the seasoning is perfection.

Oh, it is?

All right, you did a good job.

This is good. Tomorrow, strawberry picking at a local farm, just as much as we can possibly get, because there isn't anything more important right now than to pick the berries. Happy day. See y'all then.