I've Been Keeping A Secret

Here's one.

Yeah.

Oh wow, it's overripe. That's overripe. Yeah, there's one down there. Is this— is this one overripe or is that one good? Try one of those two. Yeah, try one of those two.

This one's overripe.

Okay, pull that and we'll feed it to the animals. Let's try setting that one out and letting it ripe a little bit on its own off the tree. Come on, Pancake, you don't want that? You holding out for better things? How you holding up, baby Henry? We gotta distract her, get her fed so we can take care of this poop corner. Okay, you just pushed it all out. Let's cover up this poop. DK's gotten smart. There you go. I've been working on a surprise for you guys. I can't believe I've held this secret surprise for so long because I've been working on this since late 2019, early 2020. It all started when Mr. Brown lost his shoes and everybody was, you know, we're having this epic search pretty much every day. Speaking of, Mr. Brown, you had shoes.

What?

Where'd they go?

Uh, I left them inside.

You left them inside? Are you sure? Because I saw you wearing them. You went and put them back? So I don't mind him being barefoot, it's just he usually decides to go barefoot right here and leaves his boots somewhere out, and then he wants them in the morning. But anyway, it's this story that every parent goes through. They've got a goal, they want to take their kids with them, they— and then the kid can't find his shoes and you got to help them, and it's this epic story. And y'all, y'all were— hundreds of you have said you ought to write a children's book. Could you just go with it? No. You grab the water hose, bro. I bet you can do it. You need to go hang those up on the banister and change into dry pants. I want you guys to listen. Okay, that was the sound of a separated calf. We separated Autumn from Flossie so that we could actually get milk from Flossie. Sounds like it's working. Mr. Brown's going to change his pants. So I reached out to an agent and found an agent and said, let's, let's write this children's book. And long story short, she and the publisher end up saying, well, could we do a non-fiction first? Just, you know, get in the publishing, get, get your author resume going, because children's books are harder to market than non-fiction books. Oh wow, that's fast. I was coming to get you, but okay, we're gonna do shorts. You know what, I forgot to mention, I wrote the manuscript. I have a nice manuscript I think it's a wonderful story that kids will enjoy, but parents will also have some encouragement, inspiration from it. And I thought, you know what, I wrote the script, we'll have it ready. But I have always wanted to write a non-fiction book, so this guy— this could be a cool detour. At first it was going to be a book about, you know, everything, everything we do on the homestead. Then that was real quick becoming like, what are we going to do, have a book that thick? That going to be your best homestead ever. And then it took more of a chicken slash garden route, which is cool because those are entries. Gardens, socially acceptable. I mean, even Oprah gardens, Martha Stewart. And then if you get chickens, it's like the gateway drug into homesteading. But then something very special happened, and you know, I always wondered, should I really be going with a publisher. I'm going to be giving up a lot of control. But then something happened. Our agent and the publisher kept pushing for lifestyle. Let's, let's, let's get more lifestyle into this. And once I tried lifestyle writing, like how do you get your spouse on board, how do you get your children on board, these types of things, how do you deal with it when you're not feeling well, words just flew onto the page and it was so much fun. And I think it will actually be the lasting effect on folks. You see, when we go to Homesteaders of America and we meet people, very rarely— I mean, we get somewhere, you know, we built your chicken tractor, thank you, it's amazing. But mostly, mostly it's, hey, I mean, people will wait in a long line not to tell us about our chicken tractor, but to tell us that somehow we've inspired them. Somehow this has inspired you all. You all, just showing our good, bad, and ugly, I guess, has inspired you and you've chucked it all and you've, you've gotten land in the, in the country. You've moved from the city. Nobody's paying attention to me. Yeah, everybody's watching the pig, pig wrangling in, in the background. It's this inspirational piece, this lifestyle piece that isn't already out there. So it's this— it ended up being this wonderful half guide half inspiration, uh, chickens and gardens, having them work together, and then addressing the lifestyle. See that fence? It's laying down up there. We need to figure out—

look, there's the energizer.

Let's turn it off and let's adjust this fence. Jonah's letting the cows over. Beautiful sight, beautiful pasture right here, beautiful silvo pasture. I love how the sheep go right for the poplar sprouts. The poplar shoots, getting their minerals. Hey, look, sheep over here on the pig grass. Shoot, the calf busted the fence! She's nursing the mom. You can use the crook to catch her. Come on, we really want our milk. Oh, that's weird, they busted through. Okay, okay. What we'll do—

shoot.

All right, open this, Jonah. We're gonna herd them back in here. The thing is, the baby's hungry.

Okay, I've got the baby.

I feel like the calf got a lot. Oh yeah, oh yeah.

All right, get me the I'm milking again. So let me tell you something about the process. You know, ended up finally writing the script. Took months, uh, fine-tuning. And then I needed some help with the structure. So the structure and then just making it consistent. So I hired a writer, a professional writer, to help me. And he went over it. We had a great time, few interviews. Uh, made the script so much better, got a story at the beginning of every chapter, uh, those kinds of things. Another thing you guys probably noticed is I hired Ben Roberts, the photographer, and he's come out once a month every month for a year. So this book is chock full of professional photos of the entire sea— of the entire season, like every season. And of course we mix some of our photos from our phones and whatnot. It's kind of like the— this vlog, you know, there's a mix of backlit shots, so to speak, you know, just real life shots from our hip, but then there's also some professional, uh, work done. And so I think it's actually a nice blend that is not out there. The beautiful shots are nice, but if it's all just that— it just seems unattainable. And I think that's what's attracted you guys to us in the first place, is the realness. So we got some real photos in there too. And what I've noticed is when I show people the prototype of the book, the PDF, that's the first thing they do is just flip through and look through all the pictures.

So it's cool.

So it's kind of like a coffee table book, but then it's something you could read the stories to the family at the dinner table, and then you guys could all go out, open up the book, and follow the instructions for planting a bulletproof garden, so to speak. Not much. That tells me the calf probably got there, but we got something, which tells me she is going to give us some milk.

So tomorrow— what happened? How'd the calf get through? I turned the fence off. So you have to wait to the very last minute to turn the fence off.

Uh, I need another one.

Plus, yeah, she dirty this morning.

I missed the spot.

Are you dirty this morning, Miss Thing? Publishing has been no quick feat, but I'm thankful for them because yes, I could have self-published, had more control maybe gotten it all out a little quicker. Well, actually, it probably— it wouldn't have happened. I've needed them because they help with the editing, the book design, font, uh, marketing, distribution, printing, all that crazy stuff that I've been able to outsource, so to speak, to them and have been able to focus on this content, Abundance Plus content. And so overall, I'm thankful, and I think it's been— it's been— it's a better piece because we've created— creatively collaborated together, and together we make something better than if I did it by myself. After nearly 2 years, we can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. Mid-February 2022 is the tentative date. It's on pre-order right now, but the cool thing about pre-order is 2 things. If you pre-order— oh, I'm signing the first 5,000.

How does that work?

There's like these blank, uh, papers, there's these blank stickers I can sign, and we put it on the book and that's— then it comes to you. We're not shipping it, the publisher's shipping it. Uh, cool number thing number 2 is the more we pre-sale, the more— well, should we aim for the moon? The New York Times bestseller, they look at these kinds of things. Amazon will do this thing, you guys. Uh, they have this bestseller list. So far we've got number 1 in, uh, organic gardening and horticulture or something like that. We've got number 1 in agronomy, and we've gotten number 1 in house and home. That's exciting. We've got number 50 in books overall. We've climbed that high. That's crazy because it— we're talking like books in tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of books, and we climbed to 50. Now what that does is Well, other people see that that haven't seen— don't know us or don't know about homesteading, and it opens their eyes up to it. So what happens when we get on these lists is, one, Amazon sees that's interesting and pushes it out. So Amazon starts marketing for us. That can be big. Also, Amazon will buy more when it comes— when the book's here. And it's just overall good because I would like to see it back in my day, or back in my dad's day, when everybody had a family milk cow, everybody had a pig, so there was trade opportunities. Right now, why are we breeding our own pigs? Because we have to drive 6 hours to get feeder pigs, guys. It used to be you just have to— you go down the road and herd them, lead them with the bucket back to your homestead. So more homegrown food on every table. Uh, you can pre-order this book at therudelife.com, and I'll leave the link in the description. We're going to supplement with hay inside of the silo. Pasture because it's not quite enough grass. I want to feed this hay where the pigs were, and for some reason we didn't put down straw. So I'm gonna feed this hay right here. It'll work. The straw will accomplish two things in one. Is we'll get this ground covered. Nature's modest, she likes to be covered. And we'll feed the cows at the same time. How did I know The cows didn't get enough to eat. Well, I looked at what they had yesterday, and I want you to look, okay? They've mowed this down to the ground. Flossie's filling up now, but this morning her left flank— you got to look at the left flank— was deflated more than usual. It's just observation, guys. Every cow is different, especially dairy cow. Well, look, I mean Uh, Phyllis's is always looking deflated. See that? But that's actually not that bad for her. This is telling me she's— she might have ate right before we come, so it's not too bad for her. So I'm just gonna, uh, I'm just gonna be resting that. And look, they came and ate it. I don't want to go quite to the ground. The more we can leave, the healthier it is for the grass. So it's just observation and time and just some guess— I wouldn't say guesswork. I would say because we move them every day, we get to make a decision, give them more or less hay or not every day. So if you mess up one day, you've messed up one day, as opposed to if you were moving them once a month and you mess up that month, then you're in trouble. Another thing about feeding hay, feed on the crappiest part of the pasture. So look, see the difference? Like barely anything growing up here. That's been— they've grazed it to the ground, but there's nothing been growing right here. Let's put hay there. Oh, they went over. All right, I was hoping I'd catch them before they got over, but thankfully there's not much in this paddock. But hey, I want them to be hungry and interested. Day 2 of training the ramlets for the slaughter. Want to get them calmed down so that we can easily grab them. We don't want them running around stressed out the day of slaughter. We want this to be humane and peaceful. That one on the left used to be tame. Sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep! Watching me while they pig out. How about what this new GoPro— I want a shot right there on our way home. There's a cool mud puddle I think it'd be fun to ride through. Are you gonna do that? Where's Josiah?

Josiah is—

okay, they're wondering.

You can see from here.

Make a deal. Jonah's gonna clean the house, they're gonna blow leaf pile— blow a leaf pile. I want to plant the lettuce, the winter harvest garden, into this, but Rebecca had to go on an errand, and I'm pretty sure she wanted to be a part of that, and our paths didn't cross, so I'm gonna have to wait on that. Go ahead. So you know what our plan is? How do you cover this for the winter? How do you protect it from frost and snow? Well, this is, this is a system we have going on here. Chickens and gardens, they feed each other. This is a chicken tractor. What if we remove these metal panels and just kept this as a frame and just put the Agribond on top of this, or the plastic if we're— if it's calling for snow? And then it could be a two-in-one type of thing.

Yes, Papa, there's sunflowers growing here.

Yeah, those are volunteer sunflowers right there. See them?

Are you gonna let them grow?

Well, they're gonna die because of the winter, so it doesn't matter. No, we'll probably mow it since it's actually in our yard. We could do wire hoops. That'd be another thing we'd have to have, so it would be kind of cool. Might not be worth it to unscrew and screw this back every year. Might just be worth it just to have metal, but The problem with metal, you've got the little ones like the bug netting, but that will collapse. And we've got the big ones, but those are made for like 60 inches wide, not 48 inches wide, so they'd have to be all wonky. And it's hard to get in and out of that. Well, shoot, how do we— how would we get into this to harvest? This lifts up, which we could ventilate it on a hot day, which is super cool. That could be a way to harvest, but you'd have to have a step. You do have a door here. That could be more ventilation. It would be lighter without the roof, so it could be possible just to move it over and harvest. You could harvest this way, but that's kind of annoying. I got to give that some thought. Maybe that's not what we want to do. What if we hinged it onto the raised bed and you lifted it up to aerate it and to harvest it? I don't know, I'm kind of willing to explore this since I probably need to build a new chicken tractor anyway. What's the worst that's gonna happen? I think tomorrow. All right, you guys go ahead. Was it worth it?

Yeah.

Okay, good. On today's episode of Burn It Up Cooking Show, cue the music. I thought it was over in my life. I didn't know you could source these things. Bratwurst from Pollyface Farm, non-GMO, pastured forested pork. I'm excited. All these are for me. So what does that leave for you? Eggs and bacon. Okay, bacon and eggs for the two niños. We have leftover onions and peppers from last night. We'll go perfect with this. Mama is back. I know she wanted to make pancakes, but I don't think— I think she forgot about that errand, and I don't know if that's still on the docket because our trainer's coming at 12:30, an hour and a half.

Well, he finally woke up.

What's this book for? Fluffy Pancakes. You're gonna make fluffy pancakes. People are going to want to know what book that is.

The Grain-Free Family Table.

You cut up our watermelon, bro?

Yeah.

Nice. I just looked that book up on Amazon.

You're obsessed.

Well, I'm obsessed now. Now that I see any book, I want to see its ranking. It was 407,000th rank. I think there's a half a million books on Amazon right now, Rebecca.

It's crazy.

Well, probably way more. Now this book's been out a while. No doubt they're not promoting it right now, so I don't think it speaks to the quality of that book because we use it all the time. So look at all this stuff. That's a grain-free— that's grain-free. Was it just gluten-free? Grain-free. Can you believe it? Like, we've made it up to like 50. Spot number 50. Right now we're in like 100th on my book, and I was thinking, oh, the 100th place, that's bad. Not when we're talking about millions. How many books are on Amazon?

10 billion.

Here's what I found, uh, looks like there's 32.8 million. 32.8 million. We're in the top 100. I'll take it. Thank you, guys. Out of 32 2 million. Oh my word. You about to grind coffee? Yeah, see if Henry handles it. All right, legs facing out. Okay, go ahead. Look, he's crawling.

You did it!

You've got your batter. All right, you're gonna start cooking pancakes. I'm gonna start cooking Bratwurst. We're gonna put it on what, medium to low heat? I think that'd be the key to not burning it but cooking it all the way through. They're already popping, it's already too high, so turn it down to 2. They look kind of gross right there. Rebecca's not a fan. I don't mind at all because then I get to eat them all. Why don't you like bratwurst? Too close to hot. It's not like a hot dog either. Oh, sauerkraut. I've been open. Yeah, we got our pepper on there.

Why is it so poppy?

It must have some water in it.

I'm loving this one meal a day at lunchtime. At 10 o'clock I was thinking, I'm a little hungry.

Oh, it's only 2 more hours and I got a lot to do.

Are you gonna eat that?

So easy. As opposed to if I was not eating until 5. Do about 18 eggs, bro.

What you gonna do with that?

I'm gonna eat a little bit. You're thinking about eating my bratwurst, aren't you?

No.

I asked her yesterday if she wanted some. I would have set some out for her. She's gonna try it. She's gonna try a piece of some bratwurst or some sauerkraut, aren't you?

How are those turning out?

Well, it's always hard the very first pancake she makes.

Why?

Because I'm getting the feel for it. Like, I just—

that one you didn't let sit long enough, did you? But you don't want it to burn.

I know, it's— you've got to get the feel for it.

Another cool thing about eating lunch big is we get to document it for you guys. To tell you the truth, I usually burn out by the end of the day and over it.

Now, if you're not testing, you're guessing. We're good.

Let's just heat up the leftover onions and peppers.

Yes.

I eat fruit, which is the pepper and onions. I guess onions is my, my one treat.

Onions and peppers are your treat.

I also do one grain, and this was when I was sick. We would do a little bit of white rice, but she says it's okay.

It's a simple carbohydrate, and it is a carbohydrate.

I was losing weight when I was sick. I got down to like 165. Yeah, you were from 180, my normal. Pretty cool to be on a diet though. You could eat 4 bratwurst and be all right. What kind of diet is this? All right, shall we try some of this bratwurst? Oh my, so good! Try it. That's like a glamorous hot dog. Base of rice. Then the, uh, the veggies, and then the bratwurst. Boom! Those turned out nice. I gotta get her to try them. Let's find you a perfect bite. A little bit of onion, a little bit of pepper, small piece of meat. Glory.

I'm not gonna lie, it's actually really good.

It's good.

Now I'm kicking myself that we didn't get more bratwurst.

We can order it at Pollyface Yum. Yeah. All right, now, now, Rebecca, let's try a little something different. A little sauerkraut. Let's see if we can't sell you two different ways. Which one you like better, or should it be mixed in too?

I kind of like them both.

I'm thinking it should be mixed in. Look who else wouldn't hesitate to clean it right up. All right, the feed's here. This guy's good, he backs in here without a complaint. Look who's here. What's the goal today, Jacob?

We're actually going to up the volume today for both you guys. So you're going to up your weight.

Yeah, because you're going to up your volume. She took a week off, Jacob.

You're going to feel it.

I trained twice. All right, the workout was good. I will have to answer A lot of questions I'm getting about this, The Rooted Life, our book, the pre-order. Some folks are saying, how do you know if I order on Amazon? How do you know? And I— how do I get the pre-order bonuses, which is going to be like sample chapters, uh, some video content, companions to go with it? Well, you gotta, you gotta do two things here. You go to therootedlife.com and you go pre-order right here. I've asked them to put Step 1 and Step 2 to make it a little more clear. But you preorder, and then Step 2, you fill out this form right here. So you got— we got to get your email. So if you've preordered and you forgot to do that, go do that. And if you preorder, make sure you also fill out this stuff and get on the email list to get in there. While we're here, let's see, let's see where we're ranking right now. Here it is on Amazon. I'm addicted. Where are we at?

85 in books.

Boom! 85 in books. Yesterday's video didn't even go out, so maybe tomorrow we'll be saying 50 or higher. We've gotten to 50. Can we get to 10? With your help, I know we can. theridlife.com or link in description.