Jonah’s 17th Birthday Special

If you have to remove an airsoft gun like this, you might have a 17-year-old. Happy birthday, John! I think 5 chickens is enough to get enough chicken breasts for fried chicken and biscuits. There's a man after my own heart. Fried chicken and biscuits and gravy is his birthday meal request. Bring out the big guns. Got the chicken soaking in water. Water. Should have like set it out to thaw last night. Going to sneak into Jonah's chores. First birthday. Good morning, happy birthday. 17 years old. We're going to go do your chores. Jonah's job to do little animal chores right now, so I'm about to leave her to do it for him. Don't think we're too big of a hero. It's kind of easy right now in the winter. Put a little skim milk in this food scrap. Huge food scrap bucket. We got to separate our poultry feed from our swine feed. In order to get our swine feed, we got to remove our poultry feed from there to here. My back's still sketchy, but this kind of thing has to get done. I think the boys maybe just been feeding poultry. I wonder why swine comes in 40-pound bags and poultry in 50, given how much they eat versus chickens. I'm gonna put a little grain in here just to absorb the milk. We have this water here to wash the pan. It's solid. Not enough water to rinse it off. This is Blesses my heart to look out there and see high tunnel. And the bank is beveled down to the creek, and it— we've been waking up to a nightmare out here for the last 2 months. It's cool not only because it's being rebuilt, it's actually— we're actually building because it's coming back better. Birthday boy! How'd you enjoy that rest? I liked it. It was good. Your birthday request was to go riding. It's a little cold. But you know, by the time we have our tea, get the bikes ready— can you get the bikes ready? Yeah, we can do that. Some of them are flat. Citrus this morning, that's a little bit of a surprise. Nutrient-dense regenerative citrus, who knew? I'm so excited about this, from Georgia. What's the name of the company? Follow us at Squeeze That Citrus. Nutrient-dense, regeneratively grown. I didn't know that was a thing. Oranges, Jonah, come on. They're so good. You cut up a lemon for people to eat? Bacon from the land, eggs. You nailed these this morning, girl. You ready for this, my man? Yeah. Do you know what— do you know what Charles is talking about? Did you find it? Who did you— did you find the show that I was talking about? The what? Trail. The trail. Oh yeah, we should do that. This is my hillbilly tailgate protector. I got her Plan going to the Bent Creek area, only 30 minutes from here. Starting up the Mountain to Seas Trail. Look at this hillbilly, uh, tailgate pad. We're trying to spend zero money so we can pay off the, uh, pay off the house in just a couple of years. It's an impossible goal, but we're gonna aim for it anyway. Hey, how do you like that tailgate pad? It's great. Look who's driving us!

Yay!

Get some more hours! And Jonah just got his full license, meaning you can drive at all hours of the day. And night, and you could drive friends. Our tailgate pad worked great. The bikes stayed off each other. Cost us $0. 12-mile ride. The little GPS app says 1 hour. Of course, they can be hopeful sometimes. Those fingers numb yet? Off the gravel road now. Double track. We're hoping there's going to be some single track, but we're starting to doubt it. We're 2 miles into this ride and it was uphill gravel road. Josiah said, I'm never going mountain biking again. And then 4 miles in, he wanted to go back to the truck, and then he changed his mind. And ever since then he's been killing it. So I don't know if he's viewing it as a job to get over with, or he's having a good time and just crushing it. What do you think, Jonah? Double track downhill. It's good riding in the winter, not many people are out. You can see the mountains. We're gonna veer off the original plan. Boys want some single track. We found some single track right here. What? Sleepy Gap. And according to my map, we have no— we can just zigzag back down. Oh yeah, now just, uh, change his mind right before we got— oh yeah, just, uh, right before we got to this trail, we saw a guy on a gravel bike, no suspension. There we go. And I'm thinking, yeah, we're on the wrong trail. Let me get ahead of y'all. See, this is fun, right? This isn't so bad. We got to do— we'll find more of these. We'll plan better. Okay. Oh wow, so pretty. Wow. I love the open fields, the little micro fields. Oh yeah, trees down from the hurricane. People have really cleared this fast. This is a really important place for Asheville. It's basically right in Asheville, so it's a really close place for folks of the city to get out of— get out in the woods. All right, coasting home. Well, we'll have to ask Josiah if he still hates mountain biking after that, because that was pretty fun downhill. The question is, still hate mountain biking? Kind of. Are you coming next time? Maybe. Depends upon how warm it is. We've had a change. So you like it to be a little warmer? A lot warmer. Okay, so it's just too cold. Yeah. Okay. Well, we can do that. We can do that. Right, Jonah? Yeah, my fingers are very cold. Oh yeah? You guys are kind of glad we took that single track shortcut home, huh? Yeah. Because that— it would have just been gravel the rest of the way and that would not have been fun. Well, did that take us an hour and a half? Yeah. We didn't even do the full thing. Hey! I'm gonna follow you along on chores. It's not as cute as when he was 10, but— here we go. Are you serious? It's probably because that hose is draped by our house. Please tell me it's off. It's not hooked up. That helps. What's your plans for this year? One year before you're an illegal adult. I don't know, get that house built. Yeah, Jonah's working on the cabin, remodeling himself so that one day he has a place to live on the farm. You think that you'll finish that within a year? Yeah, definitely. Any other goals, aspirations? Maybe start some sort of business. Oh, what kind of businesses would you be thinking about? YouTube or grading or something like that. Okay, what would you sell? I thought maybe chicken tractors. Yeah, building them? Yeah, selling them built and ready to go? Yeah. Okay. You don't think they need it, huh? Yeah, he's giving me a hard time. We don't need— they don't need no hay. I'd like to leave a little bit of top on this grass. They're coming. Told Mom I was going to come help cut the chicken. Should I go help cut the chicken first? Don't make a loud noise. What does that mean? We got him this ping pong table for his birthday. Wow. I used to straight up wooden paddles. 2, 2, 4. I'm the bear man, man. Okay, 9, 7. Oh, you got to go cut your chicken, Rebecca. These look great. Yeah, my hands are— I'm going to help you. That is so cold, that, and we still got more coming. Maybe I got too many. Chicken is cut. Boy, it got dark in here all of a sudden. People want to turn on some lights for us. Creamy dreamy grits, fried chicken, sausage. Lily, I want it so thick that you can tip the pan over without it falling out. I don't know about that. Really?

17 years ago we met about this time. No, it was earlier. It was too—

it was a good guess. All right, come out. I think it turned out good.

Sausage gravy, fried chicken.

Look how thick that batter is. That's a gluten-free—

gluten-free biscuits, sausage Sweet tea. And for dessert, we're having blizzards.

Good choice, my man. What do you think that gift is that Lily got you? I don't know because I don't want to say because it might be really wrong. Let's say it. It's really shaped like a Lego set. Yeah, a lot. Well, this is a very yellow meal. Jonah's at that head of the table. I'm at this one. How's everybody like it?

Good.

Let's do presents. It's your birthday? It's your birthday too? So this would be his 6th birthday. 1, 2, 3, 4, 4th, 5th. Josiah, what'd you get him? Nothing. Oh, what'd you get him? He didn't get me anything. I kind of— okay, okay, just fell through. Y'all are even. I got him a ping pong table and a bike ride this morning, and his chores, and I've been doing his Dishes. What's the worst work job you could ever do? Dishes. Grandpa gifts are the best. That's cash money. Oh, thank you.

Money!

We saved the best for last. Lily actually did get you something you could open. Oh! Oh wow. What is it? A soccer— Yeah. You, you, you— Bounce off of it. You hit the soccer ball into that and it bounces back to you. Yeah. Hey, can you say something nice about Jonah? Can you say I like you?

I like Josiah.

You like Josiah?

He's a good big brother and he likes to play soccer and yeah. You're a good brother because you like to, well, you don't, well, maybe you like to drive me to my violin lessons. Riding lessons and to parties and everything, and I really like that.

Jonah's nice. He's fun to be around, fun to play with, and he's a good big brother.

I was thinking about this morning, Jonah, I was like, as the time was going, I was thinking about 17 years ago, um, and we met 17 years ago for the first time face to face, and I'm very proud of you. You've been a good first child, and I'm sorry for all that your father and I have done. You are our guinea pig child, so we didn't know what we were doing. In fact, I remember saying to your father, I don't know that we should keep up because we're just gonna mess them up because we're not perfect. And so obviously I wasn't gonna give you away, but you know it was that it was nerve-wracking having you as— having you. It was nerve-wracking because we didn't know what we were doing, and I feel like we still don't know what we're doing. But I appreciate you. I appreciate everything that you do. I'm so proud of you. You've gotten your unrestricted license now, and you've, you've worked very hard to accomplish that, and I'm very proud of you. I'm proud of you. You're a good soccer player. You're a good mountain biker. You're becoming a good ping pong player. You work hard. I'm very proud of you.

You're a fiercely loyal guy. You're exploring your entrepreneurial spirit this year. It'll be— it'll be cool to see what you do. You just got your full-on license, so now you're freer than ever. Used to putz around with me when maybe you were Gideon's age. You would come and do the afternoon chores with me. Now you and Josiah do them. And every once in a while you still just come and putz around with me. It's nice. Just the other day Josiah wasn't able to do the chores and we were able to do the chores together. It was a lot of fun. I don't worry about you because you're hardworking and loyal, and so any company or customer or bride or children are really going to enjoy that and thrive in that, and you'll have benefits for life for that. Remember when you were born and Grandma was so happy? One of the best pictures I have of Grandma was with her whole life. She'd be very proud of you. Yeah, of all your accomplishments. I'm proud of you too, what you're able to do and how hard you work. But I do worry about you, what you're driving. You got a good dad. My dad used to tell me, when I take off, remember, these cars will kill you. It could be not even your fault. Somebody else runs into you. You seem to have a lot of fun with your friends and doing a lot of things. But we're happy for you, for your 17th birthday. Yeah, thanks. God bless you. Jonah's remodeling, and then it made us think of the time that you helped Big Daddy and Grandma remodel their house. You were a little 10-year-old just going to town. He had his belt on.

Mom was 58. When Jonah was born.

Wow.

Which is how old I'm gonna be when you're 17.

Isn't that wild? That's wild. We'll be grandparents by then, for sure. I hope so. We better be. You guys keep talking about this wife that I'm gonna have someday. Shh.

There's a surprise gift coming.

Nanny's off today, but she's gonna come and do his dishes. He hates— he hates— he'll do anything but dishes, and it's his birthday. That's gonna be her gift to him.

She's coming right now. Hey, Annie!

Hey.

Why are you laughing?

The smiley one on that weekend on a Saturday. And she's dressed up. She's even dressed up.

Up, right? You know what your birthday present is?

I'm going to do the dishes for you. Oh, thanks. Oh, he lit up this time.

Yes, we've been hyping it up. Yeah, yeah, like let them know you're going to have dishes after dinner, don't worry. That's your birthday. Yeah, we do.

Making pledges.

Just This is the grain-free Oreos.

You are calling them Oreos, but they had like chocolate, or they have cashew butter on them. Yeah, not cream. Annie, oh my goodness, what a gift! You trumped us all. I don't know about that. You trumped us all in our gifts. Would you rather have a ping pong table or one night of dishes? Probably a ping pong table. How'd it turn out? It's your favorite.

That cookies and cream.

What's your favorite? The cookies and cream.

Cookies and cream!

What's your favorite ice cream? Cookies and cream. Why didn't we just make cookies and cream?

We wanted Justin to look.

Jonah, I'm glad you were born. Happy day.