A family farm day where kids help milk cows Honey and Vanilla, fix equipment, install mineral feeders, and plant 80 trees with protection from deer. Adults explain each step and assign tasks, turning chores into lessons about how farms work.
Chapters
Ahh!
Did you hear that? That's Honey bellowing. We remembered to calf separate last night. Double the milk! Vanilla and honey! Jonah made a nice camera holder for me. Camera bag, camera. He's even put it in the seat belt. I like that. Thank you, Jonah. You have one of those popsicles. That means Gideon has one of those popsicles. Hey, you might not have to hose it down. Did it rain so much yesterday? Here, I need to feed those chickens so they get distracted. We had the idea to put the GoPro on different places on the mini X. How about a view looking down from the arm? Another one right above the driver's head.
You're gonna flip it today.
No. What do you want to make a fool of me? Yeah, I looked like a fool last night. Wait, why is Winnie in there? You're no dummy, are you, Lola? Although she could take you, Winnie. Are you the extra heavyweight division? You're the jumbo heavyweight.
If we pulled all our weight down on this, would it go down? No, it ain't happening.
Chick, chick, chick, chick, chick. We gotta get them distracted away from the machine. Hey, y'all are eating more. That's good. Oh, little Henry's gonna We have a bit of a peninsula here. Oh wow, you've already gotten grass growing up in that muck. Goodness. What happened? A bolt came loose. Is that the right bolt for the job?
Yeah, just tighten it.
We have here what we thought was a swamp, ended up just being a bad drainage. So we got the little creek back. By the looks of this new grass already coming up. We might have pasture in here by the end of the growing season.
You open this for me?
I can't. Let's stay still. They're huge, huh? We did it! We had little puny ones the first round. We ended up planning to go a week longer. I bet we didn't have to do that. We were making such improvements just with giving them these King Feeders. How are y'all doing?
They're all big.
Yeah, they are. Let her get from this side because then she's pointing uphill. There you go. She's gonna be a little antsy because she's— her baby's separated from her. Lily, you and I are on honey, I guess. John and Josiah have vanilla. You want to help too? Yep, you can. Oh, that's unfortunate. Stanchion's right in a pile of poop. That's the cool thing about this mobile stanchion. I mean, technically we should have moved it forward and then milked, but we're already too far in. But I don't have to clean this up. We'll leave it behind today. Let's get her calf over. Josiah, can you spot me here? Honey's calf is all over Vanilla. Hopefully she finds— she needs to find the right mama. Vanilla rejects her. That's good. Look at Honey trying to get her attention. She's like, no, I'm your mama. Little calf's going for Vanilla. Look there, now she figured it out. What's going on?
They got a little of this tree.
How?
It wasn't tight.
It wasn't? No, they did. They pushed it from the top, didn't they? It was the cows, huh?
No, I think we just need to make it tight.
Well, let's go make sure the other one's tight. Are you guys gonna do this one by hand? It's so heavy. We've worked so hard to protect these trees. T-posts, woven wire, then 2x4s. It's still not enough.
We should probably start putting them up higher.
Well, we don't want them to push down. We don't want to push through. I think we need a third one. So they're gonna go like this. Yeah, all day long. We didn't even put clips on this, Josiah. 4 clips and 4 more boards. 1 and a half plus 1, 2 and a half. 2 and a half gallons of milk. I'll try to look at Jonah walking. Try to walk normal. Look at that. I don't know if anybody— I don't know if anybody would tell. I think if you went to town and went down Main Street, nobody would even notice you had a limp. Dude, you're healing fast. Oh, she's getting real serious working in Canva on a cleaning schedule. How are we going to protect these trees? This is what we have off the farm, which would be nice. Hey, you did it! You ready to go do minerals? All the buckets have minerals in them? Yeah, that's two.
I got a half.
That's 2. Okay, well, half it with— half it with Gideon, Henry, and that'll be your 1 for the day. Bro, you can't be eating a popsicle in front of him and not give him one. 10:30, we're getting back out on chores. That probably took an hour for breakfast. General Monday. You want to hold this up for me, Lily?
Do you want to give them some pee?
I and TSK.
Hey, this was kind of handy, and we put all our minerals in a wagon. We don't unload it. I then really gets wet. Hey, Crazy Eye, broke my nose. We got a date for you.
Should I go out of the cow?
We got a date. We got a date soon. A, B, B, C, and kelp. It might just be worth it just to carry the buckets over. Now see, they had A and we're out. You didn't bring A, it's empty. Come on, we'll go get with Sally. We'll get the missing—
what we have, and then I'll go get—
you got to go get A in there. I'm not sure you can open the bag. That's a good idea, but I'm not sure you can open the bag.
Open it like an alfalfa bag. Yes. Okay, then I can do it. Okay, A on it.
Come on, little squirt, you got one boot. And your leg's on the wrong side. Hey, did you get BBC as well? What is it? Is that BBC? It needs to be full. Okay, does it— do we have any more? Yeah, we have one more bag. I need to know when it's out.
You're gonna have to add up all the numbers.
Do you know how to do strikes? I should have taught you how to do strikes.
What's strikes?
We have this many trees. That's supposed to do math in public. So I'll do it in private here on my phone. We've planted 80 trees. We would— we're extra. All right, we'll see. It's, it's, it's made—
only half are gonna survive.
Make it off of that. And yeah, and why do you say that?
A lot have died already.
Well, a lot die too, but once we have the guard, we can replant trees in the same spot until something finally takes. We have to have this sled so that the steers can actually access it. We have a mineral feeder for the sheep. Under the shaw, but the cows can't get to it. So we're just doing everybody's in the sled. Nacho over here getting him some. Hey, Lily, we might get to pull corn after all. Got 45 more minutes, we're gonna pull some corn. Kid said yesterday, what's the project for today? We always try to do chores with any time left, a project.
Are you having lunch at 12:30?
Yeah, does that work for you?
Yeah.
I don't know if this is the ultimate trailer for this, but it is the one we have. What's wrong with Bob? Did you know about that? Yeah. Can it be welded? Yeah, that's why I got you guys a welder.
This is a dump trailer, so it just came off, but I'm guessing those bolts need to be cut.
Yeah, I know where a black machete is.
No, there's a bolt. Attaches it to the axle. It just needs to be tightened down, it looks like. Mama, she's on an appointment with Jonah. You guys want to do corn? Sure. Here's your project idea. Josiah getting a couple of food service trays.
So the ones that are dead we're gonna pick, and the ones that aren't dead we're gonna leave.
And then what's the plan?
Then I guess we're gonna shuck it and cut off the tops.
Okay, that's our stamp of approval. It's the HollerGanic stamp of approval right there. If it's safe for the worms, it's Safe for us. This age, they love to help. Actually, at this age, they love to help too, if it's something— if it's their idea, right? So you gotta have that balance. You gotta— I don't even eat corn. I'm gonna support him on this. I'm gonna help him on this.
Next year we should grow even more corn than this.
Get some excited. You look like one of those hardcore weightlifters with a chain on their head. Now you do. You did it. Good job. Can I have another one for Henry?
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