Killing Weeds with Flames. Will it Work?

When I brought Teddy out here this morning to pee and do his— it was frosted, guys. It's May 12th. Our last possible frost date is May 10th. Not anymore. Note to self, last possible frost date is May 12th, hopefully not the 13th. But no worries, we had the Agribon covering our crops and they're nice and frost-free under there. Look at you, got your own shoes on! Whoa, you ready to go?

Yeah.

Uh-oh, mucho pollo's out, Josiah. Oh, we're coming back for you. We're getting some like gas tape. Forget the compound. I don't think— well, let's see if the compound hardens. Uh, I don't think so. So we're gonna try the tape and see if that works. I think Big Daddy's going to town, so he'll grab some. But, uh, hopefully we'll get this flame weeder going today. Lily's calling me. You want to let the birds out? Okay, good. See if I can hop this fence. Oh yeah. What, you need that lid open? All right, so it doesn't come up, it screws off. Look. Oh wow, it won't even screw off. What in the world? I think I broke it. I think I broke your tray.

No, it was already had a little—

Oh, because it still work. It's working. Look, they'd rather go for the food scraps than the grain. We were doing good. I even cleaned out the kitchen scrap bucket. Cannot find our strainer. $2 cash money, find the strainer. Why is it not right there or there where I use it? Hey Gideon, do you know where the strainer is? Oh good, he's running down to the creek. Well, there's one of Gideon's shoes. Okay, so there's the house. Gideon's down here at the pretty place. Is it, is it down here?

Yeah.

Where?

It's okay if you use the big one?

No, I want the metal one, the stainless steel one. We don't have just regular chores this morning. We got to move the piglets. We don't need to be finding strainers. Is it in the cabin?

No.

Really? Are you sure?

Well, here's chocolate milk.

All right.

Oh, now I think I know where it is.

Okay, come. All right, come show us. That's pretty impressive, Josiah. You and Jonah built that, that cabin. You got any other deals for the strainer?

Yeah.

All right, let's get his shoe up. There's your other shoe. All right, let's go find the strainer. Wait, where are you going now?

Mercy!

Now I'm wondering if you don't know where this is, if we're just running around the entire farm looking for it. All right, here we're back to where we started. All right, how are we going to strain this without a strainer, guys?

I get the $2.

What do you mean? How do you know it's in there?

There it is!

What?

Oh no, that's not it. The gideon made it look like it was. Oh, maybe a boogeyman came last night.

I think so, or a chidler yesterday. Oh, look what I found. Why? That actually might have been— that could have been my fault, I don't know, or Rebecca's. You want to hold it?

Okay.

All right, all right, let's put our scraps in there. Let's put this back where I want it. Take that wastewater and put it on our garden. Would you rather try it with the ewes? They're tamer and they're right there. No? All right, yeah, let's see if they get it. Okay, I will.

Cows like apples.

Yeah, cows might. You, you watch that and I'll see what the ewes are doing. They were reaching up, grabbing some of that browse. You guys have liked this paddock, haven't you? A lot of bramble. We might have had a better shot with them. You want to try the apple on them? Let's move their cage and then you can grab the apple. No, don't ride yet. This is kind of dangerous with all the tall grass. Here it is. Sheep, sheep, sheep! Throw it right in there where we can see it. No interest. How'd y'all get out? I think I know. Okay, look, they're following this white bucket. Is the goose the only one left? I guarantee you a nest box is down.

Yep.

Hey guys, you got to check the nest box when you shut them up at night. Mr. Teddy, you're doing what dogs do and you're chasing chickens. All right, I'm gonna carry you. Oh thanks, I'll put Teddy over the fence. To leave the chickens alone, but I think he's gonna soon find an entrance. Oh no, that's not gonna help us. What are we gonna do?

There's a leash and Sally.

Oh, is there? Okay, thank you, thank you. So you try to lead them with that bucket, I'm gonna try to push him with the pig board. Gideon wanted to do the pig board. Come on, buddy. You need help with it?

Yeah. All right, I couldn't bring it, it's too heavy.

Just had to start walking. Good. Look, look, it's already working. Good. Oh, good, Mr. Brown. You don't even need a pig board. You're quick feet. Up, up, up, up. Herding chickens is like herding pigs. Hard. One straggler. Bring them back, guys. Here they come. They got it back. Here we go, now we're moving. That's good, they're going where we want them to be. There we go, there we go. Good girl. Oh, look at the guard goose doing her job. Good. Let's get this net up real quick. It is 8:30. That's gonna be just enough time, I think, to pick this net up and feed and move the pigs. We got the nets down. Let's go go do the pigs. All right, they're wrapping up their job. So loud. I had to meet with them and now we don't have enough time to move the pigs. Let's just feed them.

You can't feed the little pigs.

Why not?

We left the grain down there.

Oh my gosh. Oh my word. All right, Kitty, you gotta get up in the seats. Thank you. Well, she was in the stanchion. Jonah got her in. I guess he didn't lock her head in. Now how do I get by without getting kicked? She ain't going anywhere because she's got that off of there. They say if you walk close to her, the kick won't hurt as bad. All right, kick free. All right, let's go get in. Come on. It looks like you forgot to— yeah, you forgot to shut the head gate. All right, come on. Here you go, huh? Here you go, Mustang. Easy peasy. Lily's gonna help you. All right, you too. We've got her cleaned up. You're in charge. Okay, Jonah offered, I'll milk, you go feed the pigs. So I'm gonna do that. I'll go as fast as I can. I gotta move the piglets too, okay? So it might be a minute. When in doubt, throw it out. So if something you think got in there, or she barely kicked it and you thought something, then it gets thrown out, okay? It's good and given to the pigs. Got our water hooked up, got our fence moved, got our pigs fat and happy. New ground, how they do on the old ground. Okay, so a very shallow till, that can be good. Not mega destruction long term. That's better that they're not just this voracious tiller. So, so far so good. Hey, you guys already done? Yeah, wonderful job! How much we get?

A gallon and a half.

Okay, you mean a whole bucket and a half? Oh, you didn't get one full bucket?

Okay, but I got in doubt and I threw it out.

You looking up the weather, Beck? I am. What's the word? We getting our chicks out tomorrow?

So tomorrow the high is 55. 40% chance of rain. Thursday warms up to 68, low of 50, 72, 51. And then in going into the weekend, we have rain possibilities all next week. We can't keep them from the rain for forever, but maybe that's good. First day, couple days, first 2 days.

Yeah, that'd be good. So I mean, it's close enough. We want to put them out Wednesday. Thursday is close enough, so Thursday it is. And we're getting our feed delivery. We've been charging this, right? Okay, yes, we've kept it plugged in. The light's not on or anything. Shoot. Oh, why did this turn off? Thankfully, uh, Mark did leave his jumper cables. We've got some on the way. Well, we got Mark's old jumper cables up. This should do it. When Mark was here last working on the hydraulics, he actually tested the alternator way back in— it's right back in there. 1991. That means this is like 30 years old. This tractor is almost 30 years old. The alternator doesn't seem to be working, and that's why it doesn't get started, because the battery isn't getting charged while this is running, so it's just— it's not getting recharged after getting started. Palette number 1 in. We're gonna put the big one right here since it's right at the entrance. It's gonna be the easiest. We'll have to put the other pallet in there, and I think— I still think we'll be able to get Sally. No, I know we'll still be able to get Sally in. A salad from the land has got to wait. Our salad, our chicken— oh, that's, that's what awaits me. That's the reward at the end of this job.

We also gotta feed the cows.

Hey, yes, okay, yes, yes, the cows are needing hay because we had to slow down the rotations because no rain and all this cold weather, and so the grass hasn't recovered yet. So we've slowed them down, meaning they're gonna need more hay. We've just got our, our feed in. That's as far as we can go. And then I had this idea, let's put a pallet down and then we can get at that with our tractor and push that far back as we need to go. All right, do you think we should push it further back with another pallet, or— you got it, it worked. What do you mean try to push it? You want to do it, tractor?

No, listen, me and you try to push it.

Oh, you really have high hopes in us, don't you? You ready?

1, 2, 3.

Your forks and drag them on the ground and you'll hit this and push.

I don't think that's strong enough.

I think it'll break it.

Let's give Get one more empty pallet. Yeah, that might work. Jonah and I, we're down here solving problems together. It's good, good bonding experience. As good as any old campout adventure. We're on those every day on the farm together. That'll work. I should be able to push against that and it should hold.

Okay, they were supposed to send two 1,000-pound totes, not one 2,000-pound tote.

That's a lot for this tractor. Definitely, it probably won't tilt. Hopefully it'll pick up.

Look at that front wheel!

It can hardly get gravel. That's how heavy that is.

That went really well. Everybody's safe. We got exactly what we needed to get done. We were able to manage a 2,000-pound tote.

Yes!

See, the cows ate all this fine and good stuff. Yeah, sure, they're gonna look good. They're gonna leave stuff like that, but we'll mow behind them and even it out. But Right now let's get them some, uh, let's get some organic matter here and some food for the cows. All right, let's see if it works. All right, we got it. Look, it works!

Woo!

Big Daddy will be here any minute with that tape, and hopefully this is our afternoon project, testing this thing out. Oh man, this salad has been calling my name. Ooh, a little bit of fresh greens. A little bit of fresh chicken. Mmm. Totally worth the wait. Well, it's that time. It's the afternoon. Look at this. Almanzo and Royal sleeping together. Big Daddy is here with the tape. Hey, now Rebecca, somebody said in the comments it takes 24 hours for that stuff to compound to cure.

Oh really?

So you want to try it again before we do the tape? And then they also said that that tape works that we got. Odie, Odie, is it bubbling? Well then it's not working. Okay, this is gas tape. Let's just try it. No, I didn't.

Well then, let's try it.

Well, we put the put the tape on there and it was actually much more pleasant experience.

It was a much better experience.

Let's hope it works.

If you decide to get one of these, just go ahead and buy some.

Well, don't speak too soon. We got to make sure it works.

Well, I guess that's true.

Here it goes. Don't speak soon.

Better than the compound. That compound stuff was terrible.

And who wants to wait 24 hours and handle toxic—

well, and the directions don't even say that.

Okay, so we're supposed to leave this off and then we're supposed to turn this on a quarter. Okay, give about 10 seconds. You want to make sure it's working and then shut it off, or do you want to test it? Okay, here comes the test. No bubbling so far. No bubbling. Had success there. We replaced our compound here with the tape.

Here, turn it on the corner.

Okay, just, just a quarter of a turn. There you go. So far so good. We extremely careful.

Yeah, it said use extreme precaution, and when that says that, I feel like it's really needed and we need to heat those.

This rule follower is going to see to it. Let's open this up, see how fast it's going, right? Right, and then let's do it, right?

Yeah, we gotta read the instructions though.

Oh, look, the mud—

no, Gideon, don't go to the house! Gideon, you're a muddy mess! Go down to the creek!

Gideon, get out of our house!

All right, Beck, let's try it. Well, let's shut this— that's shut, that's shut. I kind of like it. Okay, but I'll take them off. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Mississippi, five Mississippi, six Mississippi, seven Mississippi, 8 Mississippi, 9 Mississippi, 10 Mississippi.

Crack it, remember, just a little bit.

Just there.

Justin! It's not a flamethrower.

This is insane. Okay, you just want to like—

Oh, you know what?

That's more steady, right?

Yes.

Okay. There's another. There's some more flames. Get the other flames.

There we go.

So you just—

oh gosh, it's like—

all right, first round. I'm like, yeah, let's work into this. I burnt some here, and you're not supposed to burn it, you're supposed to just go over it. And so some of these I just went over, and we'll see. That's supposed to kill them off slowly. So time will tell on this. Yeah, look, it's already starting to brown. Okay, we sprayed some water down for good measure by the fence line. It just— I couldn't figure out how to not burn it. So we're gonna— I'm gonna go text with Casey, Honey Tree Farm, and maybe look up some videos. I think Rebecca's looking up the They have a handle where you can actually turn on and off right here instead of right here. You can hold on to it because it gets cold. It's this— the propane gets cold.

Squeeze valve.

Yeah, get that and then we'll try again.

All right, just like a lot of things with growing food, it's an art.

Well, it said you got to get to 160 degrees to plant. How do you know when you get 160 degrees? If it starts smoking, you move on.

That means it's cuts to you've spent too much time.

Yeah. So, all right, we'll get it. You agree? Should I go out there and mess with it, or do you want to wait until we get that thing? That'll make it a little easier learning curve. It's the next day, and after some research, talking with Casey, it seems like this thing is Well, it's best to use it in damp situations because then you don't want to light your plants on fire. You just want to shrivel them like this. You just want to dry them up and then this will die. So it's a— I'm no, by no means no flame weeding expert. This is my first time. So just getting it to the wilt and then it'll die. It seems to work a lot better like after a dewy morning. So I think that'll work good in the garden, that'll work good on our grass coming up in our driveway. I think, I think there's good use for it.