Life In A Day | Homestead Edition

Can we help the chicken?

No, we're gonna try to catch some. We need to move some out to the, uh, pasture posse, out into the pasture. You can kind of help, you just crack the door and I'll catch them.

Okay, put them in there in that little cage.

Yes, let's, let's try maybe 6 that haven't been out to the pasture. We're trying to get some more chickens out there that will stay in that sheet net at the top there. Okay, you've got it there. This one's a naughty one. She had the grain, so she's already gotten out of the pasture. Aha, here's one! We'll see how she does out in the pasture. All right, I just let the rest out. We've got 5 in there. Oh, did you see this one? The bearded lady. See her little beard? All right, put her in there. Let's give them a trying a new home. Thank you, my man, for watering mom's plant. Look how they've germinated! Almost everybody has germinated. What's going on with that? That's the only one really. Everybody else is getting excited to grow. We're gonna go do the luchadors real quick, guys. We'll be back. You want to go with Whoa! Shall we go do the ducks real quick while we're here?

Yeah.

Okay, it's easier. Okay, I love my family, and ultimately, I deep down, that's why I'm doing this, growing our own food, so that why? So that I can be healthier and therefore better provide for our family. So my children can be healthier, my wife, and ultimately healthier, more free equals more happiness. It's why I do it. I love my family. I hope you guys didn't sleep out here. That's where they were cuddled up. I hope they slept underneath the shawl protection from aerial predators. It's off. You want in? You want to pull this shawl forward? Okay, go ahead. Keep going. Go all the way to the end. Fresh grass for the ducks.

Good teacher, kids.

Josiah just said just set the chickens in the paddock. That's, that's right here, that where they're gonna go. And we can't do that. I think we got to put them in their coop first. Obliterated. The cows were here 3 days ago, for those that you don't know. And the chickens go around and they scratch it, spreading that fertilizer, eating the fly larva that's in there, breaking pest cycles. Actually, these guys did a pretty good job. I'm looking— oh, here we go. So they spread that like perfect, but this one, I think if we had more chickens, that might have gotten spread a little bit better. But the trick is the sheep were here yesterday in a sheep net. These chickens have to stay in a sheep net, so we're looking for a special attitude. Do you guys have it? Do you guys have it to be content? I don't know. Let's try. Normally I put these guys guys in at night, it orients them to a new coop. But I'm going to sleep by the time it's dark now, by the time chickens get in the coop. So I'd rather just try this in the morning. This is normally when I let them out. They're on a new paddock, new paddies to go through. Where's the patty there? That's prime for the taking from chicken. I'm not gonna let them out yet though. Let's let them orient a little bit more. We'll pick up the old sheep net and then we'll come let them out. Okay, the bromance— the steers and the sheep are right there. They're gonna go in right here, so let's set that up real quick. All right, you guys are ready to move. New paddock set up. These guys are a little bit more sheepish like that Joe. Hey, let's go. Sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep. All right, finally! And they are getting restless. You cage fighting? No cage fight yet? Okay, good. Listen to them, they're ready. Beautiful sight. All right, now let's get home. See, that one's kind of trying to figure out where it is. Let's get home, turn this fence back on. Now I'm back to see, make sure it's running. Yep. All right, so on the other spectrum of things, you have love over here. Well then, what do I fear? I would fear most something happening to my ability to actively, in a serving way, provide and love for my family. Throwing out some sausage. Seem like we never remember to do that, so we're always putting it on warm water, soaking it in there. On today's episode of Burn It Up Cooking Show, biscuits. First time trying these. It's a gluten-free organic biscuit mix. Are you serious?

Are you serious? Are you serious? Are you serious?

Okay, I need my assistance. Come on, it's always funner with kids. We've got our ingredients: maple sugar, salt, baking powder, our egg, our milk, and the biscuit mix. And of course, besides bacon, some leftover meat, and we'll probably do— oh, and sausage. Oh, this is going to be delish. I just combined eggs and milk. It didn't say to do this, but I'm assuming we do this. Blend it.

Can I do it?

Yeah, go for it. Thank you. Whisk it. That's the word I was looking for. Hey, Mr. Brown, what are you making?

Guess what?

Biscuits. Biscuits?

Are you serious?

Cut in that butter. We don't have a pastry cutter, so cut it down. We're going to cut the butter down until it's size of a small pea. And then I— the chunks are sizes of a pea. You just stand by. I'm sure we'll add that in just a little bit. 10 minutes later, I think— I don't know, I think we got it all to a small pea. All right, Lily, add the liquid. Okay, we're going to toss it till the mixture barely stays together, whatever that means. I guess it's just going to be crumbly. We're going to make little biscuits on top of little biscuits. Okay, so I'm gonna get my hands a little batty. Yeah, just make a little biscuit, meaning ball it up and Biscuit it like that, and once you have two, then you set it on the other one. So if we layer it like that, then it'll be like flakes, and we can open it and put a nice little sausage in there or egg. All right, here we go. We patted them a little bit. They're supposed to be drop biscuits, so I hope I didn't ruin them. But I've got a little experiment I used to do back in my biscuit making days. Put a little butter underneath it and it gets a little fried sense. And I did butter underneath this one and on top on that one and just did the other ones normal. 450 for 10 minutes, 10 to 12 minutes. We have a flour explosion on table. And Chidler, what are you doing that for? Really? We also have our sausage going. Um, not all of it falls. Making very thin patties. We ended up cutting it See, cut it so that it'll be patty size because in the middle of it, it should still not fall. But let's see how this works. Let's, let's slow it down a little bit. All right, that's our 2-minute— that's our 10-minute check-in. Oh my, they're coming along real nice. I think that you could stand— let's do one more minute. I know this is the Burn It Up Cooking Show. But you definitely don't want to burn the biscuits. If you burn the biscuits, you might as well just get— we're in the South, you might as well just give up, go back to bed. 1 minute mark. Oh, let's dare, let's dare, let's dare. 1 more minute, no longer, because you don't want it gooey inside either. All right, final timer. We're not gonna fool around, we're gonna get them out. Looking golden. Oh my, look how it's crisped up where the butter was. I am gonna go ahead and dab the butter that's running off. I don't want it to get like soggy as they cool off. I want you to look at this fried bottom butter. Oh my gosh, are you kidding me? It worked out splendid. Remember that little, I don't know, layering I did? Oh, oh, oh, oh, Lily asked if it's bad or good. We're gonna have to Run it by mother. You go ahead, try one. Is it bad or good?

It's going to poke.

Now the biscuits didn't quite blend as well. Hey, Becky, you're the taste test. Okay, I'm the taste test. Oh wow, is that too much biscuit? No, no, for the amount of sausage? No.

Okay, I'm not a big—

look at the fried bottom. Nice. You like more biscuit than sausage. I feel a little doughy in the center. Maybe too thick, but not bad. It is hard with gluten-free biscuits to not get it doughy in the center. Even this one, thin, is a little doughy in the center. It's not bad. For sure. I guess it passed the test if you're gonna eat it. Yeah, good deal. Everybody come in, let's sit down, let's have our meal together. Mr. Brown, you get biscuits. Does it pass the Mr. Brown test? You went for the bacon first. That's good. Yummy. Is it good? Good. If there's anything I could change about the world, it would be this. Really, that people get a piece of my world. Because there's nothing better. I've experienced nothing better than my family and I sitting down And being able to point at the various things on our plate and say, "We grew this. Together we did something positive. We weeded this garden. We weeded this cabbage. We put these chickens up every night. Now we have these eggs." There's all kinds of stories in that. There's nothing better. You'll feel no more sense of pride anywhere else than that. And that is such a joyous occasion. But it's also on a macro level solving so many problems. We've localized our food system, we've gotten a bit more in control. We haven't had to count on trucks to haul that in, airplanes, ships, whatever. That hasn't had to happen. We've walked out into our yard, picked our breakfast, come in the house and made it. So what I would change about the world then is make my joy complete. This would absolutely make my joy complete. If others would then be inspired and begin to do that themselves? Because I've got— I've discovered this wonderful thing, so I naturally want to share it, and I want others to share in that. I'm happier than previously. Others will be happier. There's less fossil fuels and all kinds of Transportation being done because I'm eating from home. The more and more people do that, the more and more impact we're going to have for the better. So we process chickens on Wednesday. We put them on this cool room just so we don't burden our freezer all at once. This is the last of them. I've run out of room in here. We filled that up with chickens. Well, that's our old chickens from last year. We need to finish them off. This half is the new. We got another freezer back there full of chickens. But here's the thing, we just finished all our chickens and they've got to last us really till June-ish next year. So I'm actually having to store some in our pork freezer. We've got an empty shelf in here. I hate blending it in the pork freezer, not because there's anything wrong with that, it's just that I don't know, it's kind of nicely categorized. Like, this is the pork freezer, that's the chicken freezer. But I guess we'll eat these first after we eat the old ones. Oh, doing a wheelie, doing a wheelie! Let's put the kickstand in. All right, there you go. Okay guys, if everybody's going— cousins are in town visiting from Nebraska. Let's just walk. Wait, come on, let's convert it. But they want to go on a ride. You guys want to go on a ride or we want to walk? Okay. And Phyllis is bellowing. She never bellows. We're gonna go see what's going on. Hey, have y'all ever ridden a side-by-side before? No. I like it, you're getting your seat belts on and everything. Are the chickens in? It looks like all the chickens are— stay— have stayed in.

Does that mean you're gonna go more?

Yeah, if they go back tonight, we'll make sure they go back tonight. Now Flossie sees this and is coming back. That's actually strange. So I'm gonna go see.

Is it having a baby?

Let's make sure we're still hitting. All right, this is the cow's paddock. Doesn't look like they've been down here. I'm just making sure they're not blocked out of it for some weird reason. Oh, looks like they have been in here. Okay, that's good. Yep, they've been eating in here. That's the lane back to water. Maybe they just want to go get some water. They've been eating in here. Okay, I feel good. This is plenty of food for them. All right, all's good. Sheep are doing good. One last look at the chickens. This is a good sight. There's more. That means more paddies will be reached. I'm happy about that. Kids, we got an exciting week ahead of us, huh? What are you guys most looking forward to?

Um, milking a cow.

Milking a cow. What about you?

Eating blackberries.

Eating blackberries. What about you?

I don't know, really anything.

She's up for anything. These are going to be some fun girls. You guys excited? Rhodes kids, what are y'all looking forward to?

Having fun. Having fun.

It's gonna be a lot of fun though, spending time with girls. Oh yes, you get some girlfriend time. Hey, how many people can we get in Sally? This will be a record. This will be it. So there's 6 of us, 4 of them. Okay, how was it everybody? We have a lot of fun this week. Yeah, we don't fall asleep. We don't fall I think maybe you can tell a lot from a person's loves, fears, by what's in their pocket. So what is in my pocket? Well, I've got a pen because I'll think of things and I'll write them down, ideas, or I'll just jot down really practical things. I mean, I've got a wallet. So a lot of, you know, you have your time, money, and energy, and maybe the wallet represents that. Maybe something interesting is in the wallet is I have this guy, this construction guy who builds sheds. So we're going to be building a shed on our farm to house various equipments and wood chips and stuff like that for using on our animals' deep bedding. The battery though, the battery. This is a replacement battery for my camera and I guess that's where I'm putting the most effort outside of what I'm putting into my family. Is I'm documenting this. You guys are immersed with us. This is my, this is my tool to accomplish my goals. This camera, the spare battery that I always keep in my pocket, because all I have to do is just document what we're doing. There's, there's no making anything up. There's no creating. There's just documenting, because we are living the dream. Because we once didn't grow our own food, and now we do. And you see the struggles along the way, but you also see the rewards. And when at the end of the day we sit down and eat