In this YouTube vlog, the host of Our Rooted Life walks viewers through the aftermath of Hurricane Helene on their 75‑acre family homestead in North Carolina. The storm left hay bales water‑logged, a bridge washed away, a greenhouse flattened, and extensive debris across the property. The family, still grieving the recent loss of Grandma, coordinates with a group from Community Resilience Resources (CRR) and other volunteers to clear trash, salvage usable lumber, compost the spoiled hay, and rebuild critical structures. They also share recent donations of strawberries and garlic, and discuss harvesting sweet potatoes while emphasizing the importance of mutual aid, sustainable practices, and emotional resilience. The tone remains grateful, hopeful, and community‑focused despite the challenges.
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Happy day and welcome to another day in the life of Our Rooted Life. A lot of new folks here, a lot of renewed interest. I sure do wish it was from a better situation, but regardless, you're here, you've been shown interest in the hurricane content. Thank you, we very much appreciate the attention during this time. As you can see, we've sort of been washed away. We got some hay bales compromised here at the end. We're gonna be spending the next while rebuilding what we have spent years building and for our homestead lifestyle. We got a group from CRR coming. We go in with small teams looking for the hardest hit, those people that don't have insurance, and try to help them out the most, the best we can. Thank you, CRR. We're gonna, uh, need to do something about these rotten bales. It's like a fireman came out here and was like This is a ledge. I don't think that's gonna break though. It's nothing new here. We got more to do than we have time. But hey, what are you guys cocking your head for? Hey, we've got trash to go through. We gotta go through the creek. We got a lot of trash and farm debris on our neighbor, and the farm must go on. Been occupied, wouldn't you say, the last 3 weeks with the hurricane and the death of Grandma? Seed Time was so kind to send us 200 strawberries, so we plant this in thanks to them, and we'll remember them getting the strawberry planting and harvest. We also got garlic. This is one of those things that wasn't directly from the hurricane, like people maybe helping us plant some stuff, but it is because we've been so busy with the hurricane for 3 weeks we haven't been able to do our normal things, so we're behind. Let's check in on Mom real quick before you check the boys. Rebecca lost her mother just a few days ago. Total mama's girl, so she's kind of still need to be my first priority despite everything that's going on today. She's number one. How's it going, man? When people say, how long you been here? I say, I've been here 92 years because Grandpa bought the little old house in 1932 for— it's a 75-acre property. Anybody want to guess how much he paid for that in 1932? $100. It's now worth $3.5 million. He paid $500. You're the lowest bid ever. Thankfully We've got a group here, looks like, of eager people to help us rebuild what was destroyed. My vision of this thing is that you have so much destruction and damage that the only way forward in this is for people to help other people. Like, this is not— this is the kind of damage not only on this farm but just across this end of the state. It's like, if people don't help other people, you're gonna have people homeless indefinitely. We used to have a big greenhouse right over there on that. You can see where we've kind of flattened it out there. You see we have a big gap hole there. Um, the water came all the way up to that structure there. We had a storage container, it's right there behind y'all. It was right here. There goes the container. There it goes. Let's make piles over there because kind of need to make room for the hay to come off and then back on. So we got 4 or 5, raise your hand. If I can get some over here to do a, um, do the hay. It got flooded down here and the hay bales are crushing. That's even wet though. Like, how high do we— that's just weather though. Yeah, this whole side. I was thinking maybe send a bunch of people for trash. Okay. Is there a way to get a truck down there to below? That's Good idea. Like on the neighbor's property if there's a bunch of stuff down there? No, but we can get up to it. Okay. Why are you here today? What makes you want to? It's my wife's birthday. She's like, I want to go help for my birthday. That way she was able to corral everybody. So what makes you come and help out today? Uh, well, my mom wanted to come up here and help people rebuild stuff, and this was her birthday present, all of us to spend our weekend up here. So, okay. And I kind of wanted to help rebuild things. So moving on to the next thing, we're gonna leave Arthur with some folks. We need some good stout people who aren't allergic to hay. About 6 feet on that side. Yeah, hanging over. Yeah. And we're gonna need to get up. It hadn't cracked yet. I guess there's rebar in there. We got the crew in here. We need a little bit of rain. I want to laugh at that, you know, but actually seriously, when it doesn't rain for 3 weeks in North Carolina, it's usually pretty bad. But I think we're all going to have PTSD when it rains again. You can see down in there all kinds of debris just across the property line. The tree line is the property line. Our bridge washed away. Okay, and we're gonna need to build another bridge, so let's see what we could salvage. Okay, there's a bunch of 2x. All right, but I think we can salvage— let's get those first. Okay. Yep, just haul these 2x10s. I'm happy to see most of these are still intact. We wouldn't have found this, it would just be one more thing we would have had to buy. We had to buy the lumber for the bridge. That's what's really breaking my heart, is like, this was not in the budget. And I'm trying to not if I don't have to, because it feels like every time we have to buy something to replace it, it's like we're getting set back. These folks helping us get our— what is left of our bridge saved. That was our bridge. It used to live 1,000 feet up that way. We're taking spoiled, spoiled hay and just piling it up here. We'll compost it, black gold, get it out there with the machine, turn that problem into solution. We could almost take these and put them in the cows' paddocks right now and sheep. Yeah, and just park the cows and the sheep there for a few days. That area needs it. Are they in the same spot? Yeah, let's hay bomb. Let's hay bomb where they're at. We can do that if you want. So what brings you out here to help? We got a message from him on LinkedIn this past Wednesday saying they need bodies, even if it's for a day. So I asked my fiancée if she minded I go out here. She said no, and I'll go with you. We're gonna turn a problem into a solution by taking these half-spent hays and spread them out in this pasture that is lackluster. And this hay with the cow's waste will go to the soil, and all the manure that comes with the cows coming near this hay will feed the soil. So it's really not a complete disaster that we're We're losing hay. I told the crew at lunch, you know what I like to say, let's aim for the impossible and extraordinary things will happen. We're gonna get the trash up, wash downstream, and harvest all the sweet potatoes. In the past, I've been the one on the helping end, not the helpy end. It's a little trippy. It's like we're licking our wounds after an epic battle— a lost epic battle. Mind blown! Super encouraged. This is just something that wouldn't have got done with just me and the boys. This is like a big group job. So I'm so— it's done. They've, they've pulled off all the hay from the edge. We can now break off this and rebuild it, restack it, you know, stack it. Definitely lifts my spirits, breaks my heart, but we will turn it into compost, so it'll be a better material in the end than it was. We just, uh, picked up all the trash we could by hand. The machines are cleaning it up now. We're gonna get these sweet potatoes up before it starts cooling off too much. We need to cure them for a couple of weeks. There's one here. Yep, there's one there. Hands on deck, I'm loading the sweet potatoes, and then we'll come back and we'll eat You guys enjoyed feeding that pumpkin to the pigs? Yeah. You know what nature's greatest miracle is? Turning veggies into pork. Y'all get to take part of that. Okay, that's a bunch of sweet potatoes. They're beautiful too, and on a day like today, they're gonna cure nicely in the greenhouse. This is like licking a wound after an epic defeat, but you guys came and just picked this stuff a little bit. So we thank you for that. We really appreciate it. It's the encouragement we need. Good. That's what we're here for. Yeah.
