Making a Hard Decision

Happy day 13 of Grow 30. As you know, we've been having problems with our bull He-Man. Well, they came to a head last night. We put— we had to put him back in the paddock with the cows after 3 days of training to the electric fence. He's been picking it up with his horn, getting out. Let's hope these chickens are in, by the way. We got a little side project. They are. The heifer and the steer that we put across the street We don't want that heifer getting bred. We're keeping her for a milk cow. She's good stuff, but we don't want her to get bred until she's 20 months old. She got out, came over. That always excites He-Man, and he got out. Seems like they've put them just back in together. I don't think she's in heat last night, and I think they're— they seem to still be in there. Okay, the problem here is we need to tag these young chickens. Two of them are out and they're as fast as chickens ever are, and I have a bum left arm. Come on, that's impossible.

Freak.

What am I gonna do? I really need somebody with two arms. Come on, come on, Gideon, I need help catching these chickens. Welcome to another episode of Where Are Your Shoes, Mr. Brown. Whose blue shoes are those? Those might be moms. We better put them right back. Now I gotta help her. Not only do I have to mark these birds, their generation, I need to clip their wings. So we're marking them so we know who to, who to harvest and who not to harvest. We buy new chicks every year. We harvest old chicks every year. We have 3 generations on the farm at all times. So left band, right band, no band— those are our 3 generational marks. We've looped now, we're back to left band since we developed the system. Works out pretty nice. So this year we'll harvest the right-banded chickens, next year the no-banded chickens. What you got to do is put your eyes up Let's choose one of them and focus on that one. That's their tactic, is they want you to get distracted by each other. Hey, are we gonna have another op here? Wait on me next time. When are we killing him? I guess as soon as we can. It's strike 4. He-Man, you're out, buddy. And plus, we need meats. How are we going to replace him, he says? Well, the nearest A2 American Milking Devon bulls in New Hampshire that's listed on the site— now, we could maybe call some closer. We're in North Carolina. So that's 16, 20 hours away. Uh, there's some closer— maybe there's some— there's some closer farms in Virginia we could call and see if they have anything. Or we could try our hand at AI. I like having a bull, it's pretty hands-off. There's always something to think about. What should we do, AI, or should we get another bull? I mean, it's another mouth to feed. Um, well, you have to put patches on the mom so you know when they come in heat, and then when they come in heat and you want to breed them, you get an AI tech and she— they come, she or he comes and then impregnates them with this AI we call straw. And I mean, with that you get to pick. I mean, we could do an A2, A2 American milk endebted bull, we could do any kind of thing. Then we don't have to feed a bull, we don't have to keep the heifers separated. Maybe we do AI, try it. I mean, we've tried it before, I'm pretty sure we failed, so I'm gonna have to call around and see if we got a local tech. The guy I knew isn't in anymore. I did call him. That's where we'll have to start. And maybe we do that until our heifer is grown. The thing is, we don't have a lot of land here. We don't have enough. We're having to feed people— cows— wind hay over the winter. I tried. I— there's 10 acres 2 miles from here. It looks— it's fallow. I tried to get that for hay so we could save some money on our hay. We're having to pay $12.50 a hay bale. For non-sprayed hay, but that's already spoken for. They told me if they didn't get it, I could have it. So, you know, we got our— we got our name in the bag. Maybe that'll happen. We got about an acre or two from the neighbor that we could get up and hay, and we could maybe do Violet's pasture there in hay and grow a bit of our own hay. I've got my Got my name in the bag for the local hey guy. Mark that barred rock, whatever it is. You didn't get it. We'll catch it in a minute. It's— thankfully, I don't think there's another one like it. There's two that got out. Whoa! This one. Okay, and then we'll get that lavender one. Feels really good to mark them before it's too late, before we can't tell the difference between the older ones. And they're going to be everybody's chickens again because they're going to stay in. I don't like to be the sole owner of these chickens. It's not a good sign.

Good morning. It is actually late morning. I did not sleep well last night. The cows woke us up again and then I was not able to go back to sleep quickly. And my neck is hurting. I think I slept wrong. We are using up some of this produce because we have a lot of produce. So I've already grated zucchini, so I've got a zucchini in here to get in the freezer to go in the freeze dryer. Then I'm going to start cutting. This is for us to eat fresh right now because we have a ton more in the greenhouse still growing. So I'm going to— I might save this one. So I'll cut up these 3 and—

ow—

I'm gonna give that to the pigs. I had a spike on it. And then I'm gonna cut up these.

Another drizzly day. It's been a dark week. Gideon made a deal with me, I guess. He said he helped me do those clipping of the wings, so I have to help him on his chores. Good to have a diverse homestead because— well, is it? Because, uh, You always have a problem with something. Right now we're having a problem with He-Man, but we got a bountiful potato garden. We got plenty of eggs this morning, albeit a little dirty since they all came from the compost posse, and everything is just soaking wet from all this rain. Hey, our cucumber plants are What? I'm— anyway, I heard tomatoes finally waning. Maybe. Look at all those flowers, it's gonna be a ton. Look, there's something. There's a squash. All right, you go that side and get it. How'd you end up with those shoes?

Oh, because—

no, you had mom's shoes. Go get mom's shoes and put them back up here. Again, we love the same thing. Hungry in the morning, so it doesn't matter. You want it? Fried potatoes, sausage, eggs. A little bit of sauerkraut. I need to talk with you boys. Seems like Minty getting out causes a lot of excitement, although he was still tempting it over there by himself. Do you think it would help if we put Minty in the ram pen on the other side of the barn? Do you think he would still get out? Did you say probably? Yeah. Yeah, I'm probably gonna say probably too. What do you think, Jonah? I'm sort of thinking the this is something he'll probably grow out of, although he might not ever grow out of stepping in the tub or knocking it over. So we're going to forever be stapling that down. What was that, 2 hours? Phone calling, texting, exploring all the different things. Do we buy a bull? I'll call the number of people for bulls. We like the American Milking Devon bull. They give a meaty constitution to their offspring. They bring a hardiness to for the offspring. That mixed with the Jersey, who is very milk— high in milk production, I think it's a good mix. No American Milking Devons really for sale within reasonable amount of time, and it's also unpredictable. Jerseys— I've just heard so many things about Jersey bulls, I'm afraid. And then of course they don't have the meat constitution. We got some things to do. We got the wood chips yesterday. The chicken's run is getting a little gross. It's been so wet, the, the wood chips are going to break down pretty fast. They absorb all this water, and then there's not that much room for the manure, and the manure is mixing in there and it can grow gross. So you have to change their diaper, add some carbon. One thing we are also looking into is AI, artificial insemination, which is interesting because we do, we do have such— well, we don't have enough land. We're, we're buying hay. Hay is expensive. For a bull, it's $12.50 a day for 100 days. That's $1,250. And then he's taking up a cow that each day he's out on pasture. So if we did AI, we wouldn't even need a bull. And because we only have 3, in 4 months we'll have 4 cows that need bred. Even then— but tell me, have y'all had experiences with AI? What's your, what's your experiences there? I asked the folks in Abundance Plus, my members, We'll see what they say. I was able to get a hold of the local AI tech. Great guy, full of information, willing, reasonably priced. We got that. I called, uh, Vandale Farms who does processing. That would mean we're culling He-Man. They have availability tomorrow to hang him for us for 2 weeks. Vandale, the local custom meat processor, highly recommend them if anybody needs— if anybody's in western North Carolina. We've had them part, break them down for us in the past. But I'm thinking we might want to do that to save some money. Maybe we can have a workshop. The culling him and then AI is what is falling into place. It's different. It's different for us because we liked having a bull. It's more foolproof. But of course we had Stud Muffin, we were spoiled. But nothing lasts forever. I mean, we're— we are in the season of Our drive right now is to get out of debt from the remodel and just as fast as we can. And we need meat. If you look at it that way, it's a no-brainer to do what's less expensive. Yeah, it's going to be more work on our part with AI, but the problem is that the big trick is knowing when the cow is in heat. There's patches that show indication. They mount each other when they're in heat. You know, they light up those patches. This guy came with a good review, this AI Tech. So just more work on our part, but that's what happens when you go to save money, isn't it? Now the chickens have something to do. We're getting ready for tomorrow. Turns out the right thing to do is to cull this ornery little guy. I've been agonizing over it. Am I doing the right thing? AI isn't easy. Getting another bull is not easy, especially an A2A2 bull. I do have some calls in. I do— I did get some calls back. AI was going for for us. You know, we found a local tech that seems reasonable. We got somebody to hang them tomorrow, as early as tomorrow. Okay, this is ready. But I'm still doubtful, and I was still thinking, well, could we just put them in separate paddocks? Could we just put He-Man in the pole barn for 4 months until we need Minty, uh, bred? So I called a cowboy friend told him about it and he's like, yeah, you're doing the right thing. You got a goal. Between the tipping of the trough and stepping in it and then now getting out with the fence, there's going to be other things. What are you hanging on to? And I'm thinking, yeah, what am I hanging on to? We need meat. We can still decide if we're going to do AI or a bull. We have some time. We have till towards the end of September till Vanilla needs to be bred back. How was it? You guys put the calf up? Okay, you ready? Can somebody help me? You guys want to help me get ready to butcher tomorrow? We're about to swim. Well, let's just get the gambrel ready and the knives. Yes, we're good, we're good. Butchering saw, cutting knives, skinning knives. Let's get this over there and see if we got the gambrel and everything. Hey, we're gonna walk him over here to kill him tomorrow or kill him in his paddock? Think back to— and that totally reminds— yeah, I'm like, okay, I remember what Big Daddy said when we were on our walk talking about it, and he's— he said Greg Judy wouldn't put up with that. If you guys don't know Greg Judy, you got to look him up on YouTube. He's the master grazer and my mentor. Great guy, good teacher. He wouldn't mess with that. He would not mess with that. Big Daddy is right. Greg Judy came home from work one day and all his— when I wouldn't say all, a bunch of sheep, 30, 40 sheep were out. He, he didn't put them back in the fence. He loaded them into the trailer and took them to the market. You don't play. And hey, it's Greg Judy and folks like him, which are very rare. That we have to thank for good stock. That's why the sheep I got from him many years ago— if this net falls over, they don't get out. They don't get out. And that's thanks to Greg Judy and his hard work. So this is a good reminder because He-Man is to be a breeding stock, because sometimes we sell our calves to you all and to the community, and we want to be able to keep calves. See, we're keeping calves We're grazing, raising up some of these heifers that Stud Muffin threw, and he was good, and he was going to throw good genes, good well-behaved genetics. He-Man, not so much. Just not so much. See if we have the, the cow one. Whoa, that's not funny! Jeez, I don't care if it is a black snake. I don't freak you out. Black snakes are good. They each other. Raunchy snake. Found a D-ring, no link though. And I did not find the gambrel. Don't want to be doing this tomorrow. I just went and asked the boys, they have no clue. I did find— well, they said it's in that gray bin, which I'm afraid to go deeper because that snake— I did find a D-ring off of, uh, SALMA. I'm gonna go digging in a bin that's got a snake in it. I need to film it. If you don't know, doing stuff like that works better with a camera. Where should I start? Up top? Bottom? Let's start up top. Hot dog. These shackle rings are great. We can easily switch this out. Yeah, okay, let's go ahead and— well, let's lower it, but first let's sweep. Go to the order. Gun. Machine. Sicarium. Gambrel. Knives. We got a hose working. We'll get food service trays for the liver.

I'm gonna put this broccoli in my stir-fry, but I don't, I don't know if this is how you're supposed to do it, but—

Did you already tell them this is freeze-dried broccoli?

Yeah, so this is freeze-dried, so I'm rehydrating it. I don't know if this is the right way to rehydrate it.

What was the rule? If it was warm—

no, if it was cooked, then you hydrated it with hot, and if it was cold, you rehydrated it with cold.

Or like if it was not cooked, which this was not cooked, it was Is it rehydrating?

I think so.

Okay. Oh wow.

Okay, so the broccoli rehydrated really nicely in here. It looks very much like broccoli cooked. Maybe it's a little wilty, but it's gonna be good. I tasted one and it's good. So my peas were taking a long time to hydrate. So I started boiling them. And so I think that's gonna be how I rehydrate them. And I could be doing all of this wrong. I literally did zero research. I did research prior to freeze drying them, so both the broccoli and the peas were blanched prior to freeze drying, but then I didn't research at all how to use but I just was like, let's throw it in. So here we are. These are looking great. Just a couple of them are looking too dry. Other than that, I'm really pleased with it. We're basically done cooking this. I'm gonna turn that on really low. And rice— not— we did not grow that rice, although I did see that there was a farm about an hour away that was growing rice, but we have not visited there yet. This is, this is going really well. I'm very excited. I'm very excited about the using of my freeze-dried food because I was a little concerned, like, are you really gonna do this, Rebecca? But looks like I am.

She crushed that. Eggs on top. What's it like?

I'm gonna taste the broccoli.

Tell everybody what it's like. Hold on. Freeze-dried veggies, fresh veggies for the whim, and chicken.

I, I cut up some zucchini like this today, mhm, for stir fry.

Nice. Stir fry is a good farm-friendly meal. And that's a wrap. Happy day.