More Than I thought

194.5. We'll make marshmallows. Yeah, we're giving them milk too. Mom's making marshmallows for your school. Little homeschool co-op today. Cut our tree off a couple of feet yesterday. There's the tree. You wanna ask me why it's burnt? Mr. Brown. Is it drawing water? No. Somewhere in this tree is a heart to suck that water up. The heart must be— I think next year we'll have to get a ball tree. Too warm in the house for a tree to grow. I think having an old ball will keep it, you know, sprily, right? I guess. Not dried out. Well, 194.6. It's a little soft for me. I think maybe 14, 15 pounds soft. The beautiful one thinks maybe it's 10 pounds soft. It's a new day, bud. It's a new day. I mean, new day. Oh, buddy. Yesterday was burger day. Oh, chicken bones for Winnie. I love burgers, and so that means lunch is leftover burgers. Well, I'm gonna need to eat the burgers without the buns. No jacket for you, huh, tough guy? Oh, I was hoping you'd get a banana or apple, not junk food. Extra weight in my case means extra inflammation, and I've got a lot of inflammation. Project goal for today, Jonah, what do you think? Can we work up that, that wood right there? Be ready for the wood chipper when it's ready? What? Okay, you want to work on the rock wall? Well, can I have somebody with the Mini X for a little bit? The thing is, we don't know how long that will take, and that's all I think we lack for being ready for our wood chipper, right? Which will be any day. It's in the shop at the rental place. We're renting it. We're next in line. Why is he so dirty?

I've never seen him this dirty. Look, he has like dust all up in his mane. He was rolling and laying down.

He likes a good dirt roll. This is a good patch, man. There's, uh, alfalfa growing, tender fescue. Oh look, they're going for the fescue. Real tender. They love it. They went straight for it. What'd Blaze go for? He went for the alfalfa. Look at that. He knows, doesn't he, Lily? What are you gonna do here? I don't know why you don't want to make the creek back where it was, because we're losing pasture at that point. By the way, he is in short sleeves and I'm being quite dramatic with this coat. This warm weather is nice. It's like 45 degrees out here right now this morning. Good break in that little run of teens and low 20s. I love calling North Carolina home. Never too extreme for too long. Thank you, Vanilla. Look at her score. Look at what she gave us together. They're a little over 2 gallons. The milk production rises and then it slowly declines, and they're really towards the end of that because they're about to have other new babies. You're giving milk every day You're giving 50 pounds of manure every day-ish. Talking about how much they give, I would hug y'all if y'all would appreciate that, but you'd rather just me leave you alone. There's the animals. Here's the brush, the last standing, last standing brush. It's in our way to, you know, regrade this and make it reasonable. That's probably like an 8-foot cliff right there. Okay, there's actually grass here we could have grazed. These branches are going to be wood chips to help us rebuild soil that we've lost during Hurricane Helene. That, I hope, is today. Will you help me on moving that steer if I help you set up net? Sure, help me set up the net though. You're like, okay, I will. Before we get to that brush We have a steer nursing on honey. Is he coming to ride it today? Yeah, we're gonna put that cart today together today. You think those will fit on there? Hopefully they're not too wide. They'll fit, definitely. You think? Yeah. This too dappled from Harriet grazing it? Well, that, that's the easiest thing to say and do. We couldn't graze down here because of the hurricane. And so we had to graze Harriet up here, and we did. We lose— we lost a lot of— I mean, she ate all up in here. I don't think we hit here. We didn't hit down through there. You have these patches of grazing grass, mostly patches of ungrazing grass that's ready. So for example, can you see we've been here with Harriet but not right here? We can actually easy enough make a paddock around that. The last thing we want to do is mow grass that's in the middle of coming back because then it stunts it. You want to mow grass where the blade has recovered and that has a few, a few leaves on it, if not a dead leaf. Uh, that's ready. You know, let's set this one up to dodge this little mown area. And then there's a little part where we graded a while back. We can actually hay bomb when we get to that section. I think we have a lot of grass here. You know, you never know how long the winter is going to be. I really like to graze to Christmas. I don't know why, I just feel it in my gut. Then in the barn January, February, March, pull them out sometime mid-April. I'm gonna lose 10 pounds by the new year and address this inflammation. It's gonna be hard. That's homegrown bacon glazed with maple syrup. How'd the bacon turn out? Good. Did I just see a perfect crispy slice just like you like it? Show that again. Demo that again. Oh, do you like your bacon crispy, or what would be the other way? I don't want to say soggy. Soft.

It's like undercooked.

Crispy or soft? I think it's soft. Okay, I'm tripping out because I just sent a text and I'm like, do such and such dates work for a farm tour? It's like part of who we are, isn't it? This was the Great American Farm Tour tree. It's just a trip. Like, if you guys don't know, if you're new here, in 2017 we went on the Great American Farm Tour in a converted school bus. We little guys, we went to every state in America in just 10 months. Here comes the truck. I'm gonna cry. Oh, it's okay, precious girl. Remember all those talks we'd have at night talking about doing something crazy and just traveling all over America? But come morning time, we'd always have some great reason why not to. What finally took us over the edge? I asked myself, what would I do if I wasn't afraid?

I can't believe we bought a bus.

And we filmed every single day. There's a playlist on YouTube, and you can watch the documentary on Amazon in 2 hours. Henry, let's go, bro. Come on, it's too beautiful a day for you to be putzing around here. We're trying to see this Regenerative Citrus Farm. Who know that? Who knew that existed? I'm so excited. We're trying to tour that, uh, on our way to vacation, so we're going— we'll make it a bit of a workcation, and then we can expense the trip down there, right? Squeeze. I skipped breakfast. Not a big deal. I skip breakfast a lot, but the key to losing this 10 pounds, you know, Not very many days. 21 days, 3 weeks is going to be lots of fasting. So lunch is going to be a little more difficult. I start getting very hungry by lunch. I'm going to use Jonah's saw today because my saw is terribly dull and I burst the grinding stone yesterday for sharpening. I don't know what happened. I was about to go Sharpen my chain. Wasn't lining up quite right. I didn't even pull it down and just the disc just exploded. And apparently you can't just get that kind of grinding stone at Lowe's. I think it's a total futile trip to Lowe's. I think this is a special grinding wheel, although we could check in the chainsaw. Nothing like a grinding wheel. All right, look who I convinced to come. Can you walk or do I have to carry you? Catch one, he says. Come on, I know. Do you even know where it is? Seems always got so much to do. Can you do it right here in this dirt? Sad he doesn't have a bucket on it. It's a feel-good morning. I have not forgotten, we still have to move the steer. I just don't want to make Josiah wait any longer. If we could work up this in an hour, we'd have plenty of time and be very comfortable doing that steer. Chain came off. A little half hour check-in. More than I thought. It's a good pile there. That'll be a quick run to the high tunnel. We use it as wood chips in the high tunnel. We're running into a lot of problems. See, that tree's falling that way, this tree's falling this way, those trees have fallen that way, and this has fallen this way. It's quite the puzzle. We've got to be mindful not to hit our recently surveyed property line. Guys, we're probably 10 feet up. It just blew out this bank. Gotten some nice boulders for the pole barn. Walnut tree just totally uprooted. Hanging on by a little bit. That's going to help a lot. He'll get that whole bit. It's gonna be interesting trying to get this log out. Don't know if that needs to happen today, but we're gonna have to hoist ourselves up. We just want this brush. Yeah. Well, what do you think? Well, we ended up being a lot more than I thought. Honestly thought we were gonna knock this out in half hour. It's been the hour past and we got to move the steer. Called it. I mean, while we're here, we're sneaking logs out. We're not off after the logs yet, we're after the branches. There's a cluster over there on us beyond the logs. We're gonna have to get this out to get to them. So tomorrow's another day on that. Let's have another adventure and get the steer— what steer over? I'm gonna have to put the steers off again because Lily's gonna need me to put that cart together. One of her horse mentors, Leslie, is coming. She's going to show her how to harness, but she's only available at noon. I don't know how long it'll take to move the steer. I don't know how long it'll take to fix this cart. I'm assuming we're going to need a fixed cart and a horse for her to be able to put on— it's not the bridle, what's it called? Harness. Harness. Charging station incoming. Maybe we'll never lose our chargers again. You won't. I like how you put a slot in those. Boy, that looks on crooked. I think that nut is on crooked. Here we go, cross our fingers. That bolt is on crooked. That's already going to mess this up. I can't get the bolt to come out any further. I did it. Okay. The question is, are those wheels too wide for this? Because we are screwed if they are. They don't fit. Why didn't I measure them myself when I was there? I could just literally just cut a little bit of the bearing off of the— if I take the bearing out and just cut this up. If you cut that, will that be— do you have to cut them both on both sides? Yeah, just one. Okay. All right, we're going to put the old wheels back on just to get her cart fitted. That's gonna be a big fix to get on there. That, that's probably the way. I don't know though, this is a heavy-duty wheel. It's gonna be hard to return them because that guy's like an hour away. I think for today the Pretty Shaw wheels will work. It won't be the long-term solution, but I think it goes by today. See? Okay, does it fit? It's fitting. The axle's bigger on this. Pretty Shaw wheels. That's, that's a lot of flex. I don't know if that's rideable, but it's at least put it on the ground and get the horse fitted. Joe's cart does this. Not good. Are you going with us? Yeah.

How you doing? I saw you jumping. Big jumps with Miss Lisa the other day. He was doing good. That was a good, uh, good little course. What was it, like 2'3"? 2'6"?

Almost.

The highest one was 2'6".

He's great.

Look how good he sits still with all these little people around too. Yours doesn't unbuckle, which is totally cool. So what you're going to be doing, Lily, is one of the first things you'll put on him is this collar, and you're going to put it over his head. Okay, you take your card off First, when you take your stuff off. First, first, first. You do not want to be taking off your bridle without your cart off. Do you know why? Well, first of all, control. Yeah, control. And he doesn't have blinders on it, but some horses rely on the blinders to stay calm with the cart, you know. And if they were to become spooked because you took the bridle off, then you have less control, and now they're running without their blinders. But your horse is on a binder, so it's not really a big deal.

Is it true their brain's the size of a walnut?

What? That's not true.

It was said in the book I read last night. That seems a bit small.

It must be a large walnut, maybe with the husk on.

It's nice talking about how dangerous horses can be.

Horses are not dangerous if you know how to take care of them. If I was doing this to a cow, he would kill me.

Now these horses are a little more gentle.

What if I was doing this to a cow?

Cows are a bit more brute force than a horse. Like, a cow's like, I got my line. Like, they don't want to like step on your flesh. Let me know if I'm not carrying my side. Yeah, and take them for a little walk around. Say walk on. Pretend you're driving.

Whoa.

Let's see if you can get them nice and straight. Remember how prancy he gets when you start driving? I'm wondering if he's gonna need that. Oh, he's gonna need that.

Winnie, you're not helping. How's he doing, Leslie?

Yeah, he's a little nervous. It's like he's kind of— he hasn't done it quite connected with the—

I think the more we do it with him, the better he's going to be.

Mhm.

Come back. Oh yeah. Hey, that's enough.

Not a good—

go to the other side. He's just a little—

he's a little—

I know, Rebecca, that's how it goes. What color you want to paint this?

Red, green, red?

I don't know.

I have not forgotten. It's afternoon, it's calf separating time. Let's get the calf out. 6 months old, we can wean him from Honey. Then we're not to separate anymore in the afternoon. He's on his own. Let's put him with the little, uh, heifers. Okay, hopefully it won't rain on us. We'll get this done before it rains. What do you say, little man? Do we get it done before it rains?

Yeah.

No? Okay. Kind of a sad day for you, and all you don't know it. Look at this little pot-bellied steer. Never together. Together. Nope. Do not let him come over here on this garden. Okay, get him! Cut him off right there. There you go. Good.

Oh my gosh, you're sick!

Oh, he doesn't want to go across that line. No, he's gonna tear up the garden! No! Ah, okay, here you go. Let the mom through.

Oh Gary, the calf is way over there.

It's okay, it's okay.

They don't mind the leisurely stroll.

Whoa, someone block Grandma's driveway! Okay, here, let's get the calf in. There it is, that's it. Go ahead, last hurrah.

I'm really All right, Annie Oakley.

Is it three's a crowd or three's company? That's a good deal. We got that half separated. That means one less chore in the afternoon. That means we get all of Honey's milk. Things are looking good. Soaked from getting the water ready for tomorrow. Happy day.