The vlog follows a day on a family homestead, blending routine chores, unexpected setbacks, and large‑scale earth‑moving work. It opens with a mishap overcooking an "egg eater" and a rushed dentist appointment that forces the narrator to juggle chores and family help. The crew then milks a cow (Phyllis), addressing a clogged quarter and ensuring full milk extraction. The core of the day is moving massive amounts of soil using an excavator, dump truck, and track loader to shape a bank, create a loafing area, and spread mulch, with references to Joel Salatin’s "carbonation diaper" concept for urine absorption. Logistics include ordering special‑order pole‑barn gates, coordinating with a returning worker (Fred), and managing equipment. The narrator promotes an upcoming "Learn How to Homestead in a Weekend" event, detailing speakers, ticket limits, and venue. Plans for a trip to Polyface Farm with Joel Salatin are outlined, focusing on a book shipment and a winter‑deep‑bedding tour. Throughout, family members (Arwen, Josiah, Lily, Jonah, Rebecca) and crew are highlighted for their roles. The day ends with a hearty dinner after the dentist visit and reflections on the day’s achievements.
Chapters
Trick's making them all fit. Ah, good as they'll fit.
You're directing, he's putting it?
Well, he can't see this side.
Oh, look at that!
It's just one day of eggs. We've culled our egg eaters. We had two. It's egg season. You see, chickens naturally slow down egg production during the winter, not because it's cold, because of the lack of light. And soon after the winter solstice, As daylight starts getting longer, chickens start laying eggs again. Yes! Hey, did you give this to the pigs? I accidentally overcooked the egg eater. All the water evaporated out of this. It's just charred, charred bird. I don't think the pigs will care. They'll still eat it. I made a big mistake. Big mistake. I have a dentist appointment today. I don't know what I was thinking. Normally I set those things for like 2 PM. I set it for 9. Problem number one with that is that it's in the middle of chores. Now I have a very capable son. Arwen's very capable. Josiah's a lot of help. Lily's a lot of help. So it wouldn't be that big of a deal if Fred the grader wasn't coming. So I put Jonah in charge of documenting that for us, directing him. I wrote a list. It's not like I can call the dentist either. They probably open up at 9. I can't reschedule, it's too late. Here goes BK. Oh wow, some charred chicken. I have about 15 minutes until I've got to get ready to go. I'm concerned that Phyllis might be clogged up. It would be helpful if I was here to undo that. So we're trying in 15 minutes, set them up. Mook fill us out and then I can go. It'll be nice when we get this sawn into lumber, but until then, I guess we have an obstacle between— I turned off the fence and I'm gonna get over to the cows. Their days are numbered over here. With Fred coming back today, we can get mulch into the pole barn. Our gates that we ordered to put up a fence in the pole barn are being shipped to Tractor Supply. They were special order, so that should probably happen this week. Hey, we just directed you!
Hey, come on, you're not in time.
Good job, buddy! Got Flossie in right here. There you go. We're feeding her on the ground because it takes her a longer time to eat it and get to it. She's been going through it so fast, then she gets restless. While we milk, and it's a pain in the butt. Tired her right here, and I'll go ahead and milk that one quarter out. We have this one quarter that's just kind of snotty at first and, uh, gets clogged up. It's not gonna get clogged today, that's good. It's a little gross. See that on her hoof? It starts out that way and then it gets really milky, so we're just milking it out. See, it's getting really milky now. I don't think the calf drinks out of this one, so we make sure we milk it all the way out every day. Every day we're gonna dry her off in a couple of months, and I think that'll clear this up. Otherwise, she's eating, she's pooping, she's drinking. I think she's in good health. Hey, what about this nice flat spot for milking? Oh yeah, this is the best.
Yeah, I told you.
I think we'll stay here until it's time, guys. We're gonna move them to the pole barn this week. All right, I finished milking that one quarter from Phyllis. I gotta go, guys. I'm sorry, I don't know what I was thinking. It won't happen again. No, you go. You wait until Fred gets here. No, you— when you see the trucks, you go down there. Where do you want me to put this camera? In the cellar. Okay. Wait, are you going with me? Oh my, we better start the Suburban. Better put the defrost on. Nice, thank you, my man. All right, we got you in there. Water, apple. Let's go. So this is a filling gone bad appointment. Now one good thing about going in the morning is maybe I'll get this knocked out, then they're gonna numb me. Maybe that'll go away and I'll be able to eat supper.
First dentist is here.
Just got out of the dentist. What toy did you get? Let me see. You got a slinky? You sat so good. You sat perfect. Am I swollen? I am really numb. I feel like I'm talking crooked. All right, let's get back and see what Fred has done. You want to? That's a puzzle. Quite the puzzle there.
Yep.
Trying to have something for it to sit on.
Yeah, sit it right there. Something in there to keep the dirt from blowing out.
Yeah. They're working on tapering off this bank, going to use it for field dirt back and forth with the dump truck. The loafing area is coming along nicely. They're scraping up the surface of this. This will be an access road. Looks like he's prepping these. Taking a long time. A lot of dirt down there. Let's get this wood chips uncovered. Hopefully we got enough. That's a big pile of mulch when you're going to uncover it, but maybe not so much when you get dump truck loads. Let's see if the new concrete holds up. And now we have our wood chips to down to absorb the urine and the— as Joel Salatin will call our carbonation diaper. We got the cow's diaper here, we got the sheep's diaper there. The diaper change is coming in right there. We got our pile, we got our mulch down. Reckon we have enough to fill our loafing area, Fred?
He said he still had about a load up there, so we'll probably be able to get some.
We'll just spread it out as best you can on it.
May not get the full 6 inches, but we can probably get some.
All right, well, we had a big day. We got it. We got a lot done, but we're eating a huge dinner. I'm so hungry. It's been 24 hours since I've eaten because of the early dentist appointment. I am not numb. Yes, I can eat. We got lamb, we got lettuce not even 10 minutes old.
Well, it's probably like 20 now.
20 minutes. Uh, some assorted vegetables. That's our onion. Yay! Set out some ground beef for tomorrow. Dinner was so good. Got one more thing to do. I'm going somewhere in a while. It's pretty much the most exciting place you can go in the farming world. I'll tell you more about that in a second. Before I, uh, tell you about that, let me tell you about another announcement. There's like a real, like, physical event coming up in May by the folks from Homesteaders of America. It's called Learn How to Homestead in a Weekend. Oh, why didn't that crank at all? Oh, went in gear. So that event is going to be mid-May at Roy Feek's Farm. I think that's near Columbus, Tennessee. You better check out the link in the description before you call me on that. It's too loud in here, huh? So me, the beautiful one's even speaking. I'm speaking on designing your best homestead ever and getting started with chickens. This is like 2-hour intensive. Joel Salatin concert every night. 3 meals are included.
Loaded.
So the only thing is there's only 350 tickets to this thing. As of this afternoon, there's only 100 tickets left, and you guys aren't seeing this till the next day, so there's probably even less than that. How'd I do?
You did good.
We just have to lift this up Rebecca and I are being paid to speak. But wait a minute. Yes, Rebecca. I don't think I told you, like, she's teaching on homeschooling. I think this is her— I'm going the wrong way. This is her debut talk. Yeah, that's better. That's a lot harder.
That's a lot harder.
Alright, Jenna, come get a shot of this. I'm not getting paid to promote this event. And I think why I'm so excited about it, why I'm sharing it with you guys is because I'd really like to sell out to you guys. Like, let's have a little family reunion about this thing. It's gonna be an intimate event. We'll get to meet every single one of you. I'm giving my DVD, Great American Farm Tour, signing every single one of them. No wonder it was so hard. I could drop this. I think that's probably pretty good. How's that, my man? So guys, info for that down in the description. Learn how to homestead in a weekend, real live intimate event. Where are we going? Where are we going with this trailer? I don't know. Let's— I do know. Let me, let me just get it out and we'll test the lights and I'll share with you. Let me just give you a hint, I'm leaving very early in the morning and I've done this once already this year or last year. We're leaving at like 4 AM. What's wrong?
Half inch.
Oh, I thought you hooked it up. No, that— no, we can do it. Okay, we drop it down and the weight will put it on there. Nope. Maybe I'm wrong. Oh yeah, I guess I'm wrong. Unchuck it and I bet I can— is it unchucked?
Yep.
Yeah, I got it. I'm hooking that up because I don't want to do this At 4 o'clock in the morning. All the lights are working?
There's a tub on the roof. You don't want to be flying down the highway and smack it somewhere.
All right, you guys get that off. I'm going to Polyface Farm with Joel Salatin. Why? Why am I taking the trailer? No, I'm not getting any animals. I'm getting your books. Polyface Designs, the second shipment is here. We're gonna go get them. We're shipping them ourselves. That means we're picking them up tomorrow We're having to go in 2 batches. I'm going in the first batch, so you early— you earlier bird orders are going out tomorrow's Tuesday. They've got Wednesday. Thank you for getting that off of there for me. I've arranged for Joel to give us a tour of his winter systems, so his deep bedding systems, just in time since I'm doing my deep bedding system. But we are all going to learn a lot. I've never been to Polyface during the winter. A lot of people haven't been to Polyface during the winter, so it'll be neat to give that perspective. That's tomorrow.
So I did arrest recipe over the weekend.
I think I'll get that video to you actually this coming weekend. We didn't have broth, and I said, Rebecca, we're not— the apron-wearing permaculture chicken ninja master is not gonna be caught without chicken broth again. So, but anyway, we made turkey broth, and beautiful one has these handy-dandy silicone freezing devices. Freeze them individually in this, no plastic. And then you put them in cubes in, in, I guess, a plastic bag. You can break it, you break them out, but, um, put them in a bag as much as you need. Like, you don't need that, like, a whole gallon bag, you know, because you might not— usually a recipe calls for a cup or two.
Yeah, or you want to—
and maybe you want to make this little soup out of this or something.
Well, I figured what we can do is If a recipe calls for more than 1 cup, we'll use this one.
Okay.
If it calls for a cup— I actually bought these to do my butter in.
Okay.
But I haven't made butter in a long time because you're drinking all my cream.
I like to eat the cream. That's my little, that's my little animal-based diet dessert. He's got my drone ready for tomorrow.
You gotta take these controllers off so we can pack it.
All right, and you're gonna have to film The Fred's coming back, he's finishing up tomorrow.
Is he finishing up?
Well, he probably won't finish, but, uh, it's gonna be fun.
Excavating, he's got to do that.
Okay, so here we go. All right, I better close this out because I'm getting up at 3:30 in the morning.
