Moving Our Cows / Sheep Out to Pasture

In the morning is when it's worse, and it's when I'm not hungry that I'm saying I gotta do something about this inflammation. I gotta fast, and I gotta fast a long time. That'll help with this inflammation, kick it in the butt. Yesterday I was like, I'm gonna fast 28 days or till when I'm better. I That didn't last 28 hours. Some stud muffin for the week. We got a load of our bacon back from a pork belly we had for so long. We never ate it as belly, so we've had it broken down into bacon. I don't know where the line is of pushing through the pain and respecting the pain. If I respected the pain completely, I would do nothing. I'm maybe not gonna weigh this down any further though. That's our 15 pounds of stud muffin for the week. Beef, an old bull we had. Probably shouldn't carry— that's all I have.

Okay, we'll do that.

If you're wondering what happened to my back, I am too, honestly. I hurt my back like this last year, although it was a little worse, also for like How'd that happen? We couldn't point to one event. So what is it then? Stress? This time last year we moved to the cabin, and this time this year we moved to the farmhouse. Before those two moves, I'd only moved once in my life, from my childhood home to the holler house. I'm thinking, you know, my back feels jointy, so maybe I don't need to fast. Maybe I need to lean lean into the broth and just slow down my, um, consumptions of any carbs. I've slowed my carb consumption down. I'm keeping my blood sugar under 120, but going into dinner it's like 90, and then I like push it. Just, I eat enough carbs that I know I won't go over 120, but maybe I shouldn't eat carbs. Maybe I shouldn't spike the blood sugar at all. Unfortunately, we mixed too much fat into nacho and his burger's kind of gross, falls apart when cooking. I want to save a shoulder roast for Passover, April 22nd, so if I have another one, we're good. But otherwise, I'm gonna have to save this. Lamb ribs.

Try two of these really fatty lamb ribs. The only other roast we have is one more shoulder roast, a little bit of ribs.

Maybe there's no bad, uh, ingredients, only bad recipes. He's right. And I sense working so hard on this farm, growing all this food, uh, surely it plays a role. Surely it plays a role. That broth called to me in a way when I, when I pulled those bones out. I didn't get those bones because we, we have plenty of broth down there. I've been drinking it every day. Maybe I should just give that time.

Big strong guys get us the meats in. They're in, Sally. And what do you guys—

for our camping trip, what do you guys I just think about burgers every night. And then what would you do for lunch? It's just two nights burgers, huh?

Whatever there is.

It's just easy. You'd probably get excited if I told you there could be buns.

Yes.

Oh really?

Okay, we won't do buns then.

Really?

You want me to blow up? I'm not going to.

I don't want you to blow up, I just want to think.

If Mom makes buns, it's hard work and you don't really care.

Yeah, that would be really nice.

No, it's not worth it. It's not worth it if you don't really want it. If it's not a hell yeah, it's a nope. I didn't realize you're so casual about those. They're not, not so passionate. Don't drive in the pasture, remember.

I don't know if this is a gangly stage for old, uh, Harriet.

Hey, just saw you let the calf in. Uh-oh, uh-oh.

We don't want to let the calf in.

She'll drink all the milk. Calf was separated so the milk will build up. Oh, I shouldn't be doing this. Put the calf back out.

Oh no, don't get on the food.

Can you take the calf? My back's hurting.

So gone all night without milk, I think, and then I get a little taste and can't have it.

Let's dump some wood chips in here today, guys. Let's dump some in the pigs too. Hopefully the wood chips are covered. Oh, she knows that's not hers, huh? A little special treat for Mama Pig.

All right, stop.

Oh, are we gonna have enough pig feed to get us till our other feed gets here next week? You don't want to leave a farm sitter with that problem.

You can do chicken feed in a pinch.

Oh, look at these guys, they were just running around like crazy.

I know, they're getting tired.

What's she doing? All right, let's give her her feed. She's got all she can eat feed, but this has got some skim in it. Cows will nurture you, girl. There's still 6. Yep, there they are. All right, that's good.

Oh wow, our hay situation is getting desperately low. Don't worry about it too much because grass is on, but I was hoping the grass— the hay situation would last us through camping. I don't know if it's going to do that. I might have to put people out before. I think I'm gonna have to leave that for Lily's horses.

We have a predicament, Josiah.

I don't know if we have— the horses have enough hay until next week.

We can't really touch that over there. I don't know, all this loose hay about is maybe what, maybe 2 days with the loose hay, and then a round bale, 30 nails, maybe more like 2 dozen. How many bales do we go through a day?

The bromance need 7, or is that counting these guys?

No, it's not.

It's just the bromance needs 7 with the sheep. Okay, and then these guys need 3, so that's 10. Okay, so 1, 2, maybe 3 days. All right, we're working on getting them out into the pasture before we go.

Jonah, this is what we're gonna have to do. If we were here, we could maybe use up that hay and move them out to pasture when we're out. But that's gonna happen when we're gonna be gone camping.

I'm thinking let's set it up, get them out tomorrow, and all the leftover hay goes as mulch on our new clearing. That's fun. Just as much as we can, just to get something covered. As much as we can covered. Won't be enough, but it'll be something.

It's fine.

All right.

Hey, are you on the toilet?

1 hour later.

How much longer?

We're gonna go feed for the day, probably an hour.

An hour until breakfast?

Okay, can you clean up as you go so that then we're not having to clean up after breakfast?

And can you make the bacon and eggs too?

Oh sweet.

Henry, I got you your applesauce. All right, I was hoping to let the grass get just a little bit longer before we came off hay, but It's not gonna last.

It's not gonna— it's not gonna work.

See, we have grass. We have these little patches where we don't, you know. I'd like to see it get a little bigger. Probably more important if we have completely bare earth that we cover that up and take a chance that this might get a little overgrazed. At least it's covered. Come on back, turn towards the barn. One more thing we gotta put over in the farmhouse and then we'll be settled.

I keep saying that. I keep saying that.

Oh shoot, I forgot the appliance dollies. I'll deal with the stuff in the fridge, you go get the appliance dollies. Lard, we're keeping that.

Everything that was in the fridge was safe.

I guess we'll need to go get— can you go get our pig bucket, Gannon?

So it's supposed to stop raining by 10:30.

We decided to get our fridge over to the farmhouse during that interim. We're gonna get the sheep out the pasture. We'll use that cruddy hay as mulch.

Why feed them cruddy hay when we have this choice grass?

Centered like this, it's rather easy to move.

Hopefully we have enough through this door.

This will be interesting. All right, here we go. Do what it takes. Josiah, you get that picnic table out of the way and ready for us to come in. I'll clear a spot for that fridge. Pull this fridge in, gentlemen. Does it fit?

Yes.

Now if all we have to do is take off this door door. We can do that. It's easy to take the house door off. We're eating that honey.

We harvested honey with, uh, the honey stead.

How is it?

It's good because it's gonna be different. It's from Virginia. It's, uh, who knows what they were getting their pollen from. One reason I should probably not fast is I've got my Cellcore, which is a detox. Should detox metals, mold, and any lime do I have. So that regiment— the morning ones can be taken without food, so I can fast till dinner.

We got the door off and it's fitting. All right, we got fridge in place. It's gonna be one of those things— how did we do without that fridge?

Homesteaders gotta have two fridge.

All right, where's my boobs?

Aha, here they are!

His boots too he's looking for. Go through this. Anything that you cannot feed to the horse, pile in a big pile right here, okay?

Okay.

And then we'll get it out of here. Hopefully spend today getting animals out and tomorrow getting all this mulch out. Look at this, this is really good hay. What? I wanted to film that. Oh, okay, well then let's just put them up. The steers got out. We're doing like Joe said. And we are starting in a different part of our farm. Come on, Gideon, just stand here. Gideon, you hold the fence.

Henry, get over the fence with Brother.

Oh, here they come, here they come! Happiest day of the year right here.

Woo!

I'll get this on. You testing it? They are just going at it.

Look at Henry watching them.

Do you want to herd the sheep or go get Alfalfa?

I'm gonna try to run these fences off of an Energizer.

No, dude, I think it—

I think it should all work. Can you just let me see what happens?

I think it'll all work too. No, it'll all work.

It's not working.

I'm worried about the water. Yeah, we need to work— work on the water. That's what I was starting to work on.

Yeah, where do I hook it up?

And then I saw y'all doing this. Where do I hook it up? And I want to film the sheep coming over, that's why I'm asking. Uh, you're gonna have to run a single strand to the next hookup over there.

Can I try it, please?

No. I know, especially wet like this, and solar is not going to charge. A dozen nets. Taking the tester? You go with him if you don't want to let it go. Let him test it. Does somebody want to work on water and somebody else work on the fence? I think I should work on the— I should get us started on the water. I gotta at least show you something. That's a 4-way connector at the hydrant. You need to add a hose.

To get us to this plastic, to the plastic water line.

Okay, then we need to label that one, see why there are 3 connected, and do we need all 3 and use one of them? Say our big Energizer was down here, is not working. They've put this little speed right on here. It's a 3-joule speed Energizer, probably. Chances are 3 times, if not 6 times more powerful than Y'all's Energizers, we love the grid, we get crazy with our Energizers. That's 3 joules. Like a bought Energizer is gonna maybe, maybe half a joule if you're lucky, maybe 1 joule. That's what you need to go by actually. That's the minimum.

And it—

but it's not going to power— I'm not going to trust it for 12 nets, especially with us gone camping. Jonah, where's the big Energizer?

In the shop.

We're gonna look. Oh boy. Hey, can you put some gravel down here when you get a chance? Is that our water line?

Yeah, it's got no connector, nothing.

We might get lucky and have the No, we're not lucky.

Can you get some gravel on this when you get a chance? This is 36 joules. So what's happening when you plug it in? Does this plug actually work? Okay, okay, there it is. Huh.

Be careful, it might work.

It's just the lights not on.

Probably gonna have to see if Mark can't fix that. We do have one across the street for the system over there that we're gonna have to borrow. Jonah, Let's get lucky. Nothing.

I don't think it'd work.

You don't think so?

It's for batteries, and one side has to be in the ground.

Did you put the right one on the negative? Yeah. Okay, we've switched over a long time ago to 1-inch. That little tube out there is like, what, you're on a half-inch, 3/4?

That's hitting that 2.1.

Huh.

You gotta ground it though. Let's take it outside, I guess. You guys behaving? Are you driving nails in the steering wheel? That's what I heard. Gonna take all those nails and all that hammer and go give them to Miss Annie, please.

What?

And say, help me put these away. Okay, so you're gonna— let's test it where we can put it in the ground. Maybe the lights don't work. That's hitting it as hard as it will, I think. 8. That's that one. But you—

if, if that's connected to the fence over there, it's going to be hitting like—

that's—

it's—

this is an 11.

No. Oh, 11.

Wow. I don't think these ever hit over 10 though. It's just that they don't ground out as easy. Do you realize something?

That's not even grounded, so yeah, I don't know if it'd work without it.

All right, well, let's hook it up and see if it's working. Gideon! I sent him on a task and he didn't come back.

I'm having to cut down on it.

There's too much stress in the house to be letting Gideon run free. I think we can get a hose through there. What do you think, Josiah? Underneath the road into our water line system. What do you think, Henry? You crawl through there? You might have to crawl this through. I'm not— you think we can? You might have to crawl it through, Gideon. We need a small person. Josiah, you want to go to the other end and tell me when it's through? Uh-oh, this might not go through. Uh, turns out what wasn't a man, that was a connection, and this is a normal size hose. I don't think we need another hose.

Just says he's gonna be mad.

All right, come here, get in, get in, come trace this.

That's key.

And he thought of this, labeling everything so we know what we're turning on, what we're turning off.

This goes in the PVC part. This is a regular hose adapter.

We've got a female—

a male end here, so we're gonna have a female to female connector.

I think that's right. A PVC adapter, our female to female, and then our hose. Uh, we already— why is that?

Because it's just coming.

Oh shoot, something here is not screwed on good. Okay, kink my hose. Jonah, just let it be for a minute while you go get yourself some zip ties.

I've tightened it up.

Whoa, whoa! All right, undo that. Tightened up everything but this hose on it. I can do the tool on it too, I guess. Try it, Josiah, after I putz around with it a little bit. Henry, back up. Watch out, Henry, it could spray you. I don't know what to say. It's leaking and I don't know how to stop it. There's no female to female. Hey guys, we gotta get these animals— we gotta get the sheep down here, Jonah. This will just have to leak for a little bit. I screwed on the hose with those tools. Let's see if it works, Josiah. Unkink me. It does not work. We're going to Lowe's.

It worked.

Call the Inquirer. Uh, no, it didn't.

It's very late.

Okay, let's get the sheep out here and then we're going to Lowe's. Sheep are out, bro.

No, they're not.

They're on the road. Oh, they're out.

Let's go get them.

Sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep. Gideon, this is where we can use your wild energy. Let's go. Donna, how you gonna get the other two sheep? That's interesting why those sheep didn't come down. Grab them, Gideon. Are those the tame ones? Oh, sometimes that back backfires on you. They might follow Lily. Get in! Stay on top of them! Can you pick up that one? Everybody left and you didn't go with them. All right, you see them? Yep, now you see them. Let them go! Henry! Henry, get them in! Now just set them over. Don't throw them. They're not chickens.

Help me! Look, this steer got over here.

The newest, newest one? Yeah, I saw it. It limped— it gimped on down here. I think it'll be all right. Oh, look, your He-Man's about to get out. Why is he getting— are you serious? Ice cream buffet is not enough for you, He-Man? You got to go to another ice cream buffet. Look at this sight.

That's Andrew.

Everybody back up. Andy having this machine. That might have been good we had that break with Andrew. I came back, had the thought to Teflon tape this hose connection, and now we're leak-free. Let's get them out. And then, guys, we can get Beefcake over here and he won't be so lonely. He's, he's, he's kind of miserable out there by himself. What happened?

I got on her and then she got up.

Hey, that always works better with the camera, bro. They're like, what?

They're like, what? We're getting They haven't busted out but like once this winter.

How are we gonna herd the cows and get the baby? You don't think the calf will follow the mom?

Look, it's not used to this.

Okay. Uh-oh, what's Blaze doing?

He's trying to help her.

They're gonna feel good. They're about to feel good. They do one kick, one little kick. Oh man, this This is like having to eat rice and beans all winter long and then come to a good juicy steak ice cream buffet. Look at you, Shaggy. Guys, y'all been calling him Ike. I kind of like that. Let's go, let's go! There's more, there's more where you're going. Come on, come on. Cast's having a good time. We're almost there. There they go. There they recognize.

Look, they ran to meet the steers.

Oh look, Vanilla's meeting He-Man. You don't think she's in heat, do you?

I mean, we're gonna—

we're actually gonna put He-Man over right now. We might have to wait until they're not all as crazy to get over. You can see what he's gonna try to do, can't you? Come on, here it comes, here it comes. Get him in there, get him in there, Jonah. Good. Now he'll be separated in field from mom. Just till the morning and we'll get the milk.

Oh, they're getting used to him, huh?

Well, they don't have the internet. This is the entertainment for the day. Let's get Harriet over. Here comes Harriet. Go wide on her, Josiah. Go wide. But she— but she comes back. Oh, she does. Shoot. All right, let me cut out He-Man. Okay, heads up. Here we go, here we go. Let's try this entrance right here. Come on, she can have her Come on, Chicago. Good boy. He's a natural. Look, hey man, those are your new baby's mamas. Baby's mama. Thousand sheep down there.

What a happy sight.

Lily riding her horse. Let's get this milk shawl down. This is our all-in-one mobile shade, minerals, stanchion if we need it. Cool things about this milk sled, we can pull it from either end. That's going to become handy. We lined it up here. You can't make a whole lot of sharp turns with it. You want to minimize that. Only got so much bracing across.

Clicking.

You touch it. 9 is hot.

This is very hot. That's when I don't even believe it. Anyway, look at this sight though. So I turned it on. It seems to be working. Even that speed right is hitting it pretty good. You might be begging the question, wait a minute, didn't your cows just kill a lamb? We just got them separated yesterday. I don't know, the cows are just not goobers like steers. Steers are— I mean, they're in their teenage years. They're like me.

You said it, not me.

I just sort of don't want to leave. Hey, like, this, this isn't going to happen again for another year. This is the animals out on grass for the first day. They're just full as can be. The butter is going to get yellow again. Mom's added a shelf. Can we actually get through the door? All right.

Oh yeah, that's not bad.

Well, that was a special day with the once a year we get to do that, guys. We did it.

I'm eating, feel good about it.

Supplements for the win.

Detox, here we come.

The cows are going to be, um, explosive diarrhea tomorrow.

They are gonna be an interesting milking tomorrow.

You don't want to miss it. Happy day.

See you then.