Mower ~ VS ~ Sheep | Challenge Begins

Good morning! Time for the weekly update. I want to give you some perspective today, some aerial views of how all the elements of my farm are related to each other. The herb garden, the kitchen garden, is right outside my door. Across the street, the blueberries— not quite. Not quite. Not quite. I think in a couple of weeks those blueberries will be ready. The blueberries are across this public street. We happen to own that side of the road and this side of the road. After the blueberries, I walk back towards the house, around the side, down to like the greenhouse, potato garden area, parking area. The boys cut the greens off some comfrey for the animals, and we're just keeping it moist. We're gonna wrap it in this brown bag, and then we can cut those roots up and plant those like this. You could do just like this. Here's a root. Comfrey is one of those things, those beneficial plants that went to grow. There we have a root cutting. You just put that down in the soil just like that. Parking lot potato crop garden greenhouse. Not too much going on here. Let's take you in here. Not too much going on, but we did have some tomatoes. Look, we do have a successful tomato start finally. Looks like we're gonna have a successful, uh, pepper start too. We got some onions and Swiss chard coming in. Oh, that stuff's doing good. Swiss chard and lettuce. We're done. We're done planting for about a month. It's just the summer window, and then we start planting the fall and winter garden. You know, I asked Daniel Salatin— that's Joel Salatin's son— when I was out at his place filming, and I said to him, hey, do you— you know, they're kind of doing the same, you know, they're removing the egg layer chickens, and I know that's something they do every day. And I said, hey, do you ever get sick of it? And he said, well, no. One good benefit about this farm is that it changes with the season. So you hit something hard for a little while, it doesn't last all year long. At least everything doesn't last all year long. Made sense. And I think that could be the case here, you know. You get burned— you could get burned out if you're planting seeds every day, 365. But if you only have to do it for 3 4 months hard, you get a month off, hit another 3, 4 months, you get 3 or 4 months off. That's doable. Out of all the plants, the potatoes have probably grown the most in them in this 3 weeks so far. Look at them! I don't know if I've seen potatoes this big. Have you? There are potatoes— that, that potato right there, plant in the COVID crop, actually are doing the best. It's that high, guys. It's that high. That row where they were planted in cover crops doing the best. The row where they were planted and we hoed the COVID crop is doing second best, and the mulch is doing third best. Now the true test will be when we dig them up and see how much— how many potatoes we get. We might be getting fooled here. We might get me more potatoes in the mulch. Broccoli is jamming. Do we have any yet? I think so, I think so. Beautiful one likes it clumpy like that before it spreads too much. So we have some— whoa, look at this guy! Look at that beauty! Look how tight that is. Mmm. And cabbages. Mmm, cabbages, you coming along? You coming along? You starting to build that head a little bit better. Even here we do have some carrots coming. Don't know if they're gonna make it. Weed pressure is real strong in here. What is this? What's this growing? Whatever it is, we got a lot of it. Oh look, carrots here. I mean, it might happen after all. Here are some of our very first mulch bombs. Mixed results for the plants. I don't think it has anything to do with mulch bomb. The mulch bomb's working, it's keeping the weed and cover crop pressure out. Um, this one's doing good. Doesn't look— notice they have some yellow, yellow. Uh, hopefully that will recover from the transplant shock. Oh, happy about this. Onions, they're coming along nicely. We mulched in a row beside them, that's working. The beets, oh my word, we could have beet greens for, for breakfast if we wanted. A watermelon coming along nice. Now look, here's the test. Corn knee-high by July. That's the saying around here. Your corn's got to get that tall, uh, to be successful. It's going to be successful. Look, this is a volunteer. This is a volunteer squash of some sort. Pumpkin. Like I said, some— sometimes we just need to give up and let the chickens do the work. Because right there they're doing a better job. From this crop garden that's right in front of my house, I just keep on kind of going down the slope to the chicken crop garden right there. I couldn't be more pleased about this crop garden. Chickens prepped it, spread some compost, manure, tilled, moved them out. We planted in mulch bombs, and then we undersowed cover crop. That's what you call when you plant cover crop after the plant is 4 weeks old. The trick here, the plant spent 4 weeks getting 4 weeks old in the greenhouse, and then we transplanted it here, had the head start so we could sow right away. And I'm very happy to announce the COVID crop is jamming.

Woo!

The mulch bombs are jamming. Oh, look what we have here, a little, uh, breakfast snack in our strawberry and— mm, I forgot what I was saying. That's so good. Our strawberry and asparagus patch, we put another layer of mulch around it. I think that already feels a little bit better. Just give them a little more room away from this jungle garden. Right next to the planted chicken crop garden is the working crop garden where the chickens are actually preparing another area. They're doing a really good job. They've got it down really low. We're about to hit soil. It's just amazing what they do. No, look at that, we are hitting soil. This is around their house. That's why we should move their house, spread the concentration around. Good morning. We do have 3 broody hens and no rooster, so those eggs under there are not going to be fertilized. See how they puff up? They never leave the nest. They growl at me when I pet them. Let's just get them off of them. One, one thing I could do is have the kids, or I could come down here and put them off at about 11 or 12 after everybody's laid their eggs and shut the, the coop door. Whoa, beautiful eggs, guys! Beautiful eggs! Boy, aren't you guys a bunch of puffballs this morning? There's the finished crop garden. There's the chickens prepping the garden. There's one of the cow pastures way down there. That's my house. There's the pigs. Pigs are on the back side of the house right now. How you guys doing this morning? Come here for the shot. Thanks. Hey, we're gonna get you out of here soon. From the pigs can actually go inside to where the cats spend the night in the basement. We're getting ready for the chicken butchering coming up soon. 2 weeks. Hey, how are your cats doing? Good. You just let them out? Okay. Almonzo's happy to be out. He won't. He's— well, where's Royal? He'll let you. There's Royal.

He won't either.

I'm sorry.

Can I give him a cat treat?

Sure, but be sure to clean up their mess, okay?

Yes, I will.

From the house, to give you orientation, there's the chicken crop garden. We just come across this dirt road, come over into our another cow pasture, and that's where we keep the birds. Well, and the sheep and the cows for right now. Isn't that a nice view? I had to— sheep, man, I'm telling you, if sheep are the only thing I had, this would be a very boring vlog because they're super easy, very little problems. They're about to wear this area out, and we're at the gate. Do you see the gate up there? To the old house, the old farmhouse. That was the original purpose of these sheep, is to get them in the old farmhouse so we don't have to mow it as much. At least we'll keep an area close to the house. We need to move these sheep like this afternoon, evening. It's happening, guys. How are you gonna cross the street? Oh my gosh, the public street. I hope the plan is put up temporary fence through this gate across the street, get Jonah to have them follow him with his alfalfa. I'll get behind them and we'll set up a paddock over there in the yard. I think it'll work. We moved them. The first move was from all the way on the other side of the house to right there. The only difference is this is a public road. The poles for our temporary— our netting aren't gonna even tease sticking in that road. So we'll, we'll see how we're gonna have to hold up the netting. That'll be interesting. Those are Icelandic Mama's Barnyard Chickens doing great. We've just been letting them out during the day with all the rain and whatnot. The crows haven't been around. I just lift up this block and let them free. Happy birds. Also some happy birds. Better turn that off first. But I can make them even happier by moving their monster shock and feeding them. From the sea monsters right there, Violet. She's ready to come in. She's out here bellowing. She's ready to come in and see her baby. Mama's staying. As you can see, Bear is growing like a weed. It's good when your livestock grow like a weed. We got him a traditional cowbell. We've cured you of your snotty nose. You're not breathing hard, you're breathing normal. You just gotta lose that coat. We got our blood test back. And it's not copper. No wonder you don't eat your copper here. They are eating TA and iodine, so maybe that's what you need. Cows are mowing this down, drinking a lot of water these days. You're good. Oh, you know what that means? Oh, look what it is! It's the mat. Kids, do you know what that's for? You know what the mat's for? The dog. He's coming tomorrow. She's coming tomorrow. We got Matt from Chewy.com, and you went to the store today with Mom?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. What'd y'all get?

We got a collar, a leash, toys, food.

It's so huge. That's the big— that's as big as the crate that's coming? Yeah, so I got a— Dude, Mr. Brown could sleep in that crate.

Slay on this, Gideon.

Although you're getting kind of long there, buddy. Mom, gnaw off his legs so he doesn't grow anymore. Yep, no, off his leg. We gotta keep him little. Hey, you want out right now? What are you gonna do if you get out?

Help you?

Okay. This evening we are— here, let me set you down, Gideon. There you go. This evening we are gonna move the sheep. We're gonna do it. This is what they're here for, to mow this grass. We've got the day paddock, we've got the per— one strand of perimeter set up for the source of electricity. The boys are hooking up the solar panel right now. Then we have the, uh, paddock, today's paddock, and we're making a lane going across. It's super temporary, look, but I'm getting fortunate. Look, the pegs are sitting because there's two of them. I'm glad we opted for the double spike. It's sitting there on the road. It'd be nice and temporary. Hopefully we can get this set up before somebody comes and we have to pull it down, set it back up. We need one temporary strip from there to our gate. Let's put up this other fence on the other side of the road. Well, we set that up and they're already— one is already brave enough to go. Wow, that's too easy. Come on, Jonah, you're doing it! Lead them, lead them, Jonah! Let them smell the bucket a little bit. Oh, don't, don't touch it. That's enough, that's enough. Okay, let them be. Let them go get them their snack. Go reward them. All the way in the corner. All the way up in the corner. That's fine, just take this pan up to the corner. They like this. They like this young grass. I think that was just too easy. Let's, uh, close this one. This one where Josiah is. Right there, Josiah.

Gideon, come in here. Watch out. Wait, Jonah, put that back. No, I have to take it out.

No, no, no, no, don't take it out yet. Don't take it out.

Oh gosh, Gideon, come here! Gideon, come here! Why? That one was aiming for Freedom.

Why?

Because I don't want you to get hurt.

Rebecca, you can bring the drone down if you want. The sheep are loving this short, tender grass. The idea is to keep on top of it like a mower. It's almost due a mowing now. This will last the sheep 1 day, 2 days, and we'll move them on down the perimeter line, keep on that perimeter line until we have a whole 600-foot perimeter in this yard. And we'll move them around in these temporary paddocks every day. Let the sheep versus lawn mower Challenge begin!

Look at that shot, baby!

Come on!

Hey!

Move!

That's rude!

I'm just kidding. I've been so feeling that.