In this vlog‑style episode Victor Justin Rhodes walks viewers through several farm activities while highlighting family involvement. He begins by showing how his mother prepares a banana‑chocolate smoothie infused with freeze‑dried colostrum for a newborn lamb, demonstrating practical newborn care. The segment then shifts to his son Josiah’s ongoing DIY go‑kart project, including sketches, parts sourcing, and the learning process, illustrating a philosophy that children learn best when they lead and experiment alongside adults. Victor discusses upgrades to their 16 × 16 mobile sheep pen, focusing on the switch to non‑pneumatic wheels, integrated water, mineral, and shade stations, and a cable‑pull system that allows one‑person relocation. He troubleshoots farm equipment such as freeze‑proof hydrants and hose connections, and shares safety moments involving helmets and a fall. Finally, he optimizes feed handling by moving to a vertical pallet system, preparing the setup for a farm sitter. Throughout, the tone remains informal, instructional, and enthusiastic, emphasizing practical solutions, child‑centered learning, and farm efficiency.
Chapters
Momma's hack. She's making them a banana chocolate smoothie and breaking open— Is that a liver pill? No, this is colostrum. Colostrum? She's putting— she's taking the pill. It's basically just freeze-dried colostrum in a capsule. Because they're not going to swallow pills. No. But they're not going to taste it if you break it open and put in this amazing smoothie. Correct. Lily, I hear somebody outside. How'd he get out? He was out our front door. Apparently he got downstairs. Oh, look at Henry trying to get to the baby. You want to see the baby?
The baby?
You want to see? Here we go. See the baby. There's your buddy, Henry. Oh, found it. 3 milkings a day for that little lamb. You ready to go? You ready to go? Woo! The sheep drank almost that whole bottle in like less than a minute. You drawing a go-kart?
Yeah.
What's that for?
To-do on it.
These are things you gotta do on it?
Mm-hmm.
Nice. I like that he writes his to-do list in drawings. I like it. You know, they begged me for go-karts. They begged me for a motorbike. And they work hard and they earn money around here and they could do it. We could do it. I don't know. It just felt like such a big purchase. It's like, you know, are they gonna really be interested after a while? And I just couldn't bring myself around to it.
Around to what?
Yeah, buying you a go-kart. Why do you think I wouldn't just buy you a go-kart?
If you get a nice one, they're really expensive. It would probably wear off pretty fast.
That made me laugh hard because that's true. That's exactly what I was going to say, if I didn't already. I forget if I even said that, but yeah, exactly. Thanks for the tumbler. So when they said, hey Pop, Can we build one? Hey, where'd you get the idea to build one?
I tried to build a motorbike out of Gideon's old, uh—
Ah, that's right, his old electric bike, his Jeep. And they found some YouTube videos of some kids building these things. I say kids, they're like young 20s, older teens, and you were inspired. And I was like, okay, I think I could get behind that because then you're learning. And you're doing— you're occupied. And how long you been working on these go-karts now?
For like a month.
How much?
Like a month.
I know, every chance you get too, right? And you're— are you nearly done?
Kinda.
Well, okay. Josiah's still got quite a bit to do. This is his drawing of his plan. Yeah, I'm gonna try to capture that spirit in today's project. I too, even though it's for work, I too, now that I think about it, am like caught in the end result. And I didn't enjoy the process. Non-pneumatic. I guess that's how you say it. These tires don't have air in them. That's gonna change everything for our— sheep pen.
I forgot to unplug the spigot.
Oh no! These freeze-proof hydrants only work if you disconnect them. Something about leaving the hose on, the water stays up in here.
Now try.
It's gonna be jammed. See? Yeah, hopefully it doesn't bust it. Hey, what happened?
I just let it run.
All right, all right, well, we'll try not to— we'll try not to do that. Did this work? Did Maple get out yesterday? All right, our thin Making this thinner worked. Can't get out now, Maple. We're going to the Farm Machinery Show next week and in Louisville, and we're basically spending our time from now till then smoothifying it for the farm sitter.
You're gonna get a skid steer, right? Why are you going to the farm tractor show?
I don't know. Oh my word, what have you guys done to your hay feeder?
You want to see the go-kart?
Sure. Whoa, man. Super cool, you're building a box frame.
Yeah, look what happens when I turn this way. Yeah, I go that way.
Oh, is it opposite?
Yeah, I have to switch. I have to go back in there and switch the power around.
Well, that's what I'm talking about. You're learning mega. Yeah. Okay, and you got lights on here. Do they work?
Yeah, let me hook them on.
Wait, how are you hooking them up?
Onto a 12-volt battery.
I laugh because I'm not even sure I would know how to do this stuff. What? You got working lights?
Yeah.
That's super cool.
And if I want to add anything else, nice.
Look at that, that is super cool, man. When's this gonna be rolling? When's this gonna be rolling? You gotta fix the steering wheel.
Yeah, and, uh, I have to wait for my motor and axle to come.
My philosophy for their learning is children want to learn. They want to learn what they want to learn, but when they want to learn it, side by side, they want to learn it. There's no making them. Actually, they're already getting to the point where I couldn't help them if I wanted to. Well, I mean, I could figure it out, but I'm saying they're— we're getting to the point where they're more advanced with me than me, and I wouldn't be much help.
Good.
With safety first. Pretty tripped right here, and no lie. He fell on his face. I heard the helmet go— I looked back, he fell on his face, and before I could even say, are you all right? What did you do? Safety. Oh look, he just reenacted it. You gonna reenact it? Okay, go ahead. Safety. Really? Whooping in our garden? This 16x16 mobile Sheep pen is the bomb.com. Plenty of room for 2 sheep or 1 bolito and a ram, perhaps 4 sheep during the growing season. It's got its water, it's got its minerals, it's got its shade, it's got its wheels, moves to fresh ground every day. All-in-one system. We've got this cable to pull it. You can attach it to any of the 4 corner. So if you want to go this way with it all of a sudden, you can just move the cable from here to over there. We have this hose on here. Jonah, do we have any more hose? It's worn out.
It got—
I'd be good for the farm sitter.
It froze and it busted.
Ah, that's easy enough to pull with one person when— see, see, see, it's totally flat. I don't know if the non-pneumatic wheels are new, but we've just discovered them. And we're going to switch them out. Oh look, they left this fertilizer in the field and they have gone to new grass. Supplementing a little bit in the winter. There's a gate here if we want to go in. Refill minerals, whatever. No, we don't need to. We can also pour the water in from the outside.
Can you be my go-kart?
You're real funny. I'm gonna be your Honda. This is actually a thing, pulling something backwards. We're following the Knees and Toes guy, and this is actually really good for your knees, which is good for me because my knees are still a little bit jacked from the reactive off-riders. Josiah, what's going on with your go-kart, bro? Give us the update.
Well, I'm probably gonna start all over.
They're talking about making a video of it, which I encourage. It would be totally cool for their channel, Rhodes Bros. What's the chances you're gonna make the video?
I don't know, I probably will.
All right, baby's kind of running out of steam back here. All right, we'll get you to Mommy. Nothing happened, he's just over it. All right, we'll try this again with Henry. Henry, you gonna go to sleep? He's waning. Nice! Did it do it? Yeah, sweet! We're moving, we're cooking now. Moment of truth. Boom! Bam! Yeehaw! Look who fell asleep. Aww. We're about to do the great feed shuffle. But since I'm picking bags up, I could pick up bags and put them on the new bags, and then we don't need extra pallet space. We go vertical. All right, let's do it. Way simpler, dude. Unboxing.
We're done. We feel good about it. It's a once-a-month chore that has to be done, and it— we get feed every month, so it seems like it's a good time to clean the garage out.
