In this family vlog, teenage son Jonah works on rebuilding a homemade water wheel on his family's farm, addressing mechanical issues such as loose bearings, gear ratios, chain alignment, and stability. The conversation weaves through troubleshooting steps, the goal of converting the wheel’s motion into electricity for future uses like powering lights or an energizer, and the inspiration Jonah drew from the audiobook My Side of the Mountain. Parents and relatives provide supportive commentary, reflecting on Jonah’s engineering aptitude, family heritage of inventiveness, and the broader homestead renovation plans—including a cabin remodel, interior design boards, expanded mudroom, pantry, and outdoor living spaces. The vlog also touches on Jonah’s recent hip surgery recovery, discussing physical therapy, acupuncture, and the family’s confidence in his healing. Throughout, the family mentions seeking additional knowledge via YouTube and friends, underscoring a collaborative, hands‑on learning approach.
Chapters
My teenage son— how old are you, Jonah? He has built a water wheel. He's reworking it, making it work a little bit better. What was the plan for today?
Just put the wheel in and fix this leg with the gear and chain attached.
He's gonna get this water wheel going on our farm today. Right now it's resting on this. Where are we gonna put it?
Right down there.
Uh-oh, what happened to that?
I'm gonna fix that right now.
Is it supposed to be like that? Jonah has built this before and had spinning only lasted so long, so now he's making improvements. What happens if you can't get this done today?
I'll do it tomorrow.
Big drama, big drama there, big drama. That puts it off until we can actually have electricity on this thing and powering something. What are you going to power with this?
Maybe an Energizer up in the new acreage.
Yes, our new acreage is right up in there. That'd be crazy. I don't know if this kind of thing can power Energizers, but maybe a light across the bridge, maybe a light to a treehouse. Yeah. Yeah, you got my boots. How they fitting you?
Not very good. They're waterproof. It's really soft wood. I had my old bearings in these two holes right here, but as it turned and shook the bridge a little bit, and when cars would drive over, the bearings eventually popped out. So now I built these new bearings that I can screw into the wood, and then it'll just go through and then it can't come out. I'm just gonna start putting them in, and I guess I wear it level. Okay, look how it burned through and put weld on the other side. Wow, too hot.
If you put the other one up before you put it in— how you know?
I can, uh, push it in one end and then push it down the other.
All right. What's this?
That's the chain. You have to put this on first or you won't be able to get it on when you can't slide it past.
The water is really flowing today. They're draining the lake above us. Oh yeah, look at that, look at that! Working.
Yeah.
How do you keep it from moving over?
Uh, that's, that's what I'm now thinking of.
How'd you do it last time?
Uh, the bearings held it because of, um, my piece went up through here.
It's sliding itself out maybe.
Yeah, pulling itself up.
I could put a bolt on that end, but The boat will just move with it. It's not twisting out now.
Yeah, it's going that way.
Maybe it is.
And then it messes with that. The only thing I can think of is to put another board on that side to keep it from going back over.
Yeah, put a stopper there.
Yeah, okay.
Over time it'll grind that board out, but I don't think so because it's so little pressure that it's pulling itself over there.
I ran into this problem last time.
What'd you do about it?
I didn't know about it for a while, and then I just— it broke. Remember how it was just laying there? I just took it out, and I'm now coming at it working right now. If I need to, eventually where it gets so bad, I could attach like a plate to a bearing that spins with it.
Oh yeah, okay. Now his board will catch this and it will only be able to unwind so far. What's your chain thing going to be hooked up to this?
Oh, okay.
That's your power generator up here? No, gonna be—
it will go to that. This is to make that little gear go faster. Oh, if you take a big gear and go to a little gear, it makes the pull that goes off the little gear go faster.
So this will be spinning faster?
Yeah.
Oh neat.
That's why there's always a bigger chain— a smaller chain at the motor and a bigger chain at the wheel to get more torque to the wheel in the back. How did you learn this? I didn't teach him this.
I'm learning. My friends, they about it. Which ones?
The haulers.
Ah, cool. Great way to learn. What's the problem?
I gotta fix that, uh, gear attach piece. This isn't tight. It's on there by a thread. I have to tighten them.
What did you just do with your wrenches?
I tightened the bolts.
And why did your bolts need to tighten?
Because they were loose.
Yeah, no duh, right? Okay, then why do you need tight bolts? So that the—
so that it it won't spin on its own. Like, it won't stop spinning. See there? See how it's not spinning?
How the— it's not turning the chain?
Yeah, the axle needs to spin so it can turn the chain. This is turning into a lot more complications than I thought. Is that gonna help?
Yeah. How do you know?
See that space right there? Yeah, I'm trying to bolt that all the way into that space. So this will be against that, and that will— it'll make it tight enough.
Try taking this brake off. Oh, oh, it's working! Look at the bottom chain, and that's how much faster that's spinning.
Probably put a gear right here too.
You're right. Okay, so that's what you need, another gear to a converter Probably need to build something on top, up higher, so that when it floods, it won't—
the gear will have to go up to something that's elevated so that when it floods, it won't get that wet. Okay, put your ear on that. You can hear the whole mechanic.
Oh wow, you hear that clicking? Here, see if you guys can hear it.
That squeaking noise.
Hold on, let them hear it.
The squeaking noise is that piece of, uh, metal rubbing against that wood. I'm probably going to have to figure out something to do there.
What do you think about that water wheel? Cool.
My grandfather was an inventor, so my mom always is like, Jonah is just like my dad with his engineering mind. So my grandfather had an engineering mind.
I have no idea where Jonah got that from. I can remember when I was a little kid, I got my first mountain bike. For the life of me, I could not put this thing together. Then I called upon a friend about the same age, actually a little younger, and he just kind of tossed the instructions and built this thing no problem. I say friend, but that guy was actually my nephew who happened to be just a few years younger than me. Yes, my dad was much older, and I have much older siblings. I have siblings old enough to be my dad. The point I'm trying to make is Jeremiah just whipped that bike together, and I was just floored and amazed. So I don't know, maybe there's something in my line, but every time Jonah does something like this, I'm just like—
I'll show you this, um, spray paint gun I made.
It's just— this is a brake lever. Whoa, you're gonna pull your brake handle and it's gonna spray the spray can. Oh, don't do it in here though, it's toxic.
Spray paint with it.
All right, but it's not a spray painting mechanism, it's a flamethrower. Okay, what you got to do to get that going?
You just got to get a lighter and light it on fire.
Can we do that later? And we're already to that point where I'm just like, hey, Hey, can you do this? And delegate those kinds of things to him. It's sweet. I just let go. I just let him be free to explore his own interests and supporting him in that. Give him enough free time. He doesn't spend a lot of time at a desk. He gets to pursue his own interests.
Look at it. You did so good. Oh Jonah, I'm so proud. Every time I see it, I'm so proud.
Why are you proud of that?
Because this is hard. Like, I don't know if I could do this. I mean, I guess I could if I like researched it, but he didn't research it. He just came out and did it. That's just generating electricity in nowhere.
I got this idea from an audiobook called My Side of the Mountain. Um, he built a water wheel for his— it was a sawmill. I listened to the audiobook and I got some stuff from there, and I just thought about it and made a plan in my mind and then put it together. The next thing I'm going to do on the water wheel is get a converter and convert it to electricity. I hope.
What are you afraid of? I see some fear.
I don't know. I don't know, um, where I'm going to get that knowledge of that.
Well, what about YouTube? There's this thing called YouTube.
We might need to get somebody to help us.
There you go. What about Mark or Eric?
Yeah.
Are you happy with how you did after surgery?
Oh yeah. We're gonna work with the acupuncturist, maybe PT again. I feel like it's all gonna relax. I think that a lot of in his hip area is just tight. The, the muscles and the tendons and the ligaments and all the things, and once he gets that to relax and we all be— everything just like has more time to recover. I think he's gonna be just fine. But he did, he did really good. He never used crutches. She said that, you know, that's a possibility, it might feel more comfortable, but he didn't need crutches.
Oh, Beck, I know he's gonna be taller than me real soon. He's just like 4 inches away.
I got my first design board from the interior designer, which I'm very excited about. I decided to get help because I became quickly overwhelmed when I started thinking about all the things that needed to be picked out. And the fact that I don't know how to make it all flow and I wanted to look nice, you know, I realized in trying to figure this out that I really do like a wood element in there. So we're gonna do the same flooring throughout the entire house. These are paint colors throughout the entire house, kind of just to give it a cohesiveness. And then these are the flooring options that she thought would look good for the kitchen, like these would be countertops, or bathrooms. So because this is basically kitchen kitchen and bathroom design board.
I like a sink that's like a bathtub.
You like a sink that's like a bathtub?
Like just take a bath in it?
Yeah, you're funny.
Can I have my real light pink?
Yes, we can do light pink for you.
Oh, home sweet home! In a few weeks, Randolph has worked on this. He has made available for a stove, a bigger stove, a washer machine, and we already have that half one. This is a cabin on the property. You ready? It's gonna be a little cramped for a while. We're moving out of the Heiler house into this cabin because, well, I'm going to give you the ultimate homestead house remodel.
I'm very excited.
This is going to be a jamming homestead house.
Yes. And it feels surreal that it's even happening because yeah, we've lived in it for so long.
Yeah.
And now it's going to be just what we want it to be.
Yeah. Answer this question. What would happen if we didn't do this?
I don't know, because I can't cook in that small kitchen no more. It's driving me nuts.
She's got bigger cooking dreams, y'all.
Yeah.
And we need a bigger mudroom and a bigger pantry and more outdoor living space. Not a bigger mudroom, an indoor outdoor living space. An actual mudroom. A kitchenette for my milking supplies and garden stuff.
It's gonna make life more enjoyable.
That's right.
As the kids get older and grow, and then as they go off.
Okay, come here.
And possibly get married.
Come here.
And all these things.
Oh, we're talking married.
And grandbabies coming back. We're gonna have the space for everybody. And we'll have a big dining area so that we can host holidays. I mean, our goal is that our kids will move into these other houses on property.
Yep.
And then we can eat together once, twice a week.
Yep.
Over at our house and gather all together and enjoy one another's company.
