New Opportunities

You want to mark these trails? Yeah. And you start this road. You want to eat breakfast real quick and then we'll go? Yes, I'll eat breakfast. You want me to carry you?

Yeah.

All right. Oh, all right. Let's go check your turkeys. See that? I'm a little worried for them. They camped out here last night, Gideon. If you don't remember to put them up at night, we're just gonna have to keep them in the chicken tractor. Turkeys are different than chickens. They don't need shelter as bad as chickens. You're gambling whether they're gonna put themselves in or not. 1, 2, there's 4 there, 5, 6, 7. I counted 17, so we're good. That's what we've got. We're gonna hopefully work on a couple of projects today I really should have done a long time ago. Joel taught us one of the things, the 3 things you want to establish early on. Whoa! Are access, water, and control. We're talking access today. That's a thick wood. Did you start right here? I think it would shoot too high up the mountain. We're talking about an access road to the top of the mountain, and then we can more easily go and service our water. We can more easily see to run this gnarly water line down the mountain. We could run the water line along the access road. What's that? Where does that go? Okay, where's this go? Let's go see where this goes. I'm just mountain marking. This road is really just Exercise. Training for that mountain bike ride too, right? Glad to see y'all having a good time. We're trying to connect to these existing logging roads. We did, we did a meander down to our field. Yeah, there in the brightness. We meandered on up to here. Let's traverse this old logging trail. Really, I would say not doing this— I don't, I don't have any regret. I mean, when you first start homesteading, it's 75 acres. This is wild acreage. We're not— we weren't using it. We didn't have water coming off the top of the mountain. We weren't using that. All right, here, let's go through like right here. Let's cut through this and then start going up. What do you think? We're leaving the trail. We're gonna start marking right here and we're gonna start gradually going up. You know, when we were just using the 6 acres, we're on the well and we can see it all. We can access it all. We have water, we have control. We're expanding, and so as we expand, access is key. It's gonna get crazy. Just start ever so slightly gradually going uphill. You want to stay above that ravine to your left. Did I see a trail up there? I think if that's a trail, it'll be worth cutting up to it. You want to go look or me?

I'll go look.

I think that's a dead end of a logging road. What do you think? Trail? Heck yeah! Well then, ribbon to it. It's working better that Henry's down. He can zippy through this like a hobbit. Is it not a trail? It isn't? No. Well, what is it? Uh, I don't know, it's nothing. It's just a divot. Yeah, daggum. All right, well, take your flag down that you were— Hey, that's where we need to go anyway. Okay, you were going down. Well, that was a bummer. That wasn't a trail. I was getting excited. We're gonna have to go around the steep part. It's crazy steep right there. We have to kind of hug the steep part and then start climbing again. You see me? Hey, mark as much as you need because your visibility is low. Come down to the lower end of this big tree. Henry wants to ride again. Henry, it's not that you're heavy, it's that you're bulky. You guys see why I haven't farmed this? It's over 45 degrees. It'll say wild. Save our road through here. Okay, there's a trail. Let's go see where that is. Oh, I think that ends up at the bottom of those— that rocky climb, doesn't it? Um, all right, you traverse through here and see if you don't come out on top. You know where that water comes over the road and down? It's really rocky. That's where this needs to come out, on the upper trail, that, that trail that takes us all the way up to the top where your airsoft forest was. There's a trail. You go that way, I'll go this way and explore or this trail. This trail comes out, I think, below where we want to be. Let's also go this way. This trail's a little low, I think, but buddy, if we can make it work— I'd rather work on an existing trail. Okay, we came out right here. Wow, we could come off of our main trail into here and go up. Okay, let's go see where this comes up. I think it's going to come up and out too low. Might rather have one steep section as opposed to building a whole new road cutting into the ecosystem here where a lot of work. It's another thing because this is old, we can just clear it and we have bedding here. It's not bare earth, so we don't have to deal with erosion, and it's a gradual climb. So that's promising. It comes out on the main trail. Wouldn't be that hard to clear. Okay, didn't expect that. A dead end. Josiah! Dude, he's right up there though. This trail that I'm on right here goes nicely all the way down to our main trail. So now all we got to do then is connect right here where I am to where you are. You at the rocks? Oh, you're not there yet. You know what, that's that lower trail getting in down there. So we're on a good trail right here, Josiah. So we're gonna axe what we just did and make the connection from here. It's gonna be so easy for you to build. What? It's gonna be so easy. Look at where we're at. The main trail leads all the way up to the top of the mountain, and then we'll have to do another one on top of the mountain over, but that'll be easy. Our water is— this is the creek that our water line comes from. This will be your hardest section because of these rocks. You think you can do it? Yeah. All right, happy about this. You guys ready to head back? Look where we're at, Josiah. So you got 100 or 150 feet of difficult, right? It's a cakewalk for you, right? All right, we'll see how far Josiah As I get up the mountain, Billi's roped me into yet another horse video. She's doing pretty good. She's staying consistent, putting one video up a week. I trust you're ready.

I am ready.

What are we gonna do today? What's the video about?

We're gonna— Liz is gonna choose everything we do. So he's gonna choose what saddle pad we use, what boots, what ear bonnet, and, um, if what we're gonna do, like if we're gonna do flat work, jumping, or a trail ride, and if I'm gonna wear a saddle, if we're gonna use a saddle Go bareback.

He doesn't speak English. How's he gonna choose?

I'm gonna have buckets out there. I'm gonna put everything in it, and then I'm gonna put a treat on it, and then I'm gonna let him go, and he's gonna go and go to it and then eat the treat there.

Okay.

And that whatever one he touches first is the one.

Let's do it. All right, y'all, come on, come take part in the show. Do you want to walk or you want to— you can carry you.

Oh, uh, I'm on the run.

All right, you run. There goes Josiah to start working on that trail. I think he'll get up— well, that existing trail had some big trees, but they'll probably get up to those big trees. Moments later. Good lesson with Lily. Now we're figuring out beds for the boys. Can we get pools in here? 54 inches is like right here. I think we figured it out. It's gonna need to be two twins down here and Gideon up there. Look at this. Back at REI, our home away from home after Pisgah. Your bike's ready. Ready? Let's go get it. You're back up and running, buddy. Ready for Friday. Monday night burger night. You can have a little flame and then you pull the trigger and it's louder. We're a little late starting our grill, so see if that doesn't sock it to it. Hey, well, that's a real quick way to get it to 300. By the way, the torch worked. Are you Bronco busting them? And you weren't even— they weren't even there. She just called Bronco Buster on them. You know we made that game up. I like how you're hunting Bronco Busters in town. You aren't even there. Oh look, let's see tomatoes from the land. Potatoes from the land, nothing from the land. Burgers turned out great. The torch method to the charcoal worked excellent. How is it, everybody?

Good.

Look at that. Mmm, burgers, one of my favorites. I'm not gonna say happy day yet. We're gonna go pick blueberries at the neighbors, then I'll say happy day. Hang on, let's go pick blueberries. Beautiful one and I are walking to our next stop. Yeah, kids are way ahead of us. I can— we can hear them from the road. Is that where you went? Kayaking with the boys in 2016. Yeah, play it, Austin. It's their first time kayaking. I think they're doing pretty good. I hear a lot of chatter. Oh yeah, we're having a good time. Oh look, those look familiar. Yes, this is their— my raised beds. And look, they have okra.

Put blueberries in my basket. Put blueberries in my basket.

Holy moly, there's so many blueberries. And the boys You lose a point for every stem. What gives? Our blueberries are just fledgling. I don't even think they prune these things. They're just exploding. Look how tall! Look at this! Good Lord, babe, what is this, 15 pounds of blueberries? I think it is. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, seriously, 15 pounds? I think it is. Happy day.