New Yorkers fresh from the city | Buying My Cow!

Your mom called you the other day asking what you were doing getting all these animals. What's the matter with you?

What do you think we moved here for? You're gonna get a cow. What?

They've spent more outside in the last 3 weeks than they have in their whole lives. Yay! They only use their electronics like what, an hour a day before bed.

Okay. As opposed to hours a day. Yeah. How long have you been here?

Uh, 4 weeks now.

Yeah, 4 weeks. All right, they're already going for a ride. They're already coming for the cow. High five! High five. Good. You guys, somebody's coming to look at Nellie today. One of you all. So I've got to hustle and do the chores. I'm giving Jonah the morning off for all his effort during my foot infection downtime. Starting to spread out my compost pile so they can spread it even more. It's done-ish. Look at this stuff they raked off, so broken up. Gonna be great soil. Put that on this muddy spot right here. What they did to the greens yesterday. Vicious dinos. And a scoop of free choice kelp. They've been eating about that in 2 days. We give the mamas a rationed feed or they'll eat too much. These ones growing get all they can eat, so that's why we keep them up for a couple of hours. I don't remember if this is on or off. It was off. Better safe than sorry. Fill up these guys' feeder while they wait to get out. Something real nice about— there's something real nice about harvesting your pig food. What, 20 feet away? Good morning. Can you go let out the goose so she can get some greens? Chickens obviously like greens, but the ducks need it more than— the duck— but the goose needs it more than anything. Getting pretty nervous. It's like 8:15, still need to move the ICs. Sea monsters, forest pigs. And get Nelly down here— well, Flossie down here to milk too by 9 o'clock. You ready for some visitors, Nelly? Jonah's gonna do the sea monsters. Josiah and I are gonna move the Icelandics. If everything goes well, we should be able to get done and get the cows in on time. You feeling good this morning? Yeah, I like to see that skipping. Where's our mallet? You guys have left it somewhere. You go back, look at the old paddock, and I'll show picking it up. Can you do it? Look at that guy! All right, Josiah, best part of our day. We did it with 7 minutes to spare. Good job, Josiah. Got Jonah bringing in Nellie. Folks are here.

Wow, bigger than I thought.

She's gotten huge.

One of the requirements, like the weird ones, is she had to be pretty.

So you have to be careful. He's handling her. He, he pulled her out of the, out of the pasture, but still, she's, she's a big pet. See, so just be careful when petting her. Like, she, she's okay with me petting her, petting her on her head. But she gets weird when I pet her on the, on the neck. But everybody's different, so just paying attention and never, never letting your guard down.

Yeah, we can't get, uh, raw milk. We can't find any here.

No.

And we had it up in New York, but it came from Pennsylvania and, uh, it was like black market dairy up there. I was on a lot of stomach medication.

Yeah.

And I was reading about raw milk, the Weston Price Foundation.

Yeah.

And when I started drinking raw milk, I dropped all my medication and I never had a stomach issue again.

Nice. I'm gonna go see Mom. We're gonna bring Flossie down. You want to go? We could go up there when we do that.

Flossie and Mom are about the same size?

No, Mom's a little bit bigger.

Okay.

And how much does Mom give? A gallon?

Oh my gosh, with calf sharing, 2 to 3 gallons a day. Oh wow, that's with Kath sharing. You guys are from New York City and you moved to North Carolina. Everybody's figuring it out. North Carolina's the best, isn't it?

I remember when I was younger, people asked me, what do you want to do when you're older? And I used to say farm.

Really?

Farmer. And I remember like my great uncle asking, and I was like, farmer.

And this was in New York City?

Yeah, we lived there in Brooklyn our whole life.

And what would they say?

I know, like, he's a kid, leave him alone.

Now what do they say?

They think we're nuts.

When you're gonna grow up?

They think we're nuts.

Okay.

And, uh, you know, we love it.

Okay, good. Flossy dropped one on us. I said that's the best thing for pigs if you had pigs. Assume you didn't have pigs. Yeah, you already have pigs? Yep. Yeah, 4 weeks in. Good. Well, then you need a cow.

We got Cornish Cross in the brooder.

Oh my gosh. And in New York City, what were you growing?

All right, so for years I've been doing it under the radar. We had egg layers in Brooklyn, Cornish Cross ducks, roosters.

You raised meat chickens? Yeah.

How?

I couldn't do a lot at a time.

Is this in your apartment?

We had a backyard, very rare for New York.

Okay.

And, um, how big was—

how big was your backyard?

The whole lot was 2,000 square feet, but it was deep bedding everywhere.

Okay, okay.

Around Christmas.

Where did you get the deep bedding?

Cornish cross and the egg layers at the same time, right?

Uh, deep bedding around Christmas time, there was piles. You had to go pick it up for free.

People would bag it up.

The city would, uh, mulch everybody's Christmas trees for free. Ah, and then we would go and listen to you guys and get a shovel and pile it in.

Man, you're the, you're the definition of just plant keeping micro farm in New York City. Now I know you'll do it on the broad acre, the 3 acres, because you We did it in the New York apartment.

And it was a family building. That's the only reason we got away with it.

No neighbors ever complained?

Oh no, I didn't say that.

They just never called the police? No, I didn't say that either.

If they started getting agitated, like if they were really getting agitated, I would sell the egg layers and start over. Because you figure you got like 6 months before people started noticing again.

Oh yeah, that's what I was gonna say.

Oh, I have beehives and We had all this in New York.

Beehives.

So 18 beehives at one point.

Okay, okay, we're coming, we're coming. We better start milking or she's gonna get mad at us. They're terrible.

Just like every night.

We're done milking. John, we're out at the pig port. Does it smell, John?

No, it smells like earth.

Yeah. John told me one of the worst stories ever. On the webinar the other night. He's a premium member, and the story goes, a landscaper string-trummed your garden, the whole thing. So tomatoes, squash, um, okra. So it breaks my heart. I don't have okra. I don't have— you had some corn. I don't have corn, but we do have spaghetti squash, acorn squash, some tomatoes, and some greens. We're gonna hook you up, okay? Put the squashes and the zucchini in that. Just— I see some spaghetti squash way over there. Give them some beets too. We got plenty of beets. Oh, we should give them some carrots too. Look at these beets, they're massive! The kids get to pick. There you go, give them some carrots. It's like so good when you've grown enough for yourself and you have extra to spare. It's just something very special about that. I mean, it's blessing us more than it is them, I'm sure.

You want to put more carrots in there if you want to. The good thing about me, a landscaper, I don't wreck the garden.

Yes, Hannah, this is what I'm looking for right here. Let's show them this cream line. Look at that cream line, y'all. Wow, you see it?

Yeah, that's amazing.

Okay, that's, that's what you can expect from Nelly.

You can see like the yellow butter.

Yeah.

It's been a little while.

You want some, Emma?

In about a month. Too long.

It's amazing.

So sweet.

How is it, guys? Good.

That's way better than what we used to get.

We're already digging into the carrots.

Good. Look, they eat the carrots. He's got a beet in his hand. This is great. I'm so happy for these guys getting out of the city into the country, and, and the kids at just a perfect age. I mean, sometimes if the kids are older, it's a hard transition. They don't buy into it, but These guys still want to be involved in everything you do.

It's great.

It is. Let them help. Yeah, because they will end up helping you in the long run.

Can I have some?

A lot.

It's strange for them because when we were in New York, nobody spoke to anyone. So here they're like, yeah, they're very skeptical.

They're complete strangers. Is that Randolph out here scraping away? No, the tile man's here today. You don't play. You've already got the tile going up. Good job, Randolph. Well, thank you. What's the plan today? You think you'll get done with that tile? Yeah, I hope to get them all put on the wall and then let them dry all night and then come back and grout it tomorrow. Okay, then you'll be ready, and then anniversary Friday. Y'all got to go celebrate that wedded bliss. Okay, good, good for you. Wow, Becky, have you been painting or what?

I've been sanding. Oh, I'm trying to— somebody in my Instagram comments suggested sanding in between coats, so I'm gonna try it. I'm not doing necessarily in every coat in between, but like I got them to where I like them, and now I'm sanding them down, and then I'm gonna put like a final coat of primer on them.

Yeah.

And then they'll go and hopefully be ready.

Are you allowed to get that pretty sweater?

Yes, it's dirty. I was gonna donate it to Goodwill, so it was cold.

Thank you, Anna, for this amazing breakfast. Butter and Rebecca from our farm. Yogurt, eggs, Swiss chard. This is the good life.

Are the people buying Nellie?

Yes.

Are they gonna take Bessie too?

No. Should I ask for Bessie too? I guess I could.

I'll email them. A little smaller.

Are you guys inspecting Jason's work?

Yeah, it's wonderful.

Oh, he's painted it.

He did. He painted the floor. He got the paint for me, and then I'm going I need to order some more paint. We need to order floor paint.

All right, I'm trying to get back to editing, but Jonah is wanting to know when his tools get here. Stop. Oh, out for delivery, arriving today by 8 PM. Both of them, hedge trimmer and string trimmer.

String trimmer said— dang it, I wish I would have waited on that string trimmer because it was supposed to come tomorrow.

It's coming today. He's getting an electric string trimmer because it's lighter.

It's battery powered.

Why? Why are you doing electric string trimmer as opposed to our RedMax?

It's just lighter and I feel like it would be easier on the arms.

Okay, well, we'll see. We'll see when it comes. Yeah, I gotta go back to editing, y'all. All right, go play. Just finished the first edit. Go back through, shorten it up, put some music on. Lunchtime. Time to check on Rebecca. How many coats? I have no idea.

I don't, I have no idea. All I know is I'm just trying to get a good finish.

This is a tough part of it, huh? Because you're having to—

Now I have to— I don't know how many times I have to prime. Because like, I sanded down all the crappy parts.

Mm-hmm.

And now I'm trying to put it back, but there's just such attention to detail and it's just like, I want to get it done. See, like, I already painted on that side, so it's tricky because like, how do you—

You can't lay it down because it's wet. Part of this complete breakfast— breakfast? Lunch. Kale. Kale smoothies. Do you guys like them? Uh-huh. Yeah. Kale and yogurt from the farm.

They're good with blueberries.

Cleaned up that chili. It's really good for being so stinking good for you. What have you guys been doing?

Tomatilli. And what are they called? Tomatillos.

Tomatillos.

Okay, tomatillos. Those are the husks, see?

You shed them.

Uh-huh. They're like husks like corn. And they're sticky.

They are. They are sticky. They had to have a sticky surface on them for that. Uh-huh. So I guess they gotta get washed now. Who's gonna do that?

We're actually gonna put them in the freezer and then when Anna cooks them she's gonna wash them.

What are you gonna make with those, Anna? We're gonna make some green enchilada sauce. Okay. Are you guys gonna be as excited about eating that as you were shelling?

Probably.

Okay, good. Done with the video. Rebecca, do you approve it? Guess what happened while we were editing? Jonah got his tools. Oh, this is what he wanted to get. Investing it, I think that's a good use of his money. What do you guys think? A hedge trimmer? A string trimmer? Gentle, gentle string trimmer neck. Guys, we're coming down to it. He's got, um, it's going Friday anniversary. He'll be back Monday, Rebecca. We're going into week 3 on Monday. Is it gonna take all week? No, next week. When you think Randolph will be done?

Trying to think what he has to do. He has to put the doors on and the drawers in.

So Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday at the latest. We're gonna do a reveal. We were wondering who to do the reveal with. We need to do the reveal with you guys. So I like how we're in the bathroom. Everybody's in the bathroom. Everybody's in here. So we're going to— and this isn't the first time I shot you in the bathroom like this.

No, it's not.

Let's reveal it to you guys. So we're going to kind of be limited on what we show.

We're not showing you anymore.

HGTV style here. We'll show you some of the progress, but you're gonna have to wait for the reveal. Okay, let's see if it even works. No, no, no, just do it right there. It's not gasoline. You can string trim inside. I'm gonna put it on low. Okay, nice. Oh my, fried chicken! Roasted. And holy smokes, Rebecca! And kale, all from the land, all from the land. Grandma's here. You know what the only thing that's missing, Rebecca? Cream, summer cultured cream. Yeah, it's been 2 weeks tomorrow, so I'm, I'm doing it. You're painting, I'm gonna cream separate. Friday. In here. All right, let's see your, your complete tool collection. Wow, I think you have more tools than me now. The wall anyway.

Uh, you, you want drills? There's 2 batteries. The thing and that thing.

That's all mine. You're a handy dude.

That's all mine and then those two storage containers and those three chargers in the back.

Yep.