Only ONE day Away - Mobile Milking Shed

The boys just got some RC cars. They're wanting to get the chores over with, so they spent some time playing with them this morning. You going with Mr. Brad? Okay, I've put your coat there. I've given you a snack. I've given you some socks. You just come when you're ready, okay? I did not make the kids go out here, but you know, I've got him his support there. Got him a snack. Got him his clothes ready. I think he'll come on his time. We got a swill going for the pigs. Our house, our newest greenhouse. Randolph's back, he's been working. You see that? See that high tunnel down there? It's gonna house our chickens this winter. Building garden beds to house tomatoes and cucumbers over the summer, and then this will do it next time. And theoretically, so this would do it next year, but theoretically this would then— if it was already established, we would have our winter harvest garden planted under this and not have to mess with low tunnels. That's going to be nice. And those would switch next year. That would be our winter harvest garden, and this would be where I keep our chickens. Why in the front yard? Because why not? If it's socially acceptable, put the high-visited elements as close to the house as possible. Won't that be nice if that's, that's where we go to harvest our breakfast or lunch or dinner or go tend to the chickens once, twice a day? Just walk right side our door. This is why we're totally into front yard homesteading. Chickens right here in our front yard. Discarded produce from the gardens here Gross. It's kind of handy having the chickens right there, huh? It is. Can't preach that enough. Look what they're doing to this wood chips. Look how rich of compost is already developing into there. And we'll transfer that compost to the gardens. Speaking of Randolph, I just realized it's going to work on the cow stanchion today. How about a head gate in that thing? How about let's try milking out on the pasture? But I've got to backtrack it through 3 sets of fence to get it down by the road so that he can actually get to it and work on it. Arun getting ready to go pick up Moose. How's it going out here, guys? This is working out amazing, this mobile shed. Look at their manure. Not in this lane, not way back there. At the water. We used to run them back all the way into the water. Now the water travels with them, their shade travels with them, and so does their manure, which will greatly improve this land. What you got right here? Come on, Fussy, you see it. Come on, we'll get the sheep over here and then We'll drag this shelter. We got to start— we're gonna go through the sheep fence, the chicken fence, and then down there to the road. Look at her munching on that poplar coppice. We cut that poplar tree down to a stump. Look at it. You getting those minerals? There's that deep root bringing up rich minerals for you. Get a little bit of grass there too. Now that's some motivation right there, guys. Never seen you so motivated. Okay, we're just gonna walk home. We're just gonna leave you yourself. Okay. All right, I'm glad we made this thing bi-directional. We've been going that way with it, but now we need to hook up on this end and pull that way. Some improvements we're making on this today: these diagonal pieces, that's what was already there. These need to be— these need to be bigger. Now that we know that it's going to work, we're going to put some more into it. We're going to extend the roof a foot on either side. There's just going to be an overhang, and we're going to put a stanchion station right here. One for now right here, just a head gate, just a head gate. No, like Bart— we'll see if they don't move around too much this way. And if that works, we'll try one at first, we'll add two. Joel Salatin's suggestion— he's working with me on this— this is his suggestion, a mobile milking station. Um, half of this doesn't need to be in tin, it can be in shade cloth. It'll lighten it— lighten this up. The tin's just not necessary. The tin's nice here because if we're— if it's going to rain and we're milking, that's nice. But do you see this? There's a pole there, pole there. There's a lane that goes through here. Look at all that grass. Like, we're really missing that grass. And when they're in this lane, they're backtracking on that grass. You don't really want to do that because they have poop on their hooves, then they're eating there, and that's just a parasite pressure. So we keep the poop here in this paddock, and then they're gone the next day, and within 24 hours, very little pressure. And we spread the love. Look at that love. Look at that holy cow squat love. Oh, why didn't I watch where I was throwing that? There's another reason why we gotta milk these guys out in the field. We can trench that, we can put that in a wheelbarrow. That's what we do. Then we have to haul the wheelbarrow up, we put it up in the chicken run and they turn it into compost. But Wouldn't that be nice if we could get that out in the field? Look who we brought down. Just a handle, just a handle. Show you it's all right. It can be somebody's family cow one day. Lily, look who I brought down. Randolph's here. I think he's gonna come get measurements for this stanchion. Yeah, that's pretty good head gate right there. If you just mimic that over there, it'd be great. We're talking about putting some plastic really thick. I think it is a Hardy board or something like that. The thin stuff I was thinking was completely solid, like this side. Yeah, on this side too, and it's solid. Yeah, it's gonna slide nice. You get you a nice lounge there, Lily. Hey Lily, what would you think about milking out in the field? I want to. Okay, because it's easier. Maybe eventually we'll have two head gates out there and we can milk one each, milk one cow. Here, get her her alfalfa. She's got a lot of milk in there. We gotta— like almost 2 gallons of milk. I feel like she's holding back on us. I feel like we're at that stage where she's holding back. A trick we've used in the past is to get the calf over. Come on, come on, this thing. You'll thank me. Come on, you're even getting a routine. There we go. Get the calf nursing, get some more milk down, and then we milk again. Of course she's not getting anything, but she knows how to get it to drop better than any of us. She getting anything yet? Yeah. Okay, we get what she got. Yeah, she's got foam on her mouth. Oh yeah, oh yeah, look at that. And look at that. And I could have kept going. I just want to save some for, for Phyllis's energy's sake and, and the calf. But that's probably a good gallon, wouldn't you say? And that's the creamiest. She's holding all that back from us. She's holding all that back for us. So we have that and this. Oh, look who's back! Moose is back. Oh no, did we fill up all 4 coolers plus 2 boxes? Oh my, I hope we have enough freezer space. Are all coolers full plus boxes? Uh, not all full. Okay. Yeah, because we put the ground beef in the cooler. Okay. All right, we've already jammed one whole box in that shelf. We only— we've got this much left. We've got a little bit of shelf space. I'd say we jacked that freezer full. We got it almost all in there except for these. We got some bone marrow Bone switch. Two packs. I already set one out. That's delicious. I'm gonna cook some of that. Soup bones, broth bones. I got all the mousse in there. Breakfast is on. A little bit of Alice spring chicken. I'm trying to brown up the cheese. I put it down too low. I'm broiling it. Put it on 1 minute. Look at this one made. You're making— you're helping now. Breakfast even. Uh, that's a French toast and bacon and eggs. That's classic. And I gotta show you guys this— new sweatpants. Because that's a, uh, source of contention since Jonah That's your pregnancy gear though, isn't it? Well, Jess is not a big sweatpants guy, and you'll only get dressed up to go to town. You won't dress up for me. Yeah, he asked me the other day if I wore sweatpants, and we're not going to other kids, and I said no. And he said, why not? And I said, well, because I went other places during those pregnancies, and we don't go anywhere now, especially. I want to be comfortable. I'm 41. So it's just gonna get worse, is what you're saying? Is it just gonna go downhill? Oh shoot. Oh, burn up. Okay, okay. I think it's just the jar. It should be burning actually. Actually, it might be okay. It's just the parchment paper. Turn on the air purifier. Okay, wow, Papi, you really burned it up. I know. It burnt the parchment paper. Arun's here. Indian Wednesday tonight. Arun's got his chicken set out, he's got his lentils soaking. I set out knuckle bones, I meant to set out marrow bones. Chicken and the bacon seem to make it fine. The cheese, it's like it's disintegrated. Hey, looks like you're taking a break. Yeah, I'm taking a little intermission. You know what Pop used to say? What do you think? We'd say, can we have a break? Can we have a break? We don't break till it's over. Look at this, you are done! This is incredible, super fast. Whoops, I knocked your hinges off. Sorry. All right, Randolph's gonna go back at it, bracing the sides, extending the roof. He thinks he'll be done today. I think so too, knowing him and how fast he did that. It's just 12 o'clock. You'll get done. All right, good job, Randolph. All right, we actually just returned from town. Dentist, we all got cleaned. Our last dentist, Dr. Matthew Young, holistic dentist in Hendersonville, passed away like 1 year ago today. But we like the new guy. It's now Black Bear Dental. A room. We got rice. Doll. Are you making Ryder Yes, right. Chicken and veggies. A little bit of egg for me. I did have a feeling that had fallen out or something, so I'm a little numb. Thank you very much, Haroon. I think we're gonna have a date. Kids are chilling out outside. Look at our front yard. We are those people. Front yard homesteaders. Front yard homesteaders. Boom! Front yard homesteaders, boom! A greenhouse going in our very front yard.