Our BIG Idea for a Permaculture DREAM HOME

You ready for the cool weather? What is it, maybe 55 out there, 60? You ready for the cold weather? It's cool out there this morning. Do you think they just busted through? Yes, Jonah told me the guys busted through. Well, let's get— let's get on it. Maybe you guys heading out, Grandma? Yeah, more sheep on the way. You're getting pro at this. All right, come on, boys. We separated the calves last night, got the fence hitting hot, and apparently they made it through. Probably has something to do with Honey's calf who was separated for the first time. Okay, good, she cut off. But I wonder if she got it all. Okay, the good news is that calf's really skittish to me. Looks like she's gotten it all.

Get up! Oh, Honey's nervous completely.

Yeah. Oh, she might have some still in there. Johnny, he's keeping those calves off. You come open this fence and we'll try to herd the calves over. I was looking forward to milking you. Jonah, just grab those calves and herd them up. Herd the mom if you have to. That's what we do, right? Really sad. He just took a drink of that pee. Wow. Duh. Hey, you got them with the sheep. That's good because they need to get back over there. They need to get back there anyway because they're gonna bother us while we try to milk. There they go, they're leading the way. And once we get them over the fence, we can have somebody spot the fence. There you go. Cool. Now somebody stay there to keep them in while some other— while the other person gets this calf. I'm keeping Honey off of the calf. When we're separating this calf too, we need to do 2 paddocks away. There, there's just the calf. There we go. Tony, you stay here and spot the calves. I'll go get the milking supplies. This makes me think of a derogatory email I got recently from— let's call her Mrs. D. She emails me and says, you milk your cows every day Big whoop. You move them every day, but most the time that goes bad. You know, I can see where she's coming from on that latter statement. Is this coveralls? Yeah, coveralls, a sweater, and a Carhartt jacket. Long pants, a vest, and a sweater. May or may not be overreacting. This is sweater weather, guys.

Yeah, could you get—

because the problem is you're gonna rip all this off.

Yeah, could you give me—

and leave it where you are. Yeah, you got a sweater on. I don't like this sweater.

It's hot.

You got a sweater. I made you some apples. I really need to get back out with Jonah. He's spotting the calves. Misty was right and wrong. She was wrong in the sense that it actually most of the time goes smoothly. She was right in the sense of that— that is, I realize a lot of what you guys see some lamb and some beef chub for Winnie. That's what you guys see, I think, for two reasons. One, it's interesting, and the second thing is it's a, it's a great learning tool. I should say, at least that's my style, is to bring you guys in on the process. It certainly would be easier on my pride if I waited until we got this dialed in and then was like, this is what you do, this is what you don't do, and tell the story in hindsight, you know what I'm saying? Oh, make sure you move the calves 2 paddocks away, or make sure you put the calves up later when you're first starting it, or, and here's what you do with an older bigger calf that you're trying to calf separate for the first time, you know what I'm saying? And it might end up being that we end up having to do pig panels. I'll get you guys too. And that's the style and the nature of a reality vlog is I'm bringing you guys along the process. I haven't always figured everything out. Okay, I gotcha, I gotcha. All right, got you a sweater, big guy. Let's go, let's go. I know you don't like the Ergo at first, but can you carry this for me? I think you got it. It's heavy. I wish you guys could feel this. I hope you're feeling something similar. It's amazingly brisk out here. I was reviewing the vlog and I was like, cleaning up the garage before? I feel like Tom, he's now my cleaning mentor, this electrician who had this amazing clean trailer. He's my mentor. I feel like he cleans up after. And that makes more sense, I think. They nursed it all, he said. Are you sure? Wait, did they get back to them? They probably nursed them all. It does not take them long. I'm just doing this in hopes— I mean, maybe we can squeeze something out of honey. I bring that up about Mrs. D with you all not because— I mean, you all get it, I'm thinking. I bring it up just to share with you all, whom I love very much, and you guys are supportive. Uh, yeah, every once in a while we get an ugly comment, unsupportive, judgy comment, But for the most part, you guys are super supportive. You give us the benefit of the doubt. You understand there's time in between every shot. It's impossible to catch 24 hours. And so most of you are filled with grace, and I want to say thank you, and I appreciate that. And I wanted to give you some insight on, you know, just behind the scenes on where we're coming with the vlog and what we decide to shoot. Because I love and appreciate you so much. And hopefully that makes you feel more part of the process. At the very least, especially if you're confused, I would say it, it explains more of our teaching style. It's certainly more of an immersion learning, definitely not lecture. It's not how we run our homeschool. It's not how we're going to run this show. It's not a lecture, textbook style thing. And I understand not everybody's into that style, and this is a fair warning. This is immersion learning. This is real life, good, bad, and ugly, and certainly repetitive.

Can I go get my meds?

Shoot, we were about to go milk. Let's do it. Oh, little feet hanging down. This, this This will soon be over. It's our last. What's the occasion?

Of what?

Dressing up, hair down.

Oh, I'm just trying to look more presentable throughout the days.

I like it. Are you coming with?

I'm not. I'm just getting my cold exposure and my sunlight in the eyes this morning. We have a draftsman coming today to help us design a house, so.

Dream house time! Time to dream about the dream house.

Yeah, so I'm excited. I have my little notes. I have my notes that I already took.

Wait, did you finish your medicine already?

Yeah.

Oh, good boy. And Henry likes to keep moving and he doesn't like to be near Mom when he can't have her. It's so wet. They're plugging this up so bad. It's a big reason why we get them off this in the winter and put them on deep bedding. Just one of the many reasons. You ready, stud? You guys want to see something go smooth? You know, I joke to some people, I get my systems down, I'm working myself out of a job because then it goes so smooth I got no problems and I got nothing of interest. How's that for smooth? Got Flossie tied. I'm wanting to do Honey in this because, well, we're gonna try to milk her. She's new to it, so let's put her in the stand. She's new to it to us. She's been machine milked like a pro. The good thing about this cold weather is there's not as many flies. Yeah, there's not much in there. Maybe a quarter of a cup, eighth of a cup, because the calf got to her. Hey, but we got something. Well, what can we learn from this? I think that it went too long. We put the calf up too early, came out too late. I think probably the easiest— the fence was on, so the easiest thing we can do is put the calf up later and make sure we milk first thing in the morning. Let's make sure we get everything ready and going, and that takes some pressure off. Hopefully that's enough to get them accustomed to this new thing. We're milking right here. Our current house is right there. We're thinking one day a dream house 3. Right there, that's up where Grandma and Big Daddy are. That's a hill, and we're thinking right there with a view of the holler. We get off of this public road. I hesitate a little bit to share this because we're so early in the stage, uh, and you know, how does that look if we say, oh, we're gonna do this or that and then we don't? So we got to be very careful about that. But I think you guys, we're tight, right? We're We could talk openly about our dreams, and we can understand that, you know, uh, dreams and goals don't always happen. Sometimes we're early in the stages and we're still developing those dreams. Thinking, if we can get up there across the creek in our own little private place, could this become more public? Could the holler house become a learning center, a workshop, a weekend burger restaurant. I don't know. Beck and I's philosophy on big ideas has always been, well, let's just look into it. Sometimes you, you have an idea and it's crazy, but then it ends up being good and ends up being viable. She really likes alfalfa. 5 pounds ain't enough for her to like easily go over. There she goes. She's also getting into the routine. But let me tell you, 5 pounds is plenty. Look what she's going to get to eat all day. It's a wonder they love alfalfa given they have this Amazing grass all day long. I want you guys to notice this bank. Remember we're trying to mow Grandma's yard with the sheep? I'm telling you, if you're mowing a pretty manicured yard, pretty smooth yard without a lot of weeds, cows is where it's at. Look at that mow job. You would think we had a kid go through here with a string trimmer. If you've got more grasses, you're going to want cows on it. But if you've got more brambles and Weeds, you're gonna want sheep. We're gonna have the combo cows and sheep. That's gonna look like a Martha Stewart bank. Well, that might be a little strong because they're gonna pug it up a little bit, but it's going to be mowed pretty smoothly. Hey, what time you want it to be?

I need—

I need to know what time it is. It's 8:45.

I need to go in 5 minutes to do my lesson.

Oh, true. Gideon is volunteering to take Henry. I'm gonna take him up on it because I'm about to squat for milking. Henry does not like that, but you did get happy. Hold on, you did get happy. You did get happy. I like you so much. I like you too. Made myself clean up after. Good. You setting up the pig nets? Yeah. Okay, good. I'd much rather be helping him honestly than cleaning up, but I'm going to finish tidying up here, see if Mom needs anything. I think our appointment's at 11, so I think I have some time to come help you. I'm excited and nervous about this dream home. Kind of reminds me of when we were dreaming about the bus, converting the bus from the farm tour. I'm excited because it'd be really nice. Uh, it's Rebecca's dream. It opens up a world of possibilities down here for business. And y'all know I get excited about that. Nervous because y'all know, or can imagine, it's very hard work. It's got— it can be expensive, and we're not going to the bank. We're not going to the bank. We don't have the money, but we're gonna make it happen and kind of pay for it as we go. I wanted you guys to see this. Look at this. Glancingly, they peeled. Look at that, peeled. Let's see what this is. I have to look that up into my app later. Very shallow rooted. Mucho huevos. Hey, wait, you must have not collected.

I collected.

Yeah, but did you collect under here, or was you scared of a birdie hen?

I wasn't scared.

You sure? Because they start growing. And it's gross. You ever popped an egg that had not only been fertilized but had started growing? So you got to collect them every day, especially if you have a broody hen sitting on them. That gets the growth— I guess that's what gets the growth growing. Our second planting of potatoes, but mostly it was an experiment for us this year, but not many came out. These came up. See, there's nothing— there's nothing along through there. We flame weeded a couple of times before they came up, and only a few came up. There's another patch. The problem is there's so few potato plants, it's not— it's probably not worth weeding. And you can't really cover it because, well, there's a potato plant there, potato plant there, there. There's too many to cover, to cover it. Yeah, see, there's one growing there. Too little to keep it hoed. It's too much bare ground to keep exposed. What I should have done is undersowed, and maybe not— maybe it's not too late. Maybe it's not too late. We'll undersow some cover crops. We'll give this one more treatment for the weeds and then plant cover crops around the potatoes. And this will get the chickens out of here and rebuild our rows and plant cover crop on that. Just trying to get away from using the plastic all winter long. Yeah, buddy. A lot coming down the line. Putting in a root cellar there. For those that don't know, we've left this part open. We covered the moat. If you didn't know what the moat was for, well, we put on waterproofing. This never had waterproofing in this. I forget what this is called. Is it waterproofing board? I don't know. We did that throughout the whole thing. And then we did a proper foundation drain. This was built in 1994 as a barn, so my dad didn't have quite the standards that we need now for having it as a house. So now it's up, now it's up to par. It's going to be a root cellar right here where we're walking. We'll access it from underneath our shed. It can be snowing outside and we'll just walk downstairs and go to our root cellar. That's exciting. But first, we're going to prioritize our deck. Did you get all the pigs set up? Yeah, they're ready for a move. Yeah, you even got a mill net to keep the piglets away. Well, why don't we go move them?

Because the little pigs have grain wet left.

Piglets have a lot of grain, but they've been in there over 12 days, haven't they? We might have to see if we can't figure out a way to move that feeder. Feeder's still got a lot of grain in it, so it's going to be heavy. We try to time it where it's empty with the move, but that's not always easy. See, especially with the rain, it's just gotten muddy. I should have accelerated our move, not delayed it. That's a joint right there, so we could open this up and let the big guys through. She's about to blow, ain't she? She's well along. I even got a little blood. Prove it. They haven't figured it out yet, huh?

No. Let's go get the water. Yep, because there's no way we're moving this feeder back in there.

They have figured it out. They want this. They eat weeds. They know this is bare. They know it's time to move. They've eaten all they want over here. We got our water, but it's suspended in the air. That's not gonna work. It's gonna— the tub will come out of it. Oh, it's headed on the tree and then it's caught up by this. Let's catch them while they're over. Everybody's over. We gave them a little bit of food. Hi, shoot, she's still in here. You having your babies? That way you didn't move over. There she comes. There you go.

Let's go, let's go!

Now we get some piglets over. Josiah, let's see if we can spook them over. Come on, come on. Nope, you're not spooking an old spot. They're too calm. All right, come on guys. Hey, there we go, there we spooked them. Step on a branch. Come on, use this lid as a pig board. Come on, come on. Come on, come on. There we go. Take this net right there and bring it up this way towards this holly bush. We got a net up along this line, connects with our fence. We've got them cornered. We've got y'all cornered. Oh no, he'll run back to Pomeranian, I guess. Hey, I found a plug.

I think we should just leave it so they can go.

We're gonna have to leave it. I need you to keep an eye on it though. I have to go to the meeting. That's our new fence, see? And, and move it out of the way so they can go through. Maybe open it up more. The appointment time is here. The man is here. I gotta go. Jonah will get it. It became a little overwhelming for Josiah, I think.

Like, I want a ton of windows. Like, I want to feel like outside is inside. Do you know what I mean? Not like in a weird creepy way, but in a way of just like having— like, I just don't— like, it feels so closed in here.

It's nice to be able to almost erase the boundary from inside to outside. Yeah, and I would like to do that, especially when you live in the mountains like this. I know, amazing weather a lot of the time.

I want to have open the doors and I want a screen door with like one of those accordion doors so it like— so that it feels like the patio or the screened enclosed, you know, porch is like with the house, right? You know, like on a day like today, we can open that up and have all that fresh air.

You missed some of the points there. I was washing up my hands. But another thing we're looking at doing is, uh, passive solar, at least in the sense of putting this house towards the south. Let's top this off for this gentleman. Uh, thick insulation, 2,500 square feet.

No, I just kind of caught him up on like why we want to do this and stuff like that.

Eco, uh, non-toxic building material within reason.

I'm not saying that I'm gonna go completely toxic, but I have to— we have to find a balance there because they— one, it can be availability, and two, um, price.

We have him because he has a homestead mindset. Like when, when you design a house, you're gonna want big pantries, places for multiple freezers.

There's really nothing out there.

You want a mudroom from H-E-double-L, you know, because we want—

I want a gigantic— like, I have, I have so many ideas.

Your water. Thank you, sir. Come on, don't get on that boob tube. Come with us or go out and play.

I want 2 washers and dryers, but I'm also considering doing like a family closet for the kids.

And a gigantic kitchen though. Oh, a huge kitchen, like 6 burners, 8 burners with us. Oh, get a griddle. Can you do a griddle?

It's gonna have a griddle, don't worry.

Okay, not all the time, but sometimes. Look, she cleared that. Oh wow, she just cleared that mega. Wait, I gotta get out of there. We gotta add that to the list, guys. You're crushing it, and you're gonna get 5 more. We are up at the potential spot. You got higher up, you get more view, but you also get away from the creek. Listen to that creek. If you get too far up and too much of a view, you start hearing the roar of town.

I mean, I'm even wondering if maybe like over here would be better, like this, than up there.

The further you get this way, Rebecca, the better your view is going to be. Property line shoots down through there. The bedrooms— are y'all wanting like master on the main, the, the secondary bedrooms on the second floor. You, you weren't going second floor, you were doing that quick. Oh, you're saying the kids wanted—

the kids wanted— I mean, we could do our, our room on the—

this is where we're gonna go get old, isn't it? Or are we gonna get into a different house when we're old and let the kids have this house? Okay, now that's something to really think about, you know, once you age, like age Make sure we design the house so you can age in it.

Yeah, so it's cheaper than to not have a second story?

Well, in the case of having a basement, you have to have that foundation cost anyway. Okay, so it would help keep the cost down to utilize all of that basement area finished instead of like maybe just a portion of the basement finished. You got the main level and then going up a second story. That's just going to add more lumber cost.

Yeah, it is.

So could you do 2 bedroom, uh, 3 bedrooms on the main?

Yeah, we could do 3 bedrooms in the main and then 2 in the basement.

2 of them would be small and one of them would be a master, right? And then an extra bedroom in the bottom.

My thought was that we would have like a guest room, and I wanted to do like a bunk room with like, yeah, 4, you know, 4 twins and then a queen.

Yeah, be a guest room.

Like so that— because all of our friends have a lot of kids. Yeah, so when we have people come visit us, we need a lot of beds.

Yeah, in one room. And that'll be on the sunny viewy side.

Yeah, with a bathroom. Okay, kitchenette down there.

Look how well they mowed this. It's so steep too, Beck. I know they didn't— and they didn't tear it up. They rode it a little right there. That's pretty much straight up. Hey Jonah, did the pigs ever get over? No. They never did? Can you go check?

I'll go see ya.

And put it on them? Everything else is done? The water and everything? Cool, thanks. That was the last shot I got for yesterday's filming of the vlog, but that was definitely not the rest of the day. Let me explain. It went downhill from there. Josiah came soon in after that and said that Jonah had gotten into a dirt bike accident. Long story short, we go out there, uh, he's okay, but he is injured. And long story short, we'll tell you that story later. I'll get to that in a minute. Well, he ends up in the OR, the operating room, and in the hospital. He's there right now. I'm just giving you guys a bit of an update because maybe you're going to see it on Rebecca's Instagram or mine. And, and by the way, if you want to keep up with it in a more, uh, immediate time frame— these vlogs can be 2 to 3 days behind— uh, follow us on Instagram. I'm @thejustinrhodeshow and Rebecca is @rebecca.rhodes. It's hard because this vlog was happy, you know, we're talking about our dream home, and it still can be. Jonah's gonna be okay. But it was, it was one of those days where we went for two extremes and I had to rush off first to the urgent care, then to the hospital. And then, so there's— we're tired, it's hard to get footage to Dan. So I'm sure you understand, we're just going to leave this video as it is, even though a lot more happened that day and I filmed a lot more. Uh, today's video is, is about the future of the homestead, but, um, we also have this major event that happened, and we document it, and we're going to accumulate that. And that— we're getting— we've— I'm getting it to down here in a few minutes, and so you'll see it as the next video that will come out Monday, Lord willing, and the creek don't rise. I'm a little tired. I think I only slept about 2 or 3 hours, so forgive me if I'm scatterbrained. I think that's it. Let me check my notes. Um, I think Yeah, just so you know, Jonah's gonna be okay. We'll end it with that. You guys will get details in the next show. I do want to say thank you. Thank you guys so much. I feel like we have somebody that— I don't feel— I know we have somebody that we can share the good times, the bad times, and the ugly times, and that helps us get through it. And I want to say thank you, and I'm sure, I'm sure the comments will be dominated by, oh, we're praying for you, hoping for the best, thinking of you. And that I want to thank you for, guys. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Rebecca's heart, Jonah's heart. Thank you so much. And do stay tuned to us on Instagram, and we'll get this video where we document this with Jonah out to you guys on Monday. So thank you for your patience. Thank you for understanding. We love you and appreciate you.