In this informal family farm vlog, two speakers walk through a busy afternoon of fall/winter garden preparation and an urgent health issue with their dairy cow, Violet. They start by organizing garden supplies, marking rows with wooden stakes and twine, and constructing a slightly raised bed using a broadfork and a 2‑foot pathway, while also collecting material for a compost pile. Mid‑task, they discover Violet panting and taking an alarming temperature of about 105.8 °F. They immediately move her to shade, provide fans, and call a veterinarian and Animal Synergy Products. The vet suspects pneumonia or fescue toxicity; the family administers mineral binders and continues monitoring her temperature, water, and hay intake. They discuss using the cow’s manure and urine as nitrogen for the compost. The vlog concludes with evening chores, a brief mention of a “Do It Yourself Abundance” membership program with a fall enrollment and refund policy, and a friendly sign‑off.
Chapters
Violent and Bear over here in this field. The only problem is she hears Bear because he's right there. Where I want to be is right here.
Ideally, can we go— we're gonna milk—
he says we're gonna milk her. We got about an hour and a half. So let's see what we can get done on our fall/winter crop garden. Hey, Mr. Brown, don't touch that. That's very hot now. Good morning, Lily! You get you some new shoes?
Yeah.
You on your morning ritual, hanging out with Royal? He's a cuddle bug, isn't he? Don't forget to show Laurel some love. Gotta get my wooden garden stakes and Twine to mark rows. Look at this, guys, organized this— what do you want to call this? Mineral room? Tack room? A lot easier to find the twine and the garden stakes. Now if only the measuring tape is where it's supposed to be. Yep. I want to do two things, but I can't do them at once. One is go ahead and make some rows in here for planting, and two finish collecting stuff for the compost pile. I need to set up these rows before weeds and grass starts to reestablish itself. Why, this is fresh. The compost can wait a little bit. It's that quick, guys. It's already coming up. Let's do a generous 2-foot path.
I can help you.
You can? Good. Bring me that hammer right there. It's right here, honey. I don't want to be next to the ground. Okay, hold on, let me get it started for you.
Okay, you finish it.
You finish it.
Okay, is it done?
You can be done. Let me drive it a little further.
Ready? Yep. I always do that. Slowly.
Bunch of weeds are starting to come back, including this volunteer tomato.
Can we step on it?
Yes, step on it. That's our path. It needs to be mashed down. It's too late for tomatoes, way too late. Let's go 42 inches from this to create our bed. Okay, hold me on there, honey. Right here. Lily's unwinding the twine. Now what we want to do is pull material from our paths to do a slight raised bed in the middle. We're starting to rake from either side. It's all you. Hey, good morning, beautiful one. Good morning. Hey, Mr. Brown, walk back in the— back and forth in the path. From here on, we're gonna walk in the paths. Why you laugh?
The whole, like, theory—
that's the textbook. You don't read the textbooks? He doesn't read the textbooks. I do. You do? We've got one side nearly scraped up and raised. Good job. Haul that up to the— up to the grassy area right there, and then that way when we— we'll chop it there, and then we just go over and down to the compost pile. We did it! We did a slightly raised bed for our cover crop. This bed is ready to, well, to plant. Well, we just got a broadfork. Who wants to broadfork it real quick? Bring me that broadfork quick!
Can you hear it?
Can Can you hear it? I can hear that garden calling me. Justin, Justin. I don't know what it is, but that's the project I really want to be doing right now. However, earlier today Rebecca looked out our window out here to the cow and she saw Violet panting. We got Violet up, took her temperature. She's got a really high temperature. The first thing we did after getting her temperature was got her out of here. They had shade, but we wanted to monitor, get her under, get her in the stall, get a fan on her, and get her cooling off. Her temperature was like 105.8. We didn't want to mess with that. We called the vet immediately. We called her, left a message, and then we called Animal Synergy Products. It's a product we use when our cows would get mastitis, gave us a treatment for them with their products, which we have on hand. Based on what we told Animal Synergy, they, they suspected pneumonia. The vet called us back, she suspected pneumonia or, uh, fescue toxicity. We've been thinking about that earlier in the spring. That told us what to do, just wanted us to give her a call in a couple of days if Violet hasn't cleared her temperature. You drank most your water, that's good. You've eaten a lot of your hay, that's good. We've got all our minerals, including one that the vet recommended that is a binder for the fescue toxicity, in case it's that. While I wait for Beauty to do that, I'm gonna work on this garden a little bit. It's a hot day back.
It is the hottest we've had in a while. Apparently also, um, pneumonia is very common in the summer. The humidity and the heat and stuff.
Let's hang these things. Now that, uh, we put the minerals in there, she needs to walk around and be able to get them. We had tied her right there to get— she could have her water and hay, but now she needs her minerals. She had a fan on her. But maybe we can hang the fan and then shut this door. We'll let her out in the evening when it's cooled off. One good thing about this is her manure will be right here and we can put it on the compost pile.
It's easy. I'll get in there. Is it on full speed?
It is.
Okay.
Does that feel good?
Come here and feel it.
We have our— and some urine from the milking. And bears doo-doo. Super nitrogen. What's this temperature at? Holy smokes, 140! We're doing good. Evening chore time. Have you checked on Violet yet? Yeah, she's just standing in. I'll get her in the stanchion. So we're gonna get her back out here and test her again.
Okay, it's maintained 140. 105.5.
Even Willow was more cooperative than this.
Come on.
Oh, there you go. Here we go, Jonah. Let's shred our pile of browns carbon.
Oh, that is electric.
I know, I see that.
Then just don't put it on that T-post.
What T-post? Okay. We are done and keeping our fingers crossed. I want to say one quick thing about our Do It Yourself Abundance member area, which Fall enrollment is open right now. You want to get in on this?
Yeah, what is it?
Well, some folks are nervous. They're not sure what's inside. They're not sure it's worth it. Here's what let's do. Get inside. If you don't like it, just reach out. You can actually cancel in 2 clicks. Want a refund? We'll give you 100% refund, no questions asked. We'll take care of it. See you guys tomorrow. Let's cross our fingers.
