Our Future Selfs Will Thank Us

Happy day! Jonah landscaped our front yard. Where you going? You might meet me around there to get the feed for the stuff. I kind of like that our shoes would be down here as opposed to just cluttered on the porch. This would make for a good gigantic mudroom, wouldn't it? Walk through here, walk through our shop, is Charging stand's coming along nice, isn't it? I think all he's gonna do— I think he's gonna stain it. Jonah's done that on his own accord. I haven't taught him nothing. Now this is the key right here. Barn in the house, at the house, as close as possible to the house. In this case, it's in the house, it's right underneath. All right, we've got our feed at zone zero. So I'm at zone zero, I go from zone zero out to feed the animals and then come back, and there's no extra step or jaunt to the barn. Like, why put the barn way over there? Why would I make that container my barn, right? No, that container was my barn. I'd put it right here beside my house to be my barn.

He wants you to make him a sword.

How about Jonah make you a sword?

That's too hard.

No, yeah, because right now we got to do— we got to harvest peppers. You want to help us harvest peppers? Then we'll make you a sword. In today's episode of The Rooted Life, the impossible goal is— well, we gotta harvest peppers and preserve them from the high tunnel. But first, we've got this awesome short net, but one of these sticks, oh, is missing. Oh my gosh, are you still tired, guys, from the fight? Come on. I'm never gonna let you stay up late again. Keep your head up. There it is. It needs a stick there. Nobody's calling me. I'm going crazy. Are you sure Mom's not calling me? Okay, bring a radio to me when you come out. It usually gets chaotic at breakfast. I don't need to eat breakfast. Hopefully they won't need me. This span is too long, so we need another post there. This post is bent. Another long span, completely broken post. We like to keep a totaled net around just for that purpose. We can shimmy off posts. I think I can hear weeping and gnashing of teeth up there. I do have one minus, you know, so there's gonna be a little less trouble up there. Uh, let's put this together and we'll go check on them. Explain how to put one of these on. First we find out which the other poles are facing. Are they facing down like this or up like this? In this case they're down like this. You gotta zigzag, you gotta go through, see, up over one, under one, oh, up above one, under one, over that, under that, over, under, and then on top. This is hard to slip it into because it's not— it's meant to stay in there, so You just have to gird up your lines and pull it down in there. Other side, we have this plastic piece. Put your rope in there and then run your piece back on there. Fantastic 50-footer, works great when you only have like 20, 30 40, 50 feet left on your fencing, but you don't want to get a 100-footer to do it. This was not on the list, never is on the list, should be on the list, never on the to-do list. So now I'm happy I did it. This is better instead of going all the way around and up front, coming from the barn area. You know, that's the garden, that's where I just did the fence. You can see the hay there is the pole barn, so A lot of the activity is going to happen down here. Total sense to go in this way. And we clutter up down here with our boots, not up top. You can't do this.

No, it's too hot.

Oh, I wish you could smell in here. Smells so good. I'm gonna get back on my intermittent fasting wagon where I at least skip breakfast. I'm gonna try to skip lunch today and OMAD. Just got a little off track. Did a little checklisting, figuring out what supplemental groceries we need. Cilantro. Cheese with chocolate. Had a meeting with Mom. I almost forgot rice. Don't want to forget rice. Mom is— her headaches on her. We got news from her mom, Grandma. Grandma doesn't think she's going to be able to eat much longer. So that's hard. That's hard on everybody. She's at the end of the ALS journey, for those that don't know. I'm trying to get— okay, you want a cheese stick? And then you'll come with me, Henry? Let's go. I had a really good run, 2 to 3 months without much foot pain at all. One of the major symptoms of my Lyme. Also, I'm like crashing in the afternoon, but the foot pain has been— it's come back since we moved into this house. I don't know if it's like the excitement or what, but that'll sure remind you to lower some inflammation where you can, which is where the intermittent fasting comes in. All right, peppers. Actually, hear that? I should go see what Jonah's up to and find Gideon. All right, you guys pick, pick the bell peppers, girl. Underpinning for the porch. Big Daddy did think— I mean, he, he thought that nails would probably work. It wouldn't be as sure as screws, but— so what are you doing with 2x4s for that?

To make the 2x4s out of this 2x6.

Why do you need 2x4s?

Because I split them in half. No, they're 2x, uh, 3.5. Those are 3.5 inches, they're not 2x4s.

Oh, you're making one bys? Can you raise that blade up? No, so I have to cut them. Are you sure? Yes. But beyond a doubt, you can't raise that blade up anymore, man. That's dedication. Now these are pressure treated, right? Yeah, we need pressure treated because they're exposed. Saving us some money.

Oh my gosh, yeah.

Ah, this is our paprika. Mom's gonna, uh, freeze dry those and make our own paprika seasoning. Or is it paprika? Why is it good? No, no, I'm not eating that. Look at this okra we did nothing with. Okay, like strangely exotic, like it ought to be in the tropicals. Or does it grow in the tropics as well? I don't know much about okra. Not a good southerner in that part. I'll make up for that with my sweet tea consumption.

When is your, um, member of the team?

October 6th. You gonna sell them some produce?

Yeah, but how am I gonna keep it fresh?

I never worry about her. She's scheming on how she can make some money with this produce. Pick the colorful peppers, Henry.

Can I take the rest of them off of the things? Sell those?

I think so. You have to ask your mom, honey. Lily's trying to sell the food right underneath ourselves.

Go ahead.

All right, I don't worry about Lily. She's always looking for a way to make money. I don't worry about her. She's gonna be just fine. She's always been my little entrepreneur. Why are you throwing me that? That's a good one. No, it isn't. Yes, we'll cut the reds out of it. That's not rotten. That's— it's— it used to be green. It's ripening. It's not fully ripe. But we can cut the red parts out. Come on, let's go feed the pigs. Onion trellis is cool. We've got their, uh, feed. Give them all they can eat grains. We want to be able to harvest them in a month, month and a half. Yeah, he likes that. You guys got any room left for some veggies— fruits, I mean? They want you to swallow those seeds, transport those seeds and shoot them out in a little fertilizer bomb. They want to be eaten. Look how colorful! You guys want to harvest corn today or tomorrow?

Today!

The sweet potato has taken over y'all's corn. We should see if the sweet potatoes are ready too, huh?

I'm excited.

That means we're gonna have a good sweet potato harvest. We always do the sweet potatoes for boots. That's my late father. There, Papa. The year he died, that spring he said, I'm gonna plant some sweet potatoes. I mean, he died— he died in, uh, February, so spring never came. We're not raising sweet potatoes, we're raising chitlars. There you go, they're running there. Corn is pretty— not something when you grow if you don't have a lot of space. Definitely not the most efficient thing in the world. We got one bin for a 50-foot row. Of course our corn didn't thrive that great this year.

No, it was good last year.

Let's get all these while they're fresh. They tell me corn is a grass, so there's their 20% of greens today. Feed them as much as we can from the garden, and then that's less grain they're gonna eat. Let's fatten them off the garden before we harvest them.

You can feed them off the greens. The garden and they still be fat and happy.

For sure. Lily, if you want a white one, there's a white one. Got it? Yeah, nice. Oh, you're supposed to keep the stem on it. Hey, keep the stem on it.

Oh no, did it fall off?

You go see how orange skin is. Yeah, I don't think we meant for this big pumpkin to find this trellis, but it did. All right, crew, let's go deal with our peppers and corn. I'm excited, first produce to be dealt with in our farm kitchen. How about a bin right between you? And then, oh, maybe you guys need a— you guys need each— need a scrap bucket. You need each scrap bucket to get around like this.

That's hard.

That center comes out.

Whoa!

Oh look, Annie might have a better way. There you go. And from the top down and around the seeds. Yeah, then you don't have to go in it later. Yeah, I like it.

Cool.

What are you doing up there? Josiah's got him. They're being dweebs. Look at all these beautiful peppers. We're gonna vacuum seal these things. Rebecca and I's impossible goal of quitting the grocery store this year brought us to extraordinary things, and that was when we harvest We harvest, we eat some of it fresh, and we preserve it right then and there. Used to just try and grow veggies all year round, have winter harvest garden in the winter, and we still do the winter harvest garden a little bit. We like the rest. And you can't do a winter harvest garden on peppers. This will be so nice when we go to eat this, but it's nice in January. Our future selves will thank us. You like raw peppers?

Yeah.

How many of those have you eaten? Your face says 10. Annie, I love it, you're cleaning up as we go. You're in good company with Austin. This has a tear and then a Ziploc open. So we tried just freezing beets straight up and it didn't work because it pulled the water out and wouldn't seal. Let's look at what's the serving because it'd be a lot easier if we didn't have to Flash freeze. Okay, it sealed but didn't really— I mean, that'll work. And it did it, it just usually pulls out a lot more air than that. A little more better.

That's what we're supposed to hit.

Start. Definitely got the water out. We're supposed to hit start, not seal. Okay, we're gonna go with it until it stops sealing and then flash freeze if we have to. There's a seal button and a start button. I guess starts vacuum seals and seals, and this just seals. You want to just seal something without vacuum sealing it. We got our peppers all sealed up. Let's get a little bit of lunch. Is this collards right behind you? Sending the meat eater out to get collards. These are not gonna make it, it's the cabbages. Yeah, grab those. We'll see. They're awful big leaves too. Cabbages, aren't they, to not have a bigger head? A bunch of stuff going to the pigs. Peppercorns, corn shucks. Nature's greatest miracle: garden waste into pork. Hey, how's the porch going? Good. What's that for?

No, third post.

Oh, we have to have another post for our deck.

No, yeah, we had it for the corners.

That is all we got out of 50 feet. All right, we're gonna blanch this for Josiah for 1 minute. That's a bag of corn.

5 dinners.

Corn solely for the kids because it would just be on a homestead level, just buy the corn. They're in the freezer room. I'll get a veggie freezer over here very soon. Look at all these peppers. That's many dinners. Corn dinners, uh, probably a dozen, two dozen peppers situation. And we got more of those coming. I'm calling it, saying it. Gotta go take care of Rebecca. Happy day.