Our Resilient 12-Acre Homestead (2023)

It's been a rough year homesteading to grow our own food. With our son's hip, rebuilding our house, a little extra farm losses, Rebecca's mom's ALS diagnosis. If that wasn't enough, my injuries. Although those major disturbances have dealt quite the blow, they haven't destroyed our dream. To work together as a family on this homestead to grow most of our own food. This is our story of how in 2023 we as a family persevered through great struggle and by the end of it found a new vision, a new awareness, another problem introducing a solution. That new vision is sure to give us hope and should sustain us. It into the future. Early in the year, we wrapped up a 100-day challenge to clear 2 acres of this raw land, establish access, and establish water. We finished it up with getting an Everflow waterer to the pigs and cutting our last tree. A little crooked. Josiah says let's level it. Afraid they're going to push it over. This will fill up and come out the PVC pipe at the top, so this will always be full. When it fills up, it'll come out that PVC pipe. It'll never be less than this. It's working. This is our drain line from the Everflow waterer. It needs to go into the creek. There, we got it from the creek up top. So whatever the animals don't use just goes right back to the creek. Okay, well, it's draining so far. So far so good. Oh, it's still working! Water coming in, water coming out. Heck yeah! Okay, we got an Everflow waterer for pigs. You had no water source for 12 days, and then you move this, and then you got no more water source for another 12 days. Wow, it's hard to believe this is it. Just this patch here, it's more than a day's work. I mean, it's more than an hour. I'm pretty sure. You think we could do it today?

Yeah.

You want to go at that mountain laurel thicket, or do you want to kind of go at this area? Last tree of the 2 acres, which is probably 3 or 4 acres.

Back up.

That was it, huh? Right on the money. 1 minute to quitting time. Ironically, we got some major machinery at the end of the 100 days. Boy, would that have helped if we had gotten it earlier, which we ordered it months, months earlier. But still, we were super excited to know those 2 machines will help us greatly in the future of this homestead. What's going on?

What? Papa kept it a secret! Hey, tractor! Tractor! Wow, that's so cool! Surprise!

It was supposed to happen tomorrow. Brand new track loader. I dare you to find a speck of dirt.

Right there on the track.

Oh, on the tracks?

Of course it's on the track.

Take it back. You ever hear that beeping, you get— you look, pay attention. Yeah, there it is.

My trigger's right here.

So this is to drive it— that's forward, backward, sideways— and this is for your bucket.

That's up.

That's all there is to it.

So proud of you. Finally bought this machine.

You're proud of me? I'm proud of you, you know that. I hope you do. That was super fun.

Okay, it's my turn now.

It's Jonah's turn. His first grading job. Level this out. Not bad. First grading job. Hey, how was it?

It was good.

Yeah?

A little harder than I thought, but pretty good.

How did you deal with the excess? With Lucky.

We just left it.

Okay.

That track loader can get 3 loads in the time Lucky could get one.

Look what's here! It's here, my boys! We're gonna be pulling up some stumps now. 2 buckets, big ones attached. We're gonna get some serious permaculture design done with this thing. Serious earthworks coming right up. First impression?

It's really big.

First impression?

It's pretty big, I guess. We're gonna get so much done with these two new machines. Yeah, back away until he swings that thing.

Jonah's turn. Josiah's going at it.

Yes, you got it!

Definitely one of the biggest struggles of the year was the loss of our son and his hip injury. And not only do we lose him, we lose mom and others because we have— the others have to step up and, and, and help him. So he's missing, but others have to give away energy too to help. Tomorrow he's going to surgery, and I'm more nervous about that than if I was going in myself. As a parent, I would rather take the hit. This time he's got to take the hit. He's getting put to sleep at 15 years old. They're telling us it'll be easy, it's an outpatient surgery, but maybe I got a little PTSD from the first time they told me, oh, it's going to be easy, it's going to be a 10-minute procedure, and then it got super complicated.

He's gonna go to surgery tomorrow because his bones died or something like that.

Do you think he'll ever get better?

Yeah. With hip dislocation, you are stretching the blood vessels and then when you put it back in, those blood vessels can die, and then those blood vessels, while they're regrowing, the bone will die. Once the blood flow returns back to the ball, then it will round back out again. And so the screws are in there, and just because of the angle, you can't tell how much room you actually have.

Jono got in this dirt bike accident and dislocated his hip, and it ended up not being so cut and dry. Now, 5 months later, he's still limping. I don't like to think about what happens if it doesn't go well and he doesn't completely heal, he's already 1 inch shorter in one leg because it's not growing. They're all saying it will catch up, but they also said all we got to do is just pop this hip back in and he ended up with two surgeries.

It's nerve-wracking to be doing this, but at the same time, you know, we don't really have an option. The risk of keeping the screws in and then them poking through and potentially causing more damage, which would mean another surgery. There we go. Okay, you don't tie the back, so you can lay on the bed.

Look at it this way, at least his feet work. Could have been worse, could have gotten paralyzed or something crazy. This might be the last time you get to put socks on your 15-year-old son, babe.

Probably.

Cherish the moment.

Put these socks on these feet a lot of times. Yep, there we go. Okay, so we're not going to open this whole thing up again. Okay, probably maybe an inch of it, cuz they actually—

how long is he going to be? They said an hour and a half. Okay, so 10 AM. All right, okay, so should they just start it? All right, thanks, bye. Okay, they called, update, they got him in, no issue, and they got him started, no problem.

Lily just texted me. She asked me what I was doing. I told her I was just waiting.

Y'all's text relationship is hilarious. It is. That's fun. The screws came out no trouble.

Perfect. Checked to make sure everything is nice and healed and stable, that the two pieces, you know, are stuck together where they should be.

That looked great.

Okay. So yeah, I think we're good there. We're just waiting for the holes to fill in. So I'm Kim, I'm the one you spoke with on the phone. I keep some chairs there if you guys want to use them.

Thank you.

But yeah, Sleeping Beauty is doing good.

Good sleep, right?

You're fine, I get it. Mom's got to be mom, right? Here, I can lower him. Oh wow, that's really small compared to his, y'all. Compared to his, um— oh, it's down low at the bottom of this car. Wow. What do you think? Speed of recovery.

Hey, yeah, thanks. All right, see ya. I got you. I got you. Put your feet in there. Say goodbye to that wheelchair. Say goodbye to that hospital. Hopefully for a long, long time.

Look at the slings.

You got it? You need help? I got it. You got it? Yeah. Is it sore? Yeah.

They said it would be sore. See how I'm going like that?

Yeah, why do you think that is?

Because my hip is being pulled up from all the tightness in here. And that's making when I go down, I'm not able to stop myself from going to the side.

Does it hurt?

Yeah, it causes a little bit of pain in my back.

And as far as you know, what do you think's wrong?

That I just need to get— that I just need to fix the tightness and put my pelvis back to normal. It's kind of crooked.

Are you hopeful? You think you'll walk normal again? Let's see what you got at the top of the week for your 4 appointments. You got chiropractic, acupuncture, physical therapy, and the surgeon all this week.

We're here waiting to go in. How are you feeling? A little nervous. Can you do this? Okay, with your palms on. Yeah, breathe in. Take your hands and put them through your legs like this. Bring that leg Up to you. Yeah, I'm gonna light this on fire. I'm gonna go like this and pop it on your skin. Flame pulls out the oxygen, so it's gonna suck your skin in there. But what it's doing, it's moving your lymph system. There you go. It's gonna free your, um, your muscles are stuck. You're trying to open your muscles. Does it hurt? No, it just feels different. This side seems like it's much higher. It seems like it's pulling. Yeah, and look how purple it's turning so far. The ones you you put in first are stinging a little bit. Yeah, do you want me to lighten them a little bit? No, it should be okay. Okay, so I'm gonna do a little guy right there. This is the one I'll slide. How'd that feel, Jonah? It felt fine. Is that a big one? No, it's a tiny one. How's that feel? Super tender. You feeling it? Yeah. Do you feel anything different? Yeah. I've never been cupped. It's not as bad as I thought it would be. I saw Papa had it done once. Deep breath in and out. Yeah, it feels really stiff. Where— this is to calm you. Hopefully it didn't poke you.

Going to take the needles out.

How's it feeling? Good. You feeling relaxed? Yeah, that's what it does for me. This last tip is just like so high. We started doing acupuncture and then of course I think we're going to start coming weekly And then also PT. That's just training. Nice.

How was chiropractic?

It helped me a lot. I'm walking so much better.

He's been joining me in the HBOT hyperbaric chamber. How do you think that's been helping you?

I can't tell a difference, but it probably has helped me in some way.

He's been pretty dedicated about it. Makes me dedicated about it.

I'm helping my bone grow, so I won't feel a difference.

Oh yeah, true. You ever get nervous in this thing?

Not anymore.

What do you do while you're in here?

I just watch some stuff on YouTube.

Was that what you're doing? What are you watching on YouTube?

Guys Grind Hard Plumbing. They build go-karts and stuff.

How do you feel it is?

It's like it's getting better.

Better than yesterday or the same?

I think it's better than yesterday. We're not quite the inch and an inch and a half that you were before.

It's a lot closer right now.

I'm not restraining your leg anyway, so if you need to move it, you can.

You're determined, dude. Where do you get this determination?

I just want to be back to my normal self.

Oh wow. For reference, it's probably, what, 45 degrees out here? Are you going too?

Yeah.

Do you just jump in or do you wade in?

You wade in, but you gotta time us. It's so cold.

Oh, you want me to put the timer on?

Yeah.

8 minutes?

We're gonna do 5 minutes.

No, you only need 3 minutes.

Okay, we'll do 3.

You could do 5 if you want. It's probably 55-degree water. Just go for it, man. Why did I do that? Did he say, why did I do that? It's gonna ease up in 5 seconds. Gets easier at the 30-second mark. I can't believe your mom and I are gonna put one of these in our house.

So would it have a pond in our house?

No, a cold plunge.

Colder than it was yesterday.

Guys, get your shoulders under.

No, I got my legs in.

Come on, you gotta get the core. Heckling from the bank. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Woo! Proud of you guys. Given that we didn't have our oldest son and we needed to get all those stumps that we'd left during the 100-day 2-acre challenge, I hired my distant cousin Andrew to help make short work of those stumps and that new 2 acres. Today we're getting large-scale professional graders to help us clear some of these bigger trees inside of our recent 2-acre clearing project. He's calling it for the day. I'd say in one day we got a little over half. This side of the creek is more than that side of the creek, and they're pretty much done with this side of the creek. Are we gonna have us a little secret pasture back here? I know, because there's all our other pastures. In our house. You can't— you won't be able to see it back here in the summer.

I know.

Or do we want to clear for a view?

I don't know, we'll see. Do we have to make the decision right now?

No. In fact, you want to be slow taking trees because you can't put them back.

Yeah, and it takes a long time for them to get this big.

It's funny, we did all this today, I'm already looking at what's next. Smell the roses, Justin. So are we doing this tomorrow? No, no, it's gonna need to dry out a little bit. We're all just kind of taking a moment.

Watching him work.

Watching Justin.

Not really working. The greatest joy people have is watching somebody else work. Yeah, he's having fun. We're all having fun.

They got Josiah on a job clearing this brush. You got about 30 minutes and then we got to go to the chiropractor.

Okay.

Let's see what these guys have been up to. They beveled this bank. This is like all usable pasture right here. Look at the lilies coming up. You guys like our tree island? I like our tree island. This was especially bad ravine. And now we'll have access. We can get from that pasture up to our new one up there, our new one here. Oh my gosh, just look at that!

Woo!

You got a better view up there?

Yeah.

Yeah, what excites you about this? Having more acreage for your motorcycle?

More for cows and sheep.

This is a nice view. What's exciting you?

All the new, um, grass we'll have for all the cows and the view.

Mother Nature is a modest gal and likes to be covered up. The problem is we just stripped her of 2 acres to create more pasture to grow more meat and dairy for our family. Taking a page out of Mother Nature's handbook, it's our number one priority to get her covered again. We must protect her before the rains come and wash away that hard-earned topsoil. It's working great. Thank you. You coming to help?

I'm coming to be out here. I didn't know you guys wouldn't have pitchforks.

This means 3 things. We've got to smooth her out by hand, like with bow rakes and shovels, and get what the big machines couldn't get— the fine stuff. The other thing we got to do is put down Choice Seeds. We like Nature Seeds, their Southeast Dairy Cattle mix. The most critical is cover her up with something. For us, we have spent hay and we have hay, we'll cover up with that. Spread it very thin. This looks like a daunting task. Doesn't feel that way when we say let's just go to the tree there, from this ridge to tree to the edge, and then we'll look at our next section and it won't be as intimidating. Let's see if we can't do this section right here. Hopefully this is going to be faster. We didn't have to load Sally with hay. We've got the hay in place. Hopefully it's faster. It's a great spot. Grab it by hand. Let's cross our fingers this is fast. The hay is protecting the soil from being washed away. That place is rapidly blooming and booming. And the work we did this week, we will reap the benefits of that forever. But from now on, we're reaping the benefits of that, and I get to experience that the rest of my life. And I get to go to the grave knowing that those behind me have a better place. Now that we had successfully pastured 2 acres of our forest, now it was time to forest 2 acres of our pasture. Here we are. Trees. Another box. 80-something-odd trees. Fruit trees for foresting our pastures. These trees are already starting to bud a little bit. They came last week. We didn't have time to plant them, but we got to get them in the ground. It can be really hard on them if they start to bud. First thing we got to do, the bottom of our valley, the creek. Take elevation 2290. We want to get 50 feet up from the bottom point to get out of the frost line for these frost-sensitive fruit trees. Got our supplies— T-posts and woven wire. What's that to do with trees? Well, we got to protect the little trees from our animals, from deer. Oh boy, I hope these are not too big for the auger, or we're gonna be post hole digging. It should be buried. That's probably a shovel.

The nectarines and the peaches need to be up higher.

Everything's above the frost line. Okay, Josiah, we're gonna see how many you can plant in 20 minutes. How many you think? 5. I love it. We've got our rolls, Honeycrisp, Needs to be planted with a Granny Smith, King David, or Arkansas Black.

Arkansas Black.

You don't want to cover the trunk.

That's good.

We're going to cover more than 5 in 20 minutes. There we go, first tree planted! 2 minutes and 45 seconds, we got another one planted. Here, let's put this wood chips around the trees we just planted. Maybe a hair deeper. We need to plant to chop that root. Hey, we're halfway there. 10 minutes. How many have we planted? At least 5. I did not think we were going to plant 10 in 20 minutes. Come on, let's get back to the rest of these trees. Here we go. Faster. If I wasn't chasing a 2-year-old around. But it's the 2-year-old that this is all about, really.

8 more minutes. Okay, there we go. Okay, now I bury it. Okay, you want to help bury? Yeah, put it all in like that.

Well, that was 23 minutes. How many did we get? 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. That's one every 2 minutes.

How's that? Past the thing you guys thought you guys gonna do?

Oh yeah, way past. Whoa, I was gonna be happy with 2. And things were on the up and up for us on the farm, and we got piglets. Oh, look at that! We gotta get them some hay. They're shivering. That one's probably not gonna make it. No, it will. Let's get them fed too so they get distracted. This ant could have brought this pig over for all we know.

I saw it walk over.

We gotta get this one— other one fed, he's gonna bother us. Did we not have any scrap? Put it in 3 buckets so everybody can have even scraps. Here, over here. Let's get these stuff in while we can. Next time we're gonna do 3 buckets with 3 even layers of scrap, then 3 even layers of milk. You don't need to be afraid of the pig while he's eating. That's why we feed them, then do management. They're shivering. This one's still over here. This, this chicken here, I'll hand it to you. Hand you the stringer.

Is she laying down on one?

She's a good mom. She did not lay down on them.

That one's keeping warm.

How many did she have? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. She had 9. Yes, pigs for everyone! Yeah, sure, start putting her in the stanchion. I also worked very hard to train a new heifer to milking. It wasn't easy. But it was a really good experience for me, and I'm glad it happened. And in the end, we were successful. Wow, this didn't end at all how I thought it was going to. There was a struggle, but it wasn't the one I thought it was. I knew that it was going to be a struggle to train her. She's never been milked. This is a new mama. This is a heifer calf. And so the struggle would be time, taming her, training her to get into the stanchion. So we started several weeks in advance. Is she letting you pet her? Dude, we have like 3 weeks. She's gonna have a baby and we won't be able to milk her. Okay, come here. Come to this side. 2 weeks away exactly. Randolph has installed a little stanchion, just zip ties, so it's super temporary. Vanilla, you think you're ready to get in that? You think she'll go? Maybe today. Jenna, what do you think? She thinks she'll go?

I have no idea.

Never been in a stanchion before. You want to call it for today?

No, a couple more tries. I think she can do it. She's getting more greedy. You can tell.

Good first day session. We've gotten further than the last time. Come on, you almost did it. All right, good training session today. I wonder what happens if I do this. Let's just leave it right there. So close. Are you gonna get in there today? Plan B, get a rope halter on her. You gotta first get her a leash on her. Let's get a rope halter, see if she'll calm down and eat a little bit more with this rope halter on her head. Here goes nothing. Uh-oh, she can get out. Too wide. I just gotta get her in in there calm and eating some. I'm not gonna hurt you. You can maybe squeeze these shut, have a snack. There we go. I'm happy about that. Stretching down there when she's eating, come up when she's not. Swell a little bit with milk. That's good. Let her loose and kind of be on her own and let her enjoy herself in it. What do you think about that, Gideon? We trained her. Now tomorrow, will she go on her own without the rope halter? We'll see. Are you gonna go in the stanchion without rope halter today? That's all you gotta do, just walk in. You're safe. Oh look, she got one horn through. It's gonna be real wild when she has a baby. She ain't gonna— she's gonna be more hesitant. She's bagging up and she's got mucus. And just goes to eating like we didn't just have an epic struggle. One week to do day. She's definitely showing signs. Today is the day. Let's give it 6 minutes. Leave that there. I'm gonna get some blocks to raise that up. You gotta stand there and block her. Did you guys see that? She almost went in. Y'all didn't block her last time. Well, see if this will do it.

She did it!

I put it on some blocks so it's not such a— I'm not gonna worry about shutting the gate on her today. Let's get her comfortable putting her head in there. She came out. That's okay. You're gonna get a bunch in there today. Look at that. Maybe I should get the other blocks to make it a little easier. Oh, she's fine. Eventually the blocks need to be taken away, so she's doing it just fine. Vanilla, we made huge headway. One week to go. Her udder's getting big. Look at that. You're gonna be in calf soon. She doesn't know what's coming, or she does. We got mucus hanging off of that. You're gonna be an aunt, honey. 6 days to due date. You're gonna hop right in today. We've got it set up. Get you a taste. There it is. Close this on her. Now come down here, get in, and see if she's gonna let us milk her. Wow, let me do a little bit more every time. I'm gonna keep my hand on her. She's getting used to a hand. She's not kicking me, she's just moving her foot forward. Okay, we're off, we're off. Enough of that udder training today, huh? Hey, oh, stepped on my foot. I'm gonna be out here at an angle. That's Wait till she eats, then I'm gonna brush her udder. Now my hand. Every day gets better. Tomorrow we'll squat. Grabbing her teats. She's holding still. We're gonna be just fine. I think we just do this every day until baby comes. So I'm pretending like I'm milking here. She's letting me. She'll have a frenzy when the baby comes, but at least this will be in her head. One day to due date. You're gonna be on time. You gotta take these due dates with a grain of salt. She didn't even even step this time. She's gonna be just fine. All right, she's trained. Hey, you better get some practice here because we got 3 cows in milk and you're the most likely candidate. Vanilla, 4 days past due. I'm a little surprised you didn't have the baby because it's like 19 degrees out here. Sometimes that's how things go. 6 days overdue. You like doing that job? It's okay. It's okay, you can tell the truth. You like that? You do like that ice cream though that comes out of there.

Yeah.

Oh yeah, her udder's gonna burst. I figured and hoped that she would just give birth without us and we'd come out, we'd see a happy calf who had nursed. 12 days past due date and look what we have here. Look like she just had it, huh? I need to get him up out of the way from this fence. What do you think, darling?

He's so cute, and she's such a good mom.

She's on him. We always go through this.

It's the mother in me.

It's the cowboy in me. The mother in her wants me to help.

He's already like, Mom, stop!

Will you run and get me the rope halter? She's not gonna do it because she's so enamored with the baby. Really? Can you go get more cloth? This guy out of the line of fire. Wow. We're gonna remove one obstacle from nursing. She's sore. She's not used to that. She's a heifer. Back end, it's gonna be colostrum. She's standing very fill for me. That's nice. Probably got a half a gallon right there. Not bad. That's colostrum. The milk comes in in a few days. It's a superfood. We're gonna mix it with the other milk because you'll never know it. So just— I don't know, you'll probably watch for the date. Milk's a little salty, and if you're thinking about it, you'll definitely taste it. The colostrum's a little salty. Now here we are, 48 hours later. She walked in the station herself, and look at that score. Also, it's spring and I'm the apron-wearing permaculture chicken ninja master, and we brought in our annual flux of chicks. Hello! Yes, is it just one package or two? There's, uh, two of them.

I think we sighted Forrest Gump.

Chicks? Turkeys? They want warmth more than they want anything else. We got that going.

Haven't eaten.

They're just living off the mama's egg. See if somebody will find it.

They're pecking.

Going under water. How many times you done this?

Let's see, since we got back from the American Farm Tour, so 5 years. Yeah, 5 or 6 years.

In other words, you don't know, can't count. Here, let's put that out here. One's dead. Yeah, one or two dead. It's one. Pretty good.

I always expect to shut the door and not hear anything because— but then there's this wire mesh right there.

I'm bulletproof, ratproof, skunkproof, mouseproof, mouseproof, snakeproof brooder. It's basically a cage fight in there. Half-inch wire mesh everywhere, tin around the sides, framed roof with half-inch wire mesh.

There's mesh under the tin all the way around.

Yep, there's mesh goes up the side of the wall. It's up high for— to accommodate the deep bedding. It's about 18 inches up high. You step over into this one, the deep bedding's lower. You probably only have to switch it out maybe every 2 years, add a little bedding in each time. The microbial life in the bedding is a heat, but it's also a sanitizer.

Look at this one, it's so cute!

You like the gray one?

Yeah, there aren't— there's only one gray one.

Then one of the most exciting yet stressful things happened. We moved out of our house, our beloved holler house of 20 years. We moved across the street to a small guest cabin on the farm so that we could get ready for our ultimate homestead house remodel. Back, we got to get every single thing out of this house. We have 5 working days. Can we do it? I don't know, including all this. What are we going to do with all these freezers? Trundle bed's going out for sale, and we have plenty of distractions—

squirrel—

appointments this afternoon. I said, Mom, what would make us feel good if we got done in an hour and a half today? Fifth of the way done. We're going to tackle your room.

How you feeling about it, Lily? Glad we got rid of some of stuff we did.

We've got a pile here we really need to deal with. I'll call it Darcy style. You don't clean out a room and make a pile and then not deal with the pile right away. Hey, wouldn't it be easier just to be minimalist? Mom can't even come in here, it's so overwhelming. So we got to get it to a spot where she can come in. Those boxes overflowing need to be condensed down to more boxes. We got it to where you could come in here, Beck, right? You feeling overwhelmed? It's a very overwhelming I'm going after these dreaded freezers. They've got to go somewhere. I don't know where, but we should start by going through them. Perhaps the market pigs will be happy today. Let's go ahead and render this pig fat. Put the ice packs right here into here. He wants to help.

I'll get this one.

Fridge freezer combo cleared up. The movers will move empty fridges and freezers. Didn't throw that Put those styrofoam coolers down, please. This one's dispersed over there and over there. Also get some count on chickens. We've got about 100. Call the Inquirer, folks. The roads are down to one chest freezer and 1, 2, 3. Let's get this mess cleaned up and we'll call it a day.

Ta-da!

Feeling good. Becky, one day to moving out. I feel really sad about it. Oh, not sad.

Because this has like been our home for 20+ years.

Is your room packed and ready to go?

Yeah, except for some clothes I'm going to wear.

What about y'all? Y'all need some work.

We need a lot of work.

Y'all work on this. We got all these coats. It's getting real. There's an echo in here. Not one thing on the shelf. Let's hit this area while we're doing shoes, my man. I like how this feels. Okay, so this feels done and ready to go. This is feeling good. You're getting there, babe. We got about 3 hours. It is moving day. We are going out of the Holler house and into the cabin, getting ready for this remodel. We could seal these boxes if you need us to. This all goes to the cabin. You put in specific rooms, like, do you need somebody over there showing you where to put stuff. So it doesn't need to go to specific rooms? It would help. Okay, first to go there one time to show us what room is what. Okay, plan is taking the couches or taking the furniture so all these boxes don't get in the way over there. That's pretty smart. You guys are very nice, big, strong Arnold Schwarzenegger kind of guys. This is good. You back on the electric bike? How many kids get to do that, Josiah? Going back to your bedroom. Yeah, like, what is that? That's awesome, man. That is sick. Home sweet home. It's a bit of a downsize. We've been in smaller since the bus and the Great American Farm Tour. Our stove's coming over, our fridge is going to replace this one. I believe we're putting another fridge right there. Somehow we've got to fit in our dining room kitchen stuff. Rebecca had this brought over, stainless steel table for extension of counter space. This is all the counter space that's in this thing. Right here. Yep. You know where that fridge is going? Because we'll swap. I'm not sure. I'm not sure where it's at.

We're gonna have to move the table again.

And where would you like the table? Yeah, whatever you like.

Thank you so much.

There we go. All right. Well, that's different, isn't it, guys? A little bit of stuff left here. The true test is, can you get a dirt bike in here? Really? Really? Is it fun?

Yeah.

Are we rednecks or what? If we don't become minimalists after this, I swear we're going to become minimalists. Nothing like moving to motivate you to get rid of junk. This isn't as bad as I imagined. Kind of cozy over here. Having our stuff here makes it feel more like our place, and it's real now. We're remodeling, honey, because we ain't moving this stuff back in. Without an immaculate homestead house. Just moved in yesterday. You can see it's a mess. We're just realizing how extra we are. Like this table, it was roomy over at the Holler House. That's where we're remodeling. Lily is hating on that fridge. Mom had a late night thought: move the fridge over here, move the shelves over there, get a smaller table. This table's a little extra with its width. Somebody left the fridge open. Yes, we need two fridges. We'd hope hoped to put this in here and open it this way, but this counter gets in the way. The animals don't care that we move. We gotta go. One of the biggest things, this tub. This tub is for children, and you can take a shower. Rebecca took a bath this morning and her legs were covered. That was it. This is good room for a freezer. The master closet is amazing.

Maybe there should be less space in there and more space in the tub.

And yeah, there could be some redesign for sure. Rebecca is working on seeing if she can't get a deeper tub. Tubs are crucial for us for our Epsom salt bath. I bet you the problem is going to be is there's only so much width here. We are eating outside. It's sunny and lack of space in here. End of day. You guys want a tour? It's picked up. I love books in the living room because I love books. We got a nice view of the holler though, and the garden and the chicken. Is it as bad as you thought? Worse? Uh, yeah, it's worse. Oh no. In what ways?

So tiny.

It is, isn't it? Yeah, it's not even worse than that bus, huh? Of course you didn't, you didn't really like living in the bus, did you? This is our home now. Our eggs are over here. Now this is the kicker. She got the shelf over here.

It's a little tricky.

Say you want that bowl, you kind of just have to—

it's definitely a little harder to deal with it, but in the long run it's much nicer.

Hey, the Legos have revived! They cleaned out their Lego room and I'm so happy to see them playing Legos. You got a tractor? What are you building, Jonah?

This thing.

How you feeling, you and your hip?

Good.

Let's show them your back.

You got cuts.

Gideon's into it. He came and asked me if he could buy some more Legos today. I'm thinking, you can't walk in your room because of your Legos. No way. And look at this tidy room, actually tidy. I'm not going to show you my room, it's still, it's still a work in progress. And honestly, my worst Rebecca's fear of coming over here is not coming true, Rebecca. It's bright in here thanks to you, Ryden, Randolph, ingenuity.

We have a lot more light, especially in the afternoon because that's—

we're getting the sun setting. Tonight we feed beef ribs, onions, apples, old southern collards, bacon, pork ribs, Boston butt, and baked beans. I don't know what got into us the day after we moved. Uh, that's a feast. Hey, our first dinner together inside the cabin. It has begun. The holler house is never going to be the same. This is the point of no return. Gideon, you want to go get our thingamajig? Good morning, Randolph. Good morning. Rebecca's got a big old list for you. Randolph is on remove light duty. We should probably get some shots of this before Generally, this is getting taken down to its bones, and we've already made big headway on ceiling. Come on, if you won't go get it, I'll go with you. Got our crowbar. You start right here. You just gotta get one going and then you'll— there you go. You're into this, huh? Josiah, you get to help tear up your home and get in trouble. Board ceiling off now. How about let's do the trim next? Now he's going at the popcorn ceiling. I don't know if we can be in here. Do we even have masks? Randolph to the rescue. He had some masks. Got your mask on? Watched a YouTube video on this. I'm not sure if it's going to help as much, but you get your hands in there. And then when you don't have a hand spot, make one with your hand. I would like to wear glasses, but I can't wear a mask and glasses. Oh yeah, it's different. Literally, there's no turning back, babe. Look at this. Let's get a cabinet out. What do you think, babe?

I don't know.

Hey, there's no turning back now. What are you scared of?

What happens if we uncover something that we can't fix?

He's looking diligently. You guys are having too much fun. How much fun was that? You getting with it, buddy?

Yeah.

Oh my, got the big guns now. He's having too much fun. You having the most fun?

Probably.

We got a job for Josiah. We're gonna push it to the deck. I'll stop you, okay? We got the gate open. We can just throw it all in there. Dean, you've been working all day. Good job, buddy. You too, bud. I think Randolph's prepping our tomorrow. They're going to want to rip this off tomorrow. Well, we'll have her ready. Okay, good deal. This one will be fun. You'll be able to knock a hole in that. What's the plan, Randolph? Let's get this out of here. Get rid of the floating shells. Day 2. Do demo. You want to go at that wall now, boys? This is your chance. There you go. Oh, you got the big sledgehammer. Bit tougher than I thought, but we're making headway. There you go, Gideon. All right, I got to go, uh, separate. Look at this. Would y'all look at this? That's so much better. Wow, that's opening it up a lot. There's nothing like moving to make you a minimalist. Look at the progress we've made so far. I just walked from the kitchen to the bathroom to Lily's room. You guys see it though? Can you see that? This is going to be really open. Get this one out to get that one out. I know, that's, that's the story of the game in here. How big! Is there an echo? Echo? Well, what do you think Boots would say about this, Rebecca?

I don't know, he'd probably think we were crazy.

Yeah, he'd definitely think we're crazy.

I don't think he would— I don't think he would approve.

When it rains, it storms. We were in for several more setbacks, one major one being Grandma's ALS diagnosis. Grandma and Grandpa have not been with us the last couple of weeks because Grandma is in an intense 2-3 week quarantine.

Yeah.

For treatment for ALS.

Bulbar onset ALS.

For people that don't know, tell them what the world that is. That's serious.

ALS is Lou Gehrig's disease, and ALS stands for something that I cannot pronounce. It is a motor neuron disease, and it Basically, the motor neurons are dying in her brain. It started with her tongue, so that's the bulbar onset portion of ALS. And so it started with back in September of 2021. She was like, my tongue just feels like it's big. It feels like I can't enunciate. It feels like I'm having a hard time talking. I I, at the time, did not hear a difference. Like, I was like, you know, oh, I didn't know what it was. She went to several doctors in our area and they couldn't say anything.

A dentist finally figured it out, didn't he?

Yeah, so she did—

It just kept getting worse.

Right, so it just kept progressing slowly, very slowly. Mom said that when she was telling him about her problems, like, he went white. He was like, like, you need to see a neurologist. At that same time, my mom was also getting in with an ear, nose, and throat doctor because the primary care physicians weren't listening. The ear, nose, and throat doctor did an MRI, maybe a CAT scan, I can't remember. She had a bunch of testing done. She had blood work done, a brain scan done. It was conclusive that it was not MS. They ended up referring her to a local neurologist. That local neurologist did an EMG and said that he thought that it was ALS, but he wanted her to go and see an ALS neurologist, like a specialist. So it all started in September. This is now like March of 2022, so like a year ago. And so then we were But she's still physically able. Yeah, so she is.

Still in her mouth. And a lot of people are telling us that's crazy because, uh, this is usually— usually when ALS gets to your mouth, it's a very quick onset. Very fast.

It's very quick.

Um, and it hasn't been.

Correct. So my mom's is very slow progressing, and it's, you know, and it's been going on for a while. Like, right now in April of 2023, 3, it's been 20 months that she has had this and it's progressed but not really. Like, she doesn't have a hard time swallowing. She doesn't have a hard time breathing. Like, she doesn't have any of anything else really to do with ALS-like symptoms. So it's super slow. This is not an aggressive form at all.

And you remember that mama pig that gave birth to those piglets? Yeah, she died when they were 2, just 2 weeks old. He died overnight. How old are those piglets?

2 weeks.

That's our only hope. Were they eating any grain, Josiah?

I don't know.

Did that one just eat?

Yeah, but they can't survive on just grain.

Maybe they can. They might be just old enough. Are they getting anything? So sad. Gave them some skim milk. They probably need whole milk. I don't think they're getting anything. She looks sore from them scratching her, trying to get something. I doubt they know how to use this nipple water. And you're gonna see if that bottle works, and if it does You're gonna get more bottles? I hope somebody has bottles. They do.

They have Tractor Supply.

I think that bucket is the best idea.

She still had placenta stuff in her. Bleh! Oh my barf. Mommy, you want this? We've, we've counted all. Come on.

That's 2.

Come on, it's okay, baby. Come on, nurse it. Come on. We'll make it through, okay?

I came around the corner and hit the greenhouse handle. They're not nursing. I mean, they're too wild. I mean, we haven't handled them. They're little piglets. Probably train them to if we have to, but we think they'll get hungry enough that they do figure it out and drink out of that pan. Oh my word, they're doing it! Heck yes! They look fat and happy. We talked to Jordan Green, my coach mentor. Definitely encourage you guys to check him out. Farm Builder— hey, I'm trying to plug somebody here. Farm Builder on YouTube. He has an amazing farm, pig farm, up in Virginia. I don't know why I turned the camera so you can see her cough. He thought, okay, we had a piece of the placenta, she probably then had sepsis. Pigs are beasts. You don't know their sick until they're dead. If you do know they're sick, they're sick. She didn't show any signs. She was out and about yesterday. And furthermore, I got a debilitating back injury.

Justin had extreme pain. So the other nights we were able to still use the house down there. We were still able to use our bathtub, but they've gotten far enough into the demo that it's not usable any longer. I realized that he needs to take a bath, so we're gonna rig up a hot tub with our, um, trough, the one that we take the ice baths in, and also with, um, the pig scalding setup. I really feel like an Epsom salt bath is going to be the key to him not freaking out. Like, he was like so much in pain, like I've never seen it. Clean. I have it set up here so he can step into it. Should be good.

We've done it!

All the kids and I have gotten this together for Justin so that he can have a redneck hot tub. Accelerate healing and feel better in the long run. We have a 100— 100-gallon barrel up there with a fire underneath it, then siphon it down here into the stock tank. We have our 10x10 tent over it to keep the cold rain out of it. Jonah has nicely put out a bath mat. That is it. Now we just wait for our water to heat. When we fill up the hot have— we're gonna go ahead and fill up the barrel again so we can have another soak this evening.

Is it bearable?

Oh wow, are you okay?

It's so hot.

It's so hot.

This is wood fire heat.

I know, it feels so good. We have made it. 20 minutes. It's so hot.

The question is, can I, I walk I know.

How are you doing?

I feel like that's nature's pain meds.

This was the one thing that we didn't have last night. How is it?

Still in pain, but that does it. That helps. What do you think? Uh, it's hot.

Hot.

You're gonna be able to do it? I think so.

I think it feels really good.

You're gonna do it for 20 minutes?

Probably for longer.

I've been off chores 3 days. Thank God for these kids. I think I'm well enough to at least get on Sally and just check up on things. Jonah's complaining of shoulder pain. I want to say this about the farm. It's the life of us and it's the death of us.

You're not the death, the pain of us.

Well, because it's killing me. It's killing me. It was on the farm I got injured. You don't think so?

Well, yes, I do think that, but I also think that you didn't slow down when your body said slow down. You didn't have to move furniture, demo, or—

actually, I think it was the training that— the workout that actually exasperated the most. And that's the life and the death of me, perhaps. Did it?

I don't know how. It was just a few water. It worked.

All right, well, it happens. She ate yesterday.

Yesterday she was just fine. Yesterday—

are you okay?

Yeah.

Lily's little rabbit project has come to an official end. She had a good run, 2 years. And then if that wasn't enough, we got bad news about Jonah's hip. This is a normal hip right here. You recognize that? This is Jonah's hip. No femoral head. It's completely Utterly collapsed. Good hip, bad hip. I took Jonah on April 17th to his checkup with his surgeon, and she ended up just referring us out to a doctor in Charlotte and said we'd be getting a phone call. But, uh, and we requested records.

Yes, we requested them.

We got photos immediately. We got the images, and we requested records.

I am sad because I feel like maybe we could have if we would have known that this was happening so much.

Yeah.

Like, I mean, 2020 is always very hindsight, you know, like you can always see everything.

There are ways to get blood flow going to things like this before they die, right?

Yeah, but how would I have known about any of this? You know what I mean? Like—

It makes me wonder if they even knew that it was gonna die so fast.

In one of the medical records I was reading, it did say that he has AVN, or he's going to have AVN.

What's AVN?

Which is avascular necrosis.

And that's where the ball—

That's where the femoral head—

of the top of the femoral head, which is the top of the hip. Well, the femoral head is the ball. Oh, okay.

It, um— well, so we learned on Friday that he lost the blood supply from the top and from the bottom. Yeah, because of the—

you can be okay with losing the one from the top. It actually happens over time anyway.

Correct.

But the bottom one, there's no chance. Yeah, since that's bone on bone, there's really nothing he's going to be able to do about that gait until we figure something out. Does it hurt to walk? Does it hurt right now?

Not really. It hurt to stand sometimes, but if I cross my leg like that, it's more comfortable because it takes the bone pressure off.

Yeah, show me what's happening.

So this—

that's not the femoral head. This is the femoral head, half of it, right?

No, that's the whole thing. I mean, I don't know if that's supposed to be half of it, but this is— so he—

this— where's the growth plate on this thing?

Well, it's not—

it's probably an adult, but the growth plates say here. What's only in the top? That's gone.

So it's like, right, it's collapsed.

We knew right away, didn't we? She's a straight shooter.

Yeah.

She's not—

Appreciate that.

Snake oil salesman. Yeah. She just said, yeah, you're gonna have to have total hip replacement.

Straight up total hip replacement, which, you know, I think it's—

And that's coming from a non-surgeon.

Yeah. Well, and our chiropractor knows her and said that she'll either say you need to have surgery or she can help you, you know.

Is this where we're meeting?

No, we're going to the appointment. We're going to their office.

We just got a minute into the waiting room. Right on time. His record's in. Mom didn't think you would ever change his shoes again.

No, here I am.

What do you hope they say?

I don't know. I don't know what I want. I want him—

scheduled him for 2 weeks.

I want him to be restored. That's what I want, but I don't know what that looks like.

You want his youth back?

Yeah, I want him to be able to run and jump and play and swim and squat and do things that normal 15-year-olds do.

I gotta get this on record. What did you just say?

I can't wait to milk him comfortably.

Oh, okay, we have it on record, folks. She can't, she can't help us.

Well, she does have an option called fusion.

She did say she could do a fusion, but she wouldn't necessarily recommend it.

She wants us to talk to the joint replacement doctor.

That's all he does.

He's really good at it. He's not pediatric, he's adult, and, um, if we fusion to him. He will not have range of motion, but he will not have—

but no pain. You didn't like the fusion option.

Why not? I just don't like that idea.

Just got checked in with the nurse. You might see 2 doctors before you see the main doctor. Did I hear that right?

Yes, there's other doctors that may come in.

You're getting all the love today.

It's not what I want.

What do you want?

To be healed. Just say it again.

First doctor's about to come in.

If we look at this side, because of all the surgery and the collapse, he doesn't have any more proximal femur, right? And this is effectively closed. Yeah, like there's, there's no gap there. No. And like for this part, it's— I mean, it's fused right here, so maybe you can have a little bit of growth here.

And then we wouldn't—

like, the implant we would cut and then put down here. So if he had any more growth right here, like, it wouldn't mess it up. No. Okay.

That was Jonah's x-ray. Uh, now she's going to show us digitally what a hip replacement looks like.

Is that— is that going to be bigger, that part that connects to my leg? And yeah, so look over here. Yeah, it's gonna— it'll kind of be like that. It's like, if it's that little, that's— he's like, I'm gonna bend that.

No, no, no, no.

Yeah, yeah, it has a real good—

what do you guys think?

Um, getting cut makes me nervous because— well, so she talks about doing like— that he needs to make sure that if he gets cut anywhere, he needs to keep it clean and not allow bacteria to like—

that's the big risk.

Yeah, you can go to the hip. Up and then create an issue. So that's something I think we're just gonna—

and he'll probably wear it out, not outgrow it, by the time he's 40-ish.

Yeah, but she was talking about they have good materials, and so I'm like, all right, I feel really confident about it.

You cannot distance run, she said. How do you feel about that? Were you ever gonna run a marathon? That's a good excuse to not ever have to do that.

Which I want to run a, uh, try a half Ironman or whatever.

She said you could have fun sports. She said you could have fun like soccer but not competitive. So what's your reaction to that, guys?

Well, I mean, I just, I think my biggest concern is like infection.

Oh yeah, she said the danger is you getting an infection, any kind.

Well, no.

Yeah. I'm gonna not. So is it the end of the world to wear chaps?

No, I like chaps. Oh no, I feel a lot better after seeing the doctor. Yeah. Good.

He's gonna be able to help you.

I had very kind fears.

What were your fears?

Well, I guess muscle atrophy. I wasn't even worried about infection, which is what I guess I should be worried about.

Long story short, he's gonna have to have a total hip replacement. And we've been waiting on the call to schedule. And it looks like that's happening right now. It said, it might have been a couple of weeks ago, that this was gonna be 8 weeks. So I guess we're, I guess they're right on because we're like 5 weeks out.

So we're just short of 8 weeks.

He will be excited to be able to walk normally again. They say he won't be able, he won't have to have another surgery because he's young, he's growing, he's gonna wear it out. Was that what I thought it was?

July 7th.

July 7th.

And she said if we couldn't do July 7th, it was gonna be—

oh, we're making it happen late August.

No, no, no, we can make it.

We can still have summer. We could still have summer. I know, you'll get August, August, September. September's warm too.

We'll be able to go camping.

And then October camping.

How you feeling? Very nervous now because now it's still Despite all these setbacks, we continued.

And I wish I could tell you it was out of some heroic act, but it comes from more of a place at this point of we have to. There's no other option since we are doing this for our health and you can simply not buy this quality of food. We have to do this rain or shine. These guys are overdue, and then these guys are overdue. This look all ratty-patty in here, man. They need to get cleaned up. The pasture. They are overdue a move and they're running out of room in that brooder and getting sort of nasty. We've got to get them out before people get sick or fail to thrive. Good boy, you driving a stake? Keep going, keep going. Oh, I wouldn't hold it while you Yeah, I wouldn't hold it either.

Why, Henry? Henry, no, you can't! What if you miss and hit your pants?

There you go, nice! Oh, you bent it over.

Let him do the end.

You spread it, okay? So 2 troughs hold 1 full bucket. Hey, best day of your lives, birds! Gotta get the tea birds out. Well, thanks Henry for putting shavings right there. Hey, he's doing something. Who cares? As long as he's doing something, even if it's wrong, that's what counts. Hopefully the turkeys aren't too big for this. What are you doing with that? Let's take it to the metal stall. Set it down. Look who came to help! Although I don't know how much help she'll be because he wants me as soon as you come out. He's nuts for you. Look at this clover and alfalfa! Whoa, let's put the turkeys out, Henry!

Alfalfa?

No, it's just we have alfalfa planted in there. I was wanting to put them out right here, but now I'm thinking we really need— hold on, no, no, I wasn't gonna do it yet. Shut it. I'm thinking we need to get them some water and some feed right there, buddy. Okay, cross our fingers that they stay. Oh look, they're eating that. They like the alfalfa bed. I figured the tall grass will help them be protected from aerial predators. They're still kind of little, certainly not going to get got by a crow, probably not by a hawk. It's going to start Tube Man. They have enough chicken sense to run away from Tube Man. Get in, get in, let it fly. We've been losing about 15% in the field. I'm kind of wondering if 2-man is gonna help prevent that. Look how they've already mashed the grass down. That's the sea monsters. What's going on? We also need to check the T-birds to see if they're still in. What's going on? They're out and about. I think I'll leave them on for an hour. You watch over them. Watch over them. Sea monsters seem to be okay, albeit a little stressed. Let's see what's going on with the turkeys. Everybody's here. 10, 11, 12, 13, 14.

Yes!

And everybody's perched on the turkey shawl. Turkeys don't need walls, they don't need a solid roof, they don't mind the rain. Sure, it's hitting good. It'll keep predators from coming into the side. The roof keeps air predators away. The net keeps land predators away. We have this pond, a little janky right now, but could be absolutely incredible. Burn the brush, make a beach, smooth out the side, fix the drain pipe, have an overflow, clean up where the silt went, plant some raspberries, build a dock, install gravity-fed drinking water from our spring higher up above.

Get a water slide.

Get a water slide. We got a vision. We're gonna turn this janky pond into a farmer's paradise. First, drainage pipe. Unfortunately, that pipe busted. It's draining through the crack at the bottom, and I'm not sure we can fix that. I think we have to just get a whole new single wall and dig our hole area. I have to dig back like 6 feet, but hold on, let me, let me cut that off first and drain it some more. Yeah, and water's coming through it. Yeah, let's just drain it real good and see where we've drained, drained down like we put already. I'm thinking if we cut this, we can, we can free up the mini excavator. And he can start digging. Gotta let it drain a little bit or it's gonna be too wet for the saw. There we go. Get the stick out. That's good. You'll get the tractor toy when you Dump it out, I guess. No, don't dam that up yet. Not yet, not yet, not yet. Keep letting it drain. I feel like we need to get the area to where we can get in there and cut it and put our joint on. Yeah, just dig out enough. Dig all the way to the edge. Dig from here all the way up to the edge so that we can replace the pipe, and then we'll have a dam. We're damming it up right there. Okay, y'all ready for this? We're gonna have to move fast. We're gonna have to dam it up, cut the pipe. Yes, I have zip ties for it. Once we dam it up, we have only so much time to cut it and replace it. We got our pipe over here. I think we're successful. At first I thought I was gonna have to replace that whole line, which would have cost about $2,000. So we just saved ourselves mucho dinero. This is gonna cost $2,000.

Wow.

A new line, and that's not even counting digging up the trench right here. There's clay right here. Do that clay on it first, on the joint. The baby driving?

He does.

That's probably good. Tie it to the end and then we'll lift that pipe up. Oh, there you're getting it. You know how to swim?

I do.

It's just a little water going through that, Johnna. Sorry, that's good. No, no, have you guys tested it? See if it's at the end?

I don't believe water's going through that. I have no idea.

Don't ask me.

I'd say that's good.

That'll get it spread, guys. Let's do it. Every kid likes this job. We're about to seed this pasture. It's good, it's rained a little bit, the seeds will take. Here we ended up leaning this against the bank. That's just what it wanted to do. I don't think it'll hurt. Maybe the water starts draining there, it might start tearing away at the bank, but we'll see. I hesitate to cut it because if you cut it too much, there's no adding. Problem is We have 1-inch leftover pipe. I guess it just got buried in the silt. How are we going to get it out? Straps were not staying on. I got these, I don't know, tool hangers. See if we can't screw in there and have something to grip to. I need a drill for pilot holes, guys. Pretty jerry, but it works. Hopefully it's all one piece. Looks like it is. Drill holes all up in the bottom and all up in the sides. Straight up chicken guts. So is that weird to feed chicken chicken guts? You can do it. Maybe, maybe it's weird. Weird because it's chicken eating chicken. Here's some piglets. I don't want to fill the bucket this much. You spoiled. They're used to their ice cream all the time. Guts in there. So good. Yeah, look at the juice come out. Yeah, chicken gut juice. So you could do this with guts, you could do this with roadkill. Nick has done this with squirrels, lots of squirrels. Why'd you do it with squirrels? For chickens? Because there's squirrels at the farm. I've probably killed 200 squirrels and there's like— hasn't made a dent. Has to be during the growing season. Has to be when you have flies, because what's going to happen is the flies are going to go in there, lay their maggots. We got holes big enough for flies. Oh, you're talking to me? Yeah, to get in there later. Flies get into everything. We want the flies to be able to get in, I think. And the lid, a little cracked. The last thing we want is to have that in there rotting and stinking, and the flies can't get in there and lay their larvae. We've just rigged up a T-post. Past, I've done sort of a T-frame teepee, like 3 prongs of sticks, but I feel like a T-post works just fine. Flies will go in there, they'll lay their larvae, larva turns into maggot, they'll follow the light to get out, and we'll have a bare spot here because the chickens will quickly figure it out. We forgot wood chips. Hoping the wood— I hope you're right, Nick, and the wood chips absorb the smell a little bit. Yeah, because when there's so much moisture in there, a lot of times maggots will drown. So this adds surface area for them to climb on. Nice. Day 2, maggot dispenser. It is raining, so imagine that's affecting protecting our fly population. We do have one fly there, some flies in there. That's good. And they're laying their larva. We'll see maggots. Oh, baby maggots! Baby maggots mucho! They'll start searching out this light as they get bigger and they'll come falling out. Maggots are on top of the guts up here. Are they really going to crawl down? I feel like they're going to want to crawl up. Flies are probably 100% getting through the top. These holes could be bigger, keeping the rain out. Bigger holes, bigger flies. Later in the day, look at all the fly activity. I don't know if they're after the flies or if maggots are actually falling.

You can see all the maggots. See those things coming out? They're all just moving. Papa, the problem is it's too high for them.

They're getting something. They're getting maggots. There's maggots on the side of the bucket. Maggots are just pouring out. Dude, I need to lower this down. See them? They're just swarming out.

Now they'll be swarming around it.

Look at that.

Stinks.

They're just falling out by the chunks, and these chickens are having a heyday. But my theory was wrong. The maggots are having no problem getting out the lower end. And while the farm was cranking, we got the remodel going. The horse loggers are here scouting. We're looking for maple hardwood floors and locust decking. Can you imagine locust decking? That's going to be a beast. We'll definitely take this one, and we can feel good about it because we we know it's not going to get any better. It's just going to fall down. That's right. Yeah. And all we need is one horse. He's strong enough to pull them big trees. Yeah, because we're going mostly downhill. Oh, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. And we're not going to use— because we're pulling flooring, we're not pulling big timbers like we talked about doing in the beginning with the big pine. Yeah. So we can use a single horse to pull short logs down a short distance to the skid steer. He just said— he just said back, and Copper comes out. Good Lord. I told you he'd make, uh, Captain your riding horse look like a little horse. Yeah, look like a pony. Lily, grab a brush. He said you could help her. Did you learn how to approach him like that, Lily? Yeah, she knows he's going to be a little nervous. He's going to pick his hooves next, make sure there's no rocks. So see these raised things here? That's called, uh, Borium. Okay, another trade name is Drill-Tec, but that gives them a little extra traction. I have to ask them to pull a heavy load. A little spot right here, you can get some rocks lodged in there, which will give you some problems. That's what they did before tractors. You didn't just come out here and turn a MT. Now the good thing about this horse over a tractor is its fuel's right here. Probably takes a lot of fuel, doesn't it? Called a trace, and this is what we're going to hook to the chain, which then hooks to a single tree, which then hooks to whatever you're pulling. Got a blinder, huh? Are these how you're driving him? Yeah, this is how I communicate left, right.

Wow.

Go, stop. Look at this. How you holding up, Copper? 3 logs down. 3 logs down. Yep. Are you able to keep up with the horse? Oh yeah. No way we'd get the track loader up in here. The horse has the advantage cuz it can go in narrow spot. It's a huge log. Horse pulls it like it's nothing. And give Copper a little break while they work up a tree. Is that dogwood a good hitching post for you? Yeah. Lily, you want to take water down to the horse? Oh, Lily, you're gonna have a friend. She said that's how you make a friend with a horse. Give him a snack. He figures it out even with the bridle on, huh? Yeah, they're pretty smart. Are you afraid it's gonna— he's gonna bite you? There you go. Oh my word, the construction crew is here! 6:30 in the morning they showed up. We got to take off the roof to the holler house to bring it up to code, and that starts today. While we're at it, we might as well raise it 2 feet and get more light into the house through bigger windows. Very slippery. Look at this. You must have the sun— you must have the skylight. The skylight's gone. Plastic down because this roof is gonna go, and we're in a temperate rainforest. The guys have the Henry cart up on the roof. That'll do it. Pulling from one end to the next. Looking good. Oh my gosh, our house is going to be completely exposed after today. They're right above us. Well, you got the light in here now, Beck. It is completely gutted.

This is small.

Weird to be in our house looking up at the sky. Porch is half gone too, and this house is going to be off off the charts. No roof. Our roof is gone.

Go see her.

Go see Mama. Mama's coming. They're gonna drop this top frame. They're about to drop this top frame. No. And believe it or not, while things were on the up and up. Another hiccup. Okay, she just kicked me good. She kicked me in the nose. My freaking nose is broken. Is that swelling or is that a bone? If that wasn't a reminder why you're leaving, I don't know what is. I got kicked in the face and all that's going on I may be going to the hospital to get my nose freaking straightened out. That could have been my teeth, that could have been my jaw that I just had worked on, it could have been my other teeth. I could have just got my teeth busted out. Okay, can you take the chores from here before I go to Mom? I kind of feel like it's maybe crooked right there. It doesn't hurt like crazy. Wouldn't it hurt like crazy if I broke my nose? Uh, I think Flossie broke my nose. She kicked me in the face. Oh my God, doesn't it look like this is going this way and it should be over there?

Look at it. Oh shoot, this just keeps getting so gross. I'm so sorry.

I feel like I'm gonna vomit. What does it say?

I just feel like I'm gonna vomit because I can't look at you.

Just so glad this wasn't the kids. It's gonna be some expensive milk. Certainly be a day where I would wonder, why are we doing this? I don't ask that because we can't get raw milk where we are. We want it, we gotta want it. We gotta get our nose broken every once in a while. Well, pretty good. I've been milking for 10-ish years, haven't broken anything yet.

One of the nurses, you'll take a seat right here.

Well, broke my nose. How'd you do that? A cow kicked me when I was milking.

A cow? When did that happen?

You don't get too many of those, do you?

No. They will call you for the x-ray shortly. Okay.

Okay? Thank you. It's pretty messed up in there. Waiting on the x-ray. But I can look at it now.

It's really bad.

They called me back to the CAT scan. And now I guess we're just gonna wait on the doctor.

I got the x-ray back.

Yeah.

There is a fracture to the nose bone. But it's not something that we would reduce in the emergency room.

Okay.

I know there's all those movies where the doc comes in and like clicks it back in place. Typically the body once the swelling goes down, the nose bones go back to where they need to go.

Heck yeah.

But sometimes it doesn't happen right away, and sometimes it does need evaluation by an ear, nose, and throat doctor. But they don't even want to see you until the swelling goes down in a week's time.

Okay, well, that's kind of unbelievable, isn't it? I gotta walk around with a crooked nose, but it kind of makes sense. You gotta wait till the swelling gets down so they can see it. Hopefully you still love me. You gotta look at this.

Oh, I don't know if I can look at it just because it looks so awful. It looks so—

here you go, but it is an ear, nose, and throat doctor. You know, it's a big mistake. You know, she had been a moment without being milked, she got filled up on that alfalfa, uh, she wasn't hungry for it, she was done. Oh, why?

Because when Justine went to milk her, she had—

yeah, he had given her all the alfalfa. And then here I come. It would have been a big pain to get the stanchion up there. Really, I should have just— I bet you just— you know, what's weird is she didn't cook me right away. Like, normally it's kicking on the onset, not after I've been milking a while. Hindsight's 20/20. I should have just let her have her calf, but you just don't know. But then things started to look better for us. All right, cheeks and cheeks.

Nice hair. He does. I hate that. I know, honey. Pinch, pinch, pinch. This is the lidocaine. Little pinch and a bee sting. Pinch, pinch, pinch, bee sting, bee sting, bee sting. I'm sorry, that's the worst of it.

Rub it, rub it, rub it.

That's why I— What is that doing? Lidocaine. It's numbing it up. That's the numbing. Oh, I can feel that in my hand already. This is the beginning of you walking and running and swimming and hiking and riding your bike and all the fun things that you haven't been able to do. So when you get scared, just remember that. This is the beginning of that. Just want to let you know that we just got through the surgery with Jonah a few minutes ago. Okay, great. Thank you so much.

He did it in less than an hour?

No, no, it just started.

Oh, just started?

Yes.

Oh my gosh.

There's just a lot of prep. It's not like you take him back.

What happened?

I just got a text saying that procedure is progressing. It's been an hour since they started. Hey babe, how are you doing? My hips feel different. It feels different? That's good. It's the most painful one. Yeah, did that medicine help you at all? Sort of.

You can tell you can already move it? You barely moved it. You couldn't do that before? You couldn't do that right there? Tylenol's kicking in. Why, were you in pain? Yeah, those muscles and stuff still work. Oh yeah, it was major.

Well, I mean, you got a whole new total hip. So bring it all the way up and hold, and then lower it down. Feel how it's really working your quads there.

Is that a new movement for you, Jonah?

No, he's done that one before.

He's done all these.

He did them in PT the first time.

It's the next day, officially day 1. They count surgery day as day 0. Well, you're still with us. Alive. Well, I don't know. Are you well? He's hurting pretty bad.

What's wrong, bud? His leg. His— the whole leg hurts.

Yeah.

I mean, obviously they replaced a joint.

You didn't even sleep too well last night. Needed some pain medicine 2 hours before it was due. Last night, what was the pain level, 0 to 10?

6, 7.

Whoa.

They want it to be like under 4.

Guys, take the front of this deep bedding system off, okay? Yep. So that we can get in there. Then Josiah is going to get in there with the Mini X and stir this up. Give me one huge pile, Josiah. Then we're gonna put fence up along this, and we'll be able to bring the, the Chickshaw Mini Me here, or the Chickshaw 5.0. And we're gonna put chickens on, make— helping us make this compost. Okay, so y'all's job this morning is to get this side off.

We're gonna flip the compost.

Oh my gosh, that's 6.5 feet tall! That's a 6.5 feet tall compost. I think that'll get warm. Is it warm? We need to wet it down. Water it until you think you've just absolutely drowned it and can't take no more water and then double that. Hopefully it didn't already sort of ignite when the sheep were on it and we can get this ignited. It's got sheep manure, it's mostly spent hay, there's some wood chips, and there's pig manure in there. No, no, no. Okay, that's lower. Put it— if you're gonna just leave it, put it up high. We're gonna put a net on top of this. We'll have to because you're right, they're gonna jump up on that and jump out. Say goodbye to the this ruggedly handsome crooked nose.

I'll be glad when it's back straight.

Hopefully they can get it straight.

I think they will.

Hopefully it doesn't hurt too bad when I wake up.

That's my big concern.

Damn, you sound pretty good. Did they already give me that? Yeah, they did. Okay, they said I wouldn't be worried about that. All right, just visit with the anesthesiologist. This is probably it. Next time you'll see me, I'll probably be more like— we'll see.

She wants something. No, no.

Okay, so do be careful because if you knock it, it's gonna pop back out of place.

Oh gosh, yes, be careful. He was like, no roughness the other day. Yeah, and I was like, stop.

Yeah, you don't want to get a hit in your head by that or anything.

This is a very small bed. It is. It's a little small. It's not too bad. No, they did it. It's just right here.

That lady said she liked it.

I don't know if she's going to take it.

I think I'm in my new look. Say goodbye to the flat cap.

That was really fast. We are already going Is it straight?

I think I'll be so dizzy and tired. All right, at least chicken—

nothing will come out. Oh, that one came out.

We've got some already pecking at the pile. This is so exciting because chickens naturally just scratch and peck all day. Day, and they'll help turn this compost pile. They'll probably knock 3 feet off the top of this in a week. Rooster's king of the mountain. Just jump right to it as if you've been working compost your whole life. Who wants to catch this chicken and beefcake's pen? The two guests go for it. There you go, John got it. There you go. That one's still trying to get with the pig. They're adding their nutrients though. Look at that little chicken turds. Look who had her baby! It looked like she just had it. You want to come see the baby? Could it be we have our 7th steer on the farm? Maybe that's a fee— maybe it's a little heifer. 2 cows and milk now. 1 cow means milk every day for the children, yogurt a little bit, cream a little bit. 2 cows and milk Yogurt and cream all the time as well, plus some butter. She just had it. She's eating her placenta right now. It's a heifer. Wow, call the Inquirer, we finally had a female on the farm. Real close to nursing. I think it's gotten one. We want to nurse within the first hour to get that colostrum. Very nice potatoes.

Look at that potato, that's a big one.

We win, man. That'll cheer her up. What is our compost up to?

Oh!

110. Wake up, sleepyhead. Driver's ed today.

I have to do review.

You're driving on the road today. Good luck.

Alright.

He's driving. We're gonna be those parents. Stalk him for a few minutes. You driving?

Yeah, look, he's gonna pass somebody.

Oh, it's his first pass. Go faster. Pass him.

I'm trying.

Now yell out the window. Now we're gonna be those dorks. I wonder if that guy has a brake on his side. My driver as a teacher did. That's me, so that's my brake, right?

Yeah.

Isn't that cool? I have my own brake. Really fun.

Yeah, it's fun.

This is his first stop sign.

He's losing me. He lost me.

He says, see you later, Mom. He must think we're helicopter parents because he doesn't No, there he is. Oh, he's turning around. How'd you do, bud?

You got it.

Let's see every student's reaction. It's easier than I thought. Is it? But don't get overconfident.

Yeah, don't get overconfident.

Don't get overconfident. He done good. Okay, so how was it really?

It was good, actually. It was good. How was it really?

Did you go on this 4-way highway right here? Yes. Any scary moments? No. Learn anything that surprised you?

Can you give me the ladder so I can get up there?

Yeah, you want to be the first to get up in the attic? Jonah's butting in line, Beck. He won't even let you go up there. You could put toe weight on that. I don't know how many times I'm going to tell him that. Whatever you can put on your toe, bro.

Look, my head goes past the rafter right here. Do you need to stand up there if we're sleeping here? Yes.

Why do you need to? Stand if you're sleeping.

I want a box that goes like this.

Why?

So when we go up the ladder, we can walk in. Oh, these won't be taken out, but it'll go to here. You guys will just have beds down here.

This is plenty of room to crawl up here.

I mean, you can stand down here and twirl around.

Do you want to do twirling? Go down there. Okay, okay, this is just laying down. Is this the last day?

Hopefully.

10 months you haven't been able to walk normally.

Yeah, pretty much.

Is today the day?

I hope so. I feel confident that they're gonna tell us that you can walk and everything's going good. I hope, I hope. I hope so too. You've had a hard time walking in the last year. I have. So we're looking forward to it. We've got plans to go camping. We planned this camping trip in good faith that you were going to be ready to go. You're taller than you were last time. Yeah, I was gonna ask you what was his height. 5'4" and now you're like a quarter inch taller. I think you're waiting. What'd you just say to me? I'm nervous that they're not gonna let us walk. You ready to be done with those crutches? Yes. Okay, we can be done with them. Oh good! We're gonna be done. Everything looks great with your x-ray. I had Dr. Bassanas take a look as well, and everything is healing perfectly. Yep, this is titanium metal going down into the femur there. It's really short, it's only about this big. Titanium metal cup there, screw for fixation, and then this ball there is made of a ceramic material. No restrictions for you, so kind of doing whatever feels good, kind of slowly getting back into things. You know, you've been on crutches, so your hip's gonna feel feel pretty weak for a little while, so just slowly getting back into things.

Is it weird?

It's weird. All right, so tell me. I'm very excited. All restrictions are off. I'm gonna start walking. I know. Well, do you want me to carry your crutches out? Which one do you want? Okay, I'll take this one. You almost cried because you're so happy, like when after surgery. So when he had his surgery, he, he was able to move his hip right away, and then he could tell the difference, and he was— became emotional because he was just happy. I know, it's good, it's good. We have 2-month checkup and then 1-year checkup, so yeah. You never pressed 1. We're just sitting here. We're just sitting here talking about the excitement of your hip. Okay, now we can get up. Can you rock without the crutch? Look at you, look at you! You slowed down, you're going so fast. Does it feel weird? I think it's just you're getting used to walking again, Jonah. You haven't walked normal in a very long time.

Oh, they're back!

I decided I should be on crutches for now.

What? You still going on it? No.

Oh, hugs!

You did it! Feels weird, huh?

Yeah, it does.

You're walking funny. You're gonna have to learn how to use that leg again. Lord willing and the creek don't rise, Jonah's getting his permit. That means he could be driving Mom this afternoon. You think Jonah will get his permit? Rebecca and I were talking about it this morning. We're so glad we had so many kids because Jonah and Josiah, like, if that was all we had, they're just like, it's over. But we still got cuddle bug, even though you don't sleep great. Think you're gonna pass? I hope so, Mr. 94. Yep, been taking his practice test, been doing good. Hopefully it won't take forever and we're gonna take the kids indoor rock climbing. How you feeling? You nervous?

I'm worried that I am not going to pass.

If you don't pass, you only have 30 days from the first test, and you can only take it once a week.

We're here waiting at the office. The first office we went to, over 2 hours. This one, less than 10 minutes. So I passed. He passed! You're driving away. Here you go, buddy. Exciting Stop! So easy. I only did skip one, which you can skip one or a few. I feel very confident that you know how to drive.

Mama just texted. I think I read this right. He passed! Jonah passed! Jonah's got his driver's permit! Yay! I am super excited to see Jonah. We gotta hug his little neck. My boy is growing up. And we're gonna take all the kids rock climbing. You got some diapers and wipes in that?

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Everybody got town shoes?

Yeah.

Mr. Brown, you got your shoes?

Yep.

What about you with your yogurt mustache? You got shoes?

Yeah.

Oh yeah, I forgot you. 5 minutes down the road. We got all the kids?

Yes. Henry's shoes.

We got all the shoes. Congratulations, man! Did you drive over here? He did. How'd he do?

Great!

Except he left the key in the car.

Other than that, he did really good.

The first thing I'd like to tell you guys— well, let me ask, has anyone ever been in a climbing gym before or done any climbing before? You have? Very cool. Okay, training over. Josiah, you guys gotta make sure you clip in. Johnna, you going to the top? Look at this boy. He was on crutches just, what, a month ago? Whoa! Hey, why'd you stop? I'm—

it's scary to fall from that high. I'm practicing.

Just say it. He's not scared. Are you scared? I don't even think he practiced to fall. Did you practice to fall yet? Okay. It's not straight up. It's like this way. He's climbing to the top on his first try. Wow, how was it?

Fun.

You went all the way to the top. Oh look, they rated it. Okay, so which ones did you do? The blue, green, or orange?

I did all of them.

Oh, okay. So that is— if like, say you stay on the green ones, it's a 5.9, whatever that means. Lily on the movable climb. Gotta be hard, right? That looks hard. It is fearless. You enjoy yourself?

Yeah.

Proud of you. You're growing up, man. Looking good up there. Well, you sweat too. You get all the shots you wanted? I did. You made a rock climbing movie?

Yeah.

Let me help you out. It's crazy. Just go slow. Reaction time is a lot better when you're going slow. You understand? People can just suck it if they, if they get upset at you for driving slow. Slow down. This guy's gonna be in that lane. Rough curve there a little bit, buddy. Okay, slow down. This is a yield. Bye-bye. This guy's doing really good. Been really serious. Going slow. Go ahead and put your blinker on. Now wait, wait until you can see. You just passed it. Alright, keep going. You missed that turn, it's alright. There we go. How's he doing, Josiah?

Good.

You scared?

A little bit.

To celebrate his healing and to just take a much-needed break, spend some time together as a family, we went on a summer camping trip. First meal at the campsite. He's destroying our campsite chairs. He thinks he's being important.

Because it's hot as heck out there. We need to have the seating area here, this picnic table. We need to move all this undercover.

Where do you want the other tent?

And just put the other 12x12 going that way.

Okay, so right here. And we've got outlets and we've got running water. Our 12x12. And we got an air mattress. No shame, no shame. Are we glamping or camping? It's not quite glamping, is it?

It's not quite glamping, but it's not camping.

Pretty close. And the first First thing the attendant told us was the Wi-Fi.

2 10x10s.

Tent's coming out under the 10x10. Got some friends, mentors coming tonight. They're gonna pull up. It's all gonna just be glamping. We are about to go tubing. Do you think we have enough tubes on the roof? You think we can make it? We're not tying it down. The park is right there. I think we'll drive really slow. Oh wow, that tube's right in the window. We didn't even make it out of the parking lot. Tubes fell off. There we go. That worked.

Yes, I put the life vest on.

Hey, watch.

Should we pull over?

Sure, I can hold one too if you hand it to me. You got a tube, Steve? Yeah, I got one. We made it. No more tube drama. Lily got out. Oh, Gideon got out. I go front ways. Oh! Oh, Becky, back on the farm, we continued with the remodel and farm projects. These are our forest trees. That's a maple, that's probably a locust. We got maple and locust planted down here. Future shade. That's your future shade, y'all. I have tightened this up probably two, two webs. And I think cattle panels are pretty expensive and have to be bought in our town, and we got something like 50. Oh my gosh, he's rubbing on it, but he definitely has less interest going inside of it. Say we get a board right here for the sheet and maybe one up here. We have 2x6s or 1x8s. It looks like these are buried under 2x4s, so maybe that's why we just get these. The case. So let's try it. 2 48s, 2 45s. That's the way the 45s will sit inside the 48s. Put on the glasses, right? We're gonna try one sample to see if it works before we go cutting a bunch of boards. He's gonna need 40 boards. He's 1 5/8 too short, and that might work if we were going to do the 1 by 6s, but we decided to do 2x4s. We need, uh, I don't know, 2 inches, 3 inches. Just tightening it up might have saved it. They haven't gotten to it. There, put a clamp on it too. That board's too wide. I was afraid of that. The board's too long. These aren't quite— we don't even have to screw them in.

We just have to do another one right here. That's true.

Because this one's on a hill, We'll have to— I don't know, maybe lift that and screw it that way. But if this one— we can reinforce it by screwing it to each other. Don't know if we need— absolutely have to screw it though, because look, they're not going to be able to push it because the T-post is blocking it. Oh man, I'm excited when things turn out like this. I am very happy about that. See, we were able to intertwine in between the woven wires. Now we don't have to use U-nails and nail it. Just screwed it in for extra security. They're not getting—

look at that, look at that!

They ain't getting in there now. We just single-handedly saved our maple tree. Do you have any locusts that would be good for decking? Yes, that could save us some money, and we could have decking from the farm. Like, how cool would that be? We go back and forth on whether we're just gonna buy it or harvest it ourselves. Big one! Fall it right there out into the field.

And there's one right there.

And one right there. There's 6 or 7. They're thicker, so those are gonna go a little further. This is all kind of super young forest. There's some that'd be good for like a pole. Hey, there's one! That's easy. Y'all see that? There's a walnut branch right across where it needs to fall. This thing could be worth its weight in gold if it means we don't have to to fell a dangerous tree. He's going to get rid of that little tree there so he can get through it. He just pushed it over. He just pushed that little tree over. Hey, maybe he'll be able to push this tree over. It's working. He's smiling. He's grinning. I didn't think it would work, and he's like, oh, let's, you know, let's do it, it'll work. Oh, he's digging. He is having to dig a little bit, but hey, he can get in there and dig. You think it'll push it? Yeah, it's not going.

Nope, got its root.

He's getting it. It's repositioned up higher. It's not doing it. The root system's too much. I didn't want to be right. I wanted this to be easy. Something's breaking. Oh, there it is. Boom! He's smiling. First 10-footer. Not bad. Once we got started, 6 logs. 6 logs in 30 minutes, bro. That's the catch. All this crap and tear down.

I'm going to beat the roots up a little bit on this part, on the locust.

Hey, hey, watch your— watch yourself. The locust, there it goes. It wasn't pulling over. I think it's so entwined with this locust, the locust is actually holding back because it's still rooted. Good work, bud. Two more logs. We're going good. 27-ish. He called for 25 to 30. Those would have only been 12 inches is all we need. Needed at 25 to 30. Some of these are 15 inches, 16. How wide's the decking? 5.5 inches?

I think so.

A week or so ago, we harvested all this locust for our decking in our homestead house remodel. Imagine decking will be right here. We'll be walking on decking. That we harvested ourselves. It'll have a story. I cannot wait to get in here. This deck too. Apparently this is a lot of decking. You got it on this, Ian? We worked all day, harvested that locust. He said, yeah, that's only about half. He thought we were done. Oh, this is going to be a deck too. We're going to connect these 2 decks. Although because this deck is normal deck, this probably should be 2. But even so, we're looking at 900 square feet of decking. So why are we harvesting our own decking? After all, we've been outsourcing all of our, uh, pumpkin house remodel, really. We're leaving it up to the experts. We're keeping this project going. We only want to live in a tiny cabin so long. That's— I don't always capture the steepness of this place. Actually, more like that. Isn't that crazy? Okay, it's crazy. Well, we got us a mortgage and we thought what we had was a generous budget. Hey, hey, Lily, you want to come do vanilla? You do vanilla, I do honey. Dirty done. But first, I'm being totally honest, we're gonna save some money. We could harvest our own decking from the land, and things end up being a lot more expensive than we imagined. A lot. I'm sure nobody's surprised. Funny thing is, when the contractor came back with the price of the decking— we're having it installed no matter what, locust or traditional stuff, that's the same price no matter what— uh, when he came back with the price of the store-bought decking It's like $2,500. I don't know if that's a lot or not, but it was actually the first price that came through and we're like, well, that's kind of— that seems reasonable. The install is more than that. First tree. We found a bonus tree. I just figured it out about my nerves. Although it's a little different, it's a lot the same. These are the same jitters I had before a track meet, before a soccer game. Ooh, more like before my mountain boarding meets, because the mountain boarding meets were dangerous. What I think I have here, guys, is pregame jitters. And so just like in mountain boarding, that fear, it's there to keep us safe. You think that'll fall close enough?

Yeah.

Y'all stay up here, you're well out of the way.

Airsoft. Hopefully it's gonna fall right there, close enough to Hook it up to the grapples and I'll pull it up. Okay, then I'll spin around and you can hook it to the back.

Hey, it's gonna be a good day! We need 10-foot pieces, lengths, but 10 foot, if we carry it down and it it's out horizontal. There's— these trees are too close in. That's not going to work. And we don't want to take one 10-foot log at a time, so what we're going to try to do is drag down this whole big old log, cut it into 10-foot lengths down there. Call me, John, if you have any problems. We're gonna go with the next one. I guess I'm going at low-hanging fruit at first. We're gonna get that boy right down into the road, and then next, the big guy, the biggest one I've seen. He's also leaning right down into the road. I don't know why the locust tree is a heat, but kids are fine-tuning their airsoft course way over there, leaning right down towards the road. This is probably a good angle for you guys, huh? Can we turn our eyes on this giant. About this one, not only is it so big, it's actually still alive. I can see the locust trees— I mean, the leaves— way up in the sky. I'm excited, it's going to be a good tree. I'm Safe, everybody's safe. I guess because it's so green, we lost a good bit of it. Pulling the big bottom out now. We got the top out. Things couldn't be going better. A lot of the locusts we're finding, they're pioneer species, so they're the first to come up in a forest. And so a lot of them have done their job and they're dead, but this one made it to the light. The big hard— other hardwoods begin to shadow them out. How How was it pulling that big log? Did it work?

Besides for the tight corners. Monster log.

What is that, 40 feet? 4 cuts? As cool as this deck is going to be, I'm really enjoying this process. I'm having a good time. We're working with chainsaws, a couple of big machines. I'm working with my boys. Henry interacts with us in between. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, one more coming, that's 7. We just took a break for lunch. We're back at it. We gotta cut these into 10-foot pieces. 10-foot, I called the mill guy and he's like, yeah, it's hard to keep locusts straight, so the shorter the better. You are leaking. We're dripping right here. Hopefully we just need to tighten this up. I guess it just vibrated loose, Jesse. We did it and we're all in one piece. That's our total log pile. You think this is enough deck? Oh my word, finally I'm getting to this milk. We are inundated with tons and tons of Raw milk. Basically, we're dealing with all the milk goods today save cheese. The first and the most easiest to consume, of course, is milk. Second would be yogurt. We like to do yogurt before even cooling these guys off because we're gonna have to heat it up to 105. See this naturally developing cream line? We're gonna get it out of here very carefully so as to not disturb it. Put it on the table. It's interesting how some of it has more cream line and some of it less. It all just depends on the pasture and probably about how much clover they— it's a very thin cream line. That's only an inch on a gallon. This is like 2 inches on a gallon, twice as much. Almost a third of that half gallon. That was a good day. We go through so much cream for tea, cream for ice cream, we can have it by the half gallon. Got this little ladle. Whoops, I should have held it up there so it doesn't spill on it. For years we used to use a machine cream separator, but it's loud and you have to set it up, you have to clean it up. I don't think it's worth it. We're just scooping cream off the top and just got rid of our cream separator. The quick and easiest way to use this cream is as cream. A little bit of— in my tea, fruit in my latte. The next easiest process would just be turn some milk into some yogurt. We fridged what we had today because we were processing over there. You can just bring it in from milking, filter it, and then put it on the heat. Uh, we have to fridge it with all we were doing this morning. But now I'm going to heat this up to 105 or 100. Let's do 100. Why we like making yogurt at home so much is because we can make raw yogurt. You cannot buy raw yogurt. We like this. It's, uh, Alexandra, 100% grass-fed A2 A2. Do a third of a cup for every half half gallon. Normally we do about 2 gallons. I think it's forgetting. Stir in the yogurt. Stainless steel filter. Couple half gallon jars. Normally this is more full because we're doing like 2 gallons at a time. Normally you could do a ladle if this is really full, but I think we got this. Oh yeah, we do have a dehydrator, so I'm using that. I I can set it to 105. I'm going 24 hours. Yeah, you're gonna flip if you keep going.

Oh, that's so funny.

We got the cameraman on this. My feet are hurting. I don't think I need to walk 3 miles today. We got the young camera guy. You got to train because you're going to do this on your own farm. We're springing the seed all the way up to the grass line. It's covering this whole bank here. I don't think we would have been able to drive that on there with the driving seeder anyway. There's no way to get the compost on this bank. That's where the hay is going to come in as a mulch. We're going to use the bedding Right here in the middle of the road. Josiah's gonna load us up and he's gonna put the hay forks on and get the hay up the mountain. We are using hay as mulch. We do not use straw because straw has been sprayed with glyphosate. We don't want that on our pasture. We do, however, have a source of unsprayed hay. This deep bedding material seems to be working out Perfect.

Looking at so many bales to do this.

Question is, is one step enough to do it on both sides? This will warm you up, Austin. Help me get in.

Okay. I just throw it around.

Man, guys, y'all are keeping up with the mini or the track loader. They're spreading so fast now the track loader can't even keep up. All right, we got a big swath here though, don't we? Huge, probably 50 feet wide. Yeah, take it down through there. You guys might be wondering why we're doing this. Well, we're on a 35-degree slope. Slope up there. It's not quite that steep here, and we need to graze out here, and we need to get our machines out here to be able to pull the milk sled and things like that. Access— we can put water and electric connections along these things eventually. There'll be a water connection within 100 feet everywhere on this farm eventually, and these roads will enable that. So in the long run, this is going to be totally worth it. So we'll start at the the far end to start stacking them. He's gonna unload it, we're gonna stack it. That's the pain with the little bells, but that's what we get for something we can handle.

Oh, I got gloves.

Lessons? Yeah. Oh, how convenient. One of the coolest things about square bells is the kids can manage it, but it's work together. 158 hay bales right there. We've got this bay, we've got the bay right behind me. We want to get 1,000 bales in here. That's what we need, 1,000 bales. Uh-oh, now we have John. John, how'd you get off school so early to come back?

I did most of it.

Heck yeah! Look at the stairs, dude. Your hay rakes work?

Yeah.

Is it easier than grabbing the strings? You all right, John?

Dangerous.

I couldn't be any happier right now. Working hard, seeing these kids working hard, working hard together. That beats any roller coaster on a vacation. 310 bells. Lily's picking these up.

I know.

He made these ones quite a bit lighter. I can't even get in and Lily can handle them. Our first ever hay wagon and truckload of hay for this next generation. Wonder how many we'll have. That's 11, 12 in the back of the truck. Oh boy, we're running into a problem. It's good that these are lighter. They're crushing when we're stepping on them. I think there's like 500 done like this, so we're gonna make the best of it. All right, it's a race to beat them before they get here. Now we got a crew. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 16 people.

I can't lift. It's like falling apart.

We don't want this to be on the bottom of the pile. I'm gonna chicken some of this broken stuff. One of two more loads coming. He backs out like he's driving forward. We've gotten a little loose in our stack job, but I think we'll get this trailer and dump truck in it. We've stacked the pole barn. We got to put it in Hollywood now. Kids are saying this is going to be the one with their fort. Well, you know how to stack it? You don't stack it tight. Yeah, you know, so that you can have room at each level. If people want to stack it tight, pushing hay bales close to each other, and then you get one that's longer and it starts to sag. Up top, we are talking about one of three of our heat sources.

Okay, so we're talking about a wood stove, but then he offered— will you show them that picture? Uh, like a fire— more fireplacey. It's an insert.

Okay.

Does it— it doesn't—

it's a wood stove that's built into the wall. You'd be the stove man. Yeah, it does for the blowers. Okay. But it doesn't have to.

It doesn't have to.

It's all got radiant glass too. When it comes to heat, we really want our redundancy. I live in Deep Gap and I've got— my furnace runs off pellets, so I got a pellet stove, pellet furnace, and that's how I heat my house. I've got a pellet stove downstairs that heats the basement. I've got a gas fireplace on the other end of the basement. I got a wood stove upstairs. Of course, it's probably because I'm in this business and I have been for 20-something years. But the thing I like about it is I'm not dependent on the gas company to get to me. I'm not dependent on the wood pellets to get to me. And I'm not dependent on me to split firewood. I've got a way to heat my home another way. I agree with Skye, it's a good idea to not be completely dependent on one of those things. Even splitting your own firewood, something could happen to you physically and you not be able to do it. This garage turns out to be much too small. We can get in just barely on either side. We can also just barely clear my truck by only 3 inches. Big problem, it's not long enough. About 22.6 is what you're gonna finish inside.

Is that enough?

If she were to park in here right now, the hitch would stick out about, I don't know, a few inches. How much more is that than what we need? It's almost 3 feet. It's not quite— you only needed what, 6 inches?

Yeah, yeah, which is your trailer.

Which it'll have some room to walk around. Well, and the thing is, she won't have to pull it all the way. That's putting her bumper right here. Driver's side right here, she can get out and easily go into the bottom. But what if she has to get something out of the passenger side? Or what if we're all with her, or somebody's with her, which is very likely? If kids are with her, they'll be able to get out and walk around. Yeah, Beauty, probably second to her kitchen, really wants a garage. We've had this Lynn living here for 22 years, ever since we got married. It might be 23 now. She's not had her garage and she's had a small kitchen. Those two things, I think she's heaven on earth. You don't know mudroom. Where's the mudroom go? Where are we? Right, the garage. Remember the garage? It was our barn for many, many years. Here, we'll go from the garage into the mudroom, into the new area. This will be our new thing. You'll this shot? Lots. And we'll go in there and this will be a staging area for the milk supplies mainly. Then towards the end of the year, we had one of those special moments. It came from learning something bad, non-desirable, and we practically quit the grocery store overnight. And hopefully it's gonna be a good thing. We are quitting the grocery store. And 2024, next year, is going to be the year of growing food for us. It's going to be incredible. We'll have our remodel done. We aren't doing traveling events. Actually plan the garden. So over the grocery stores, uh, Whole Foods adding what you call APEEL, A-P-E-E-L. Even organic produce has lost is down to like only 15% of its nutrients. We have this renewed conviction to grow what we're eating and to eat what we're grow— growing. Here's the trick for eating like that: you've got to plan ahead, you got to work ahead. It's fall, we won't plant until the spring, we won't eat until late spring from it. It looks like you didn't use a big enough pan.

I let Lily take the lead and this is what she chose.

Yeah, no burn it up cooking show action. You know, it's got 100% of its nutrients. We didn't lose any to the grocery store.

That's right.

How do you like that? I love it. Number one reason we're growing our own food is health.

I've learned that the grocery store produce is got like 15% of what produce picked fresh off vine at home has. So even organic is not more nutritious, it just has no pesticides or less.

And coinciding with this new conviction to grow what we eat and eat what we grow, I get this startling, alarming diagnosis from the doctor saying— or warning— saying my numbers are pre-diabetic. Bad news is I'm pre-diabetic.

We had blood work done in June and your A1C was 4.7, and we just had it done.

We came out here to be alone.

No, what are you guys doing?

Thought we'd have a moment out here, but maybe not. Two pieces of bad news. So, pre-diabetic.

So, hold on a second. So—

Pre—

But you also had a lot of pain in August and September, and you're still in pain and you're coming out of that now. So because of that, she wants to do a connective tissue, a comprehensive connective tissue blood workup.

But for anybody that doesn't know what that means, which I didn't even know till then, could be a autoimmune issue.

Connective tissue. Yeah, connective tissue.

Yeah, because the problems I've been I've had with joints and, you know, the flare-up that I had.

And the inflammatory response.

I'm prone to this kind of thing.

But you have inflammation in your body somewhere and it's affecting other issues, it's affecting other things. Like, it could— that could be why your glucose and your A1C was high. Yeah, because of the inflammatory response.

Like she's saying, the way we eat, you know, I'm eating more like they do now and it's very clean. It's, uh, you know, I shouldn't have, uh, these issues. High blood sugar.

Well, your HSCRP is down, but it's not down—

She said I could be genetically prone to that. So basically she cut out my sugar for 6 months. No weekly dessert with Lily.

You've had your sugar cut out.

No honey.

And it doesn't seem to help.

I've done it for maybe I've never done it for 6 months.

I know, but like, there's no joy. Like, come on.

I'm gonna have to find joy somewhere else. So I have to make this drastic health change, which will undoubtedly include copious amounts and require copious amounts of food from the farm. Those are the very things my body needs. Mouth breathing at night can raise your blood sugar, so I tape it. That's the second thing I've been doing, and that's a glucose monitor. This is the third thing. I forgot to do it before I started training, so I'm gonna do that right now.

New Hold your breath. Exhale in 3, 2, 1. Stage 3. That's not good.

That means I'm not burning fat. Adding protein to your diet is great. Yeah, you don't have to tell me that. Helps with growth, skin, and muscle repair. 90, 95% of my diet is protein. The fourth stunt I'm doing to lower blood sugar is to intermittent fast. It's almost 12 o'clock. We try to eat by 12. It's probably gonna be a little late, but intermittent fast. This is the seventh thing You mean a tablespoon or just a teaspoon? I'm gonna try not to make a face. I don't know exactly.

I just said it's good for you. Stabilize.

Gotta do it right before you eat. So my 6th natural remedy is walking, which should help digestion. It's good for my body. It's definitely going to be good for the blood sugar. Still one more thing I've added. Yeah, and it's a pharmaceutical, a low-dose Now Traxxon, just before bed. All right, happy day, y'all. We got this new vigor, energy to work on the farm, but then to make use of everything on the farm. Hey baby, are you feeling better? Is this your mule? She's got him tied up. Come look at this, Rebecca. Looks so good now. What are you doing?

Ouch!

And so we began the walnut harvest. There you go. Pile the green ones and we're gonna set them down to crush them. Is that enough? Yes. Okay, now fun job, walking on them. We walk so it's not crush the nut nut, but crush the shell. Sam's got it. Now for the not so fun job, break them open, get the nuts out, and throw them into the bucket.

How about he'd have— he'd collect one nuts in them, he'd have his mother make a spice nut cake for his birthday.

How do you remember that?

He told me.

Really? That's special. What you'll do next is soak that, start loosening off all that.

Soak them first and then—

yeah, and then run them through the compost sifter. See how that's coming off of them? We have this tree up here by the people barn. These have already shelled and have revealed their nuts, so hey, why not? All right, put them back in the bucket. I gotta clean that bottom though. Do 2 more rounds, we're good. Hey, let's get it from the hydrant. That's the finished good. Now we just let them sit there and dry out for 2 weeks. The walnuts have cured— well, a few days early, but my birthday's coming, but we need a spice nut cake. Why not get our nuts from the land? The walnuts. What have we been doing this for, 20 minutes? And this is what we got.

It's been a while. It's definitely not a fast process.

Nuts though wouldn't have lost their nutrients, the ones in the store. So that's even more tempting, right, Rebecca?

Well, okay, that's—

wouldn't have lost their nutrients.

So the problem with the ones in the store—

oh, but they're grown in poor soil.

Well, the ones— well, hold on a second. The ones with the store, so nuts go rancid. You have to put them in the freezer or the cooler, just depending on what nut. All nuts are different. Walnuts do need to be frozen though.

That just took an hour and a half. That's a half a pound. We need 10 pounds of walnuts a year is approximately what we eat.

Honestly, I felt like we could probably get what we need for walnuts in a day of doing this if we had the correct tools. We could probably get 10 pounds in a day.

We have dehydrated these nuts. You want to try some of those for me, Beck? Smells, smells fruity, and my hunch is they're also going to taste fruity. I don't know if that's because it's fresh or because of the kind it is, but it feels superior to me. Do you mind the fruity taste, Rebecca? You don't?

I think we're just gonna get used to it. It's not Not like a regular—

First on-farm harvest of walnuts.

Trotters.

Pig's feet. Sigh. Used to feed this to the dogs. Hey, you want to eat trotters?

No.

What changed? I was reading in, uh, Foxfire, the OG, the original. These old Appalachian— well, they were all homesteaders. If they didn't grow it, they didn't eat. We are on a mission to grow what we eat, and the second part is key, and to eat what we grow. We grew these feet. We grew these. Are we just taking it too far now?

I think it's great. I think that those Retail eating is the healthiest way to eat.

That too. Not just making use of what we grow. The health benefit. Is there something to it that my worst symptom is pain in my feet? I'm gonna eat feet.

Oh, like helps with—

They say if you have— need help with the heart, eat heart. If you need help with the liver, eat liver. I need help with the feet, so I'm gonna eat some feet. There, that has fallen off. See, now did the old-timers eat the skin? I'm not gonna eat the skin, that's kind of gross. Oh look, that's gonna be good, I can tell you that right now. That piece of meat, that's gonna be good. Okay, I see why we don't do that. I spent another 20 minutes siphoning this out. Probably be delicious, but goodness, it took me forever. I shouldn't have thrown away the skin. A lot of work for a little bit of stuff. Okay, here we go. Cartilage, fat, meat. Tastes like sausage.

All right, you also have some very soft sausage.

Let me have some of that meat. No, it's not meat, that's a bun. Here, let me have some of this meat. I was getting very little meat in it. It's all cartilage and fat.

All the people that were trying to—

again, tendons.

Like they were behind something.

It's really tasty. The, the texture's not what we're used to. Real fatty taste and its texture. The real banger though, how much broth we made from it. I'm gonna have a soup to meat this up. Meat it up like meat, put some meat into it. Put some bacon in there from this morning. Put some of their burger that they're having. Put some flossy in there.

He'll have the fruits to That's my kind of soup.

I would say the most exciting farm build, and it's telling of our coming up of better and more positive and freeing energy— I built a pig port 2.0, a composting machine powered by pigs. Winter is coming. You guys can't stay in here all winter. No, the sheep have to come in here. We want to put the pigs next to the garden so they can work together. Pigs making compost for the garden, the garden feeding the pigs. These are my skids. Big port because it's portable. We're gonna put the material in there, have the pigs on deep bedding. It gets deeper and deeper and deeper, and then you open it up somehow. We're gonna still figure that out. And we slide this over And the deep bedding is there to be able to be turned. It'll be remaining right here. The port is gone. We turn it and then look, it's lined up for our garden. We have breeder pigs and need them separated sometimes, so we'll actually build two of these. But I'm gonna rate one of these for a 1,200 square foot garden plot. Pigs should be able to generate enough compost easy for that, maybe Maybe for 2 of those, 2,400 square feet. Won't that be dreamy to make compost in place with pigs? Have somewhere to throw all those weeds, all that extra produce. Very happy about this. We got some solid work time. We got the walls framed. Well, we're missing 2 pieces, so look, we got 1 wall and 3/4 framed. Look at this. It's gonna go by very fast, but the whole thing will be a deep bedding. We're gonna have a lean-to off the side. You can put it on either side. This is a good site. This just feels right. Special place just for the pigs, the pig port. Relax. A lean-to shed, removable, off to the side so we can store wood chips and keep them dry. Here we'll shove in a little bit of wood chips. To keep it nice and fresh to continue to build the compost. Look how they turned it though. I got a dead chicken. As for Grandma, she's still with us and we're thankful for that. She's still involved in the farm, able to run errands and things like that. We're not able to eat meals together with them. It has affected her, her mouth. It's a terrible thing and we're working through it as a family. Rebecca's working through it. We're working with them. We're, we're growing closer to them. We haven't renewed appreciation for them, and we're doing the best we can there. For the remodel, it's not going nearly as fast as we thought. We had hoped to be in by the end of this year. It's not going to happen, uh, but it is moving along continually, slow and steady. We have the new garage framed in, 8-foot tall doors, wider too. If we have the garage framed in, that means we also got the porch nearly done. Tin will go on top of that. And then, oh, oh, check it out! The locust we harvest from the land is planed. It looks so good, guys. It looks so good. Look at this, it's so smooth. I've never seen such beautiful decking, and it came from our hands, our land. And just beyond the garage, generous mudroom. Downstairs, the farm kitchen's coming along nice. Room for coolers and freezers. Of course, the skylights. I think I've shown you all the skylights, but this is new— framed-in bathroom. Ta-da! There's been a lot of change upstairs.

Come with me.

Upstairs, the big change, the biggest change. Look at that HVAC system. It's huge and intricate. There's so much, but we're nearly done with that. It's maybe not as fast as we would like it to be going, but I'm going to choose to look at it this way: we're one day closer to moving in. Oh, and definitely one of the most exciting things for the farm and livestock newbies on the farm is Lily. After 1.5 years of horse training and getting her ready and getting built up that responsibility, she got a horse.

Say whoa and sit tall.

Good.

There you go. He really listens to your voice, okay? So say whoa.

Good. I never in a million years thought my children would be horse people. I had horses growing up, fell off of them 3, 4 times. Of course, I had— while we were breaking in, uh, broncos.

So if you want to face them towards the trailer, let them sniff it.

You can make a He's not sure.

So walk right up to it, and then you can just kind of let him look inside of it. And then once he has a second to understand— very good.

Nice.

He's like, I don't need to look.

All right, Lily, you just added another boy to your life. You didn't have enough?

Uh, yeah, I know I didn't. I didn't have a horse. It didn't matter if it was a boy or a girl.

Okay.

Oh, actually, I'd rather have a boy horse than a girl horse.

Oh, would you? Okay, good.

Girls have cycles.

Girls are needy. You don't have to deal with that. That's good. Hey, well, you're a horse mama now.

Oh dear.

And I'm a horse dad. What do you think of that thing? Mom's gonna fall in love too.

You think so?

Oh yeah.

Are you in love?

He's so gentle.

Are you in love?

But I probably will be. He's so gentle.

I'm so glad you're home.

He's so gentle. There's a horse, a taller again. What is it? My older, older brother used to live in the cabin where we are, and he used to have horses here. I mean, that's why our horse— our house is a horse barn. Look at his ears. Hey, yes, this is all so new. She's— I like how she's got Jonah working. We brought some of his hay. Thank you, Gideon. We'll let you feed him one, okay? Okay. Oh, he's eating. That's a good sign.

I'm gonna eat all the whole way here. He wanted to see who Winnie was.

There we go. I'm not even gonna go there. He doesn't need any more excitement. Everybody's out. Everybody's safe. Okay. Jonah's a new boy. Lily's got her horse. I'm feeling as great as ever with this new regimen, newfound conviction for health. We cannot wait to see how much we can grow next year as we quit the grocery store and grow what we're gonna eat and then eat what we grow. It's gonna be—