Overwhelmed

Hey, get in. Make the right decision to come. All right. It is nasty today, raining. This firewood rack didn't happen overnight, nor did this amazing tinker barn setup or the landscaping out front. And you know, the shed didn't just appear. Or the meat shaw and its modifications. These raised beds took several days. There's rocks, just keep it in the garden there. The little locust posts, keep it in the yard there. The locust posts, keep it in the herb garden there. Didn't just happen. This persimmon tree planted in and pruned a little bit.

Tell me what happened. We saw a bird.

Hey, you made the right decision, you came out. I wonder if you can make double right decision and pick up all that junk.

Do I really have to call that?

There's a rock planter around the greenhouse. There's a greenhouse. There's a frost-free hydrant attached with a brace. There's a French drain in. There's a filter on top, filtering thing. There's a nice sign painted and hung up. There's an American flag hung up. There's a wall system That did work out for a while. We'll talk about what we're gonna do with this problem in a second. There's a stanchion, a nice flag hung onto it. There's a water system. There's a nice fence that works for the cows here. There's a strawberry and asparagus garden. As I walk around, there's incredible, uh, improvements. LED lighting, so much brighter than our old lighting that we used to have. Uh, get in, let's go check the chores. They say they're done. Nice tool racks for all our tools inside the hallway. You know, I could go all day on all the improvements and make this— that make this farm what it is today. Open the door for me, buddy.

Thank you.

A greenhouse. For the chickens. Predator wire at the bottom. Oh my gosh, nest boxes! Oh look, this one needs to be repaired. Yesterday we repaired this one. A turkey shawl. The cage above the rabbit so the chickens don't jump up there. The point is, all this did not happen in a day. It's easy to see Justin's farm and say, oh man, that's— it's so much, it's so good, I'll never have that. Well, it didn't happen over that overnight. There's a list, and all now on that list is, well, we got to fix this one because this is going to eventually give out, and I need to bolt it. These screws didn't hold. That pallet should be replaced, it's broken. Where are the pins for this turkey shaw handle? This door is all crooked, the bracing has come off. I don't know where the other 2x4 on the other side is, but that to be fixed before you figure it out and bust out. See that gigantic hole? And you can kind of see it right here. It's about a foot and a half hole right there. Beautiful one's on me because this is her tomato garden. She wants the pigs somewhere else eventually, on a concrete pad, so they can't do stuff like that. I need to fix this. This was awesome because we could kind of walk through here. I thought there used to be a fence right here. And then the cows wouldn't do it. People could walk through it, but cows couldn't. But now they figured it out. That was really cool because we could walk through it without having to open a gate. But it's not— they're on to us. It worked for years. Basically, one of these heifers gets out every day. This— I think all we got to do is move this T-post pallet wall over, or we can put in something right here So they can't walk through it. Yeah, that's true, but then we wouldn't be able to walk in. You can do these entrances that go like this where a person can zigzag through it, but a cow can't because they're long. On a side note from this little conversation we're having, I don't know if I've explained how the sheep got pregnant. If they didn't get pregnant by Nacho, it's maybe related to why Jenna looks at her and her vulva is swollen. This is Polly. We were gonna harvest her in like a month or two, and her, her teats are getting larger. Are you growing up or are you pregnant? She's too small to get pregnant. I mean, it can happen, and we was hoping to eat her. Did you go get pregnant? The little ramlets. Got in with their aunts and mamas. Remember we kept them intact so we could eat their testicles and give them one last day, one less bad day? Yeah, well, that's why we have little rams running around, or little babies running around now. So too much going on. Oh, that's probably going to turn into a positive because they're going to be so much bigger when we go to harvest them. So it's quite possible that the heifer got in with the bull, or the bull got in with the heifer. Partly why I think all this is possible, because if you remember over the summer, I was kind of jacked— I wasn't kind of, I was jacked up with reactive arthritis. So I wasn't as in tune or in touch with the farm, and so things fell through the cracks. Now we're paying for it. Maybe we don't get meat right away. Maybe we get a calf, then harvest her, then have the calf for a harvest. So Could be a double positive. How's little dude doing? Good.

This is Hope.

Who's that with the pink?

This is Hope.

Ah, that's our replacement. It's a replacement for Bandy. Two strikes and you're out. It's easy to look at something grand like my farm and think, and oh, I'll never get there. Or in my own head, knowing where I want to go, it's been having such a big vision and, and feeling like Oh, I'll never get there, it's too big. Get with it, Gideon. Josiah and Lily. You know, my own story right now is I feel a little tired, feel a little burnt out, you know, even, even after sabbatical, you know, been a little under the weather and just winter, and we've just been doing this for 15 years. I haven't necessarily felt like hitting record or felt like doing chores or felt like doing a project. And you know what I've found to help? Whether I'm ambitious, raring to go, and have a sense that there's so much in front of me, or if I'm not feeling it. Kind of like yesterday when we started— when we talked about starting small. This is kind of related now that I I think about it. It's a way to— it's a specific way to start small. We put a number on it. You probably heard me say it before. Just make— you are cooking— just make 1% change every day. Just 1%. Josiah, what's 1% change you can make today?

The thing to keep the calves— the cows in.

What's 1% change you can make today?

Clean the basement.

Clean a little bit of the basement. What could you do to change 1% today?

Clean our room.

Oh, I like it. That might be bigger than 1% change, and that's okay. We have those days too, but we have the 1% to fall back on. See, if you change 1% today, you're actually building on 1 point— is it 1.1% tomorrow? And it doesn't take 100 days to double. Not 100, only 72. I found myself falling into this pattern. We do— we have a certain amount of time to do chores and farm stuff. So we do chores, and then with any remaining time, we do a project. You can do the same though. Give yourself a lot of time to do chores, then start streamlining those chores. Make sure those are the chores you actually want to be doing. And then any time that's left It could be 5 minutes, it can be 20 minutes. For me, sometimes maybe it's a— it's an hour, maybe 2. Then you do a project, a little 1% bit. It's just a little section from chapter 2 of my new book, Rude Life. If you've been watching the vlog for a while, you know where I'm going with this, guys. I'm trying to sell this. We've sold like 5,000 copies. Hooray! We're still a month out from it shipping. You guys feel like family to me. Friends and family. Let's milk. Let's milk while we can. So I just want to include you guys in on my goal. It'd be really cool to sell 10,000. Of course, if we sold 20,000, we'd be talking about possible New York Times bestseller list. 10,000 is a lot of books. We're halfway there. They count towards these lists up until the first week after release. So up until like March. So I'm trying to do all I can to get folks to pre-order. I'm trying to put as much value in there as I can. This time I'm giving you Chapter 2. When you pre-order by Sunday, we're going to have a live webinar where I'll teach you permaculture design for your homestead for this year, so you can have your best homestead ever this year. That'll be live, 3 PM on Sunday. And then what else? There's another thing. Oh, I'm going to give you a masterclass video of our chapter Starting Smart. Where I tell stories similar to this, and I think it's very inspirational. So I'm throwing the whole kitchen sink at this thing.

How many chapters are in your book?

10. In fact, as we get closer, I'm gonna give another, another chapter away, the third chapter, when you pre-order. And so anybody who pre-orders now and gets on that email list, you'll get all these bonuses that we do in the future. It's Nurse Phil! This needs to swing in, but the T-post right there is in the way. I'm just gonna lift this and get it to the other side of this T-post. Ready? That worked. Now can I put it back on as easy?

There.

Wow. Okay, there you go. Now this swings in. Let's just get a pallet and one T-post for this. We can get through. I don't think they can. Can you go do that on the gravel? You're getting it all muddy. Getting his earmuffs on.

Yep.

Okay, got him. Yeah, they're on. Gideon, you're back over here. Don't do it over here, bro. We need to figure out where this is gonna go and then let me hold this. Remove the pallet and then smash it in about right here. I think that's it. I think they can't get out, but we can get in. We'll see, time will tell. We're done, but we need to get this— all this junk up. That's better, starting to look like the organic farm that we are. Hey Gideon, you got to get your toy up though, and your Croc.