Pigs help me turn gardens into pasture! But why?

We're gonna— we've got a little over an hour. This, this is imminent, and it's supposed to be raining for like 4 or 5 days. Let's get this pasture scraped for where the pigs were. Let's get this seed out. Uh-oh, first I'm going to put all— well, I'll deal with that in a second. Let's start raking. This is what Beauty did, she pulled up the tarps. I'm thinking that's ready for seed. Maybe I should scratch it. I probably should scratch it some right there with the rake and just get it right, you know, more in case there's any compaction. I'll put some salt. So this is where the pigs were, and look how there's some divots here. We're going to straighten it out. Look, look, see, they dug up. Probably kept them in here too long. It's gonna then look like I finished this. See how nice and smooth and ready for seed that is? Let's do it. Does anybody know where his helmet is? Mr. Brown's never gotten dressed so fast. He's ready for a bike ride. Up there it is, my man. It's like gonna bite you if it was a snake. My goodness. You need help?

Yeah.

Okay. Oh, tomorrow night for the webinar. That would be tonight for you viewers, a little later tonight. You want to say 7? Let's say 7. Hey, that's, uh, we were gonna go live on Sunday with my Intro to Permaculture Lesson 1 webinar. What can permaculture do for you? How did it turn problems into solutions, mainly. But we had technical difficulties. We've gone back and forth with the tech company and it seems like we figured it out. We going? Hey, I thought you guys were doing chores. No, no, no, no, let's do chores first. Mr. Brown, let's see you go. Can you pedal it? Hey, look at this! Oh, keep going. You got to get the pedals down, don't you? See, he's used to a Y bike. Good job, buddy. You must have had a balance bike too.

Our bikes are coming tomorrow.

Yes, they totaled their bikes.

Totaled them.

Got them some new ones. You got to though, remember what I said? What do you got to do before you get your bikes?

Clean up the base.

Whoa, don't be too excited now. Don't be too excited. Don't have much by way of scraps, so it's a good day to feed these rotten, uh, squashes. Pretty much 100% skim milk in the afternoon. Give a little that in the morning too. This time these pigs are spoiled. Told the boys they had to pick up their mess down here before the, uh, before they could open and put together their bikes. Look how plump you're getting, Sausage and Bacon! Gigantic on just these food scraps. That little guy's gals. You're gonna change the nesting material, right? And, uh, check, clean out the nest boxes. So hopefully this afternoon— morning after milk— we can finish scraping down that pasture where the pigs were to receive this rain. Oh, where you going, buddy? Come on, come on. Here, pig, pig, pig, pig, pig. Whoops, whoops. Here, pig, pig, pig, pig, pig. Here, pig, pig, pig, pig, pig. Come on, come on. Here we go, here we go. Come on. Whoops. Come on, come on. This one's eating it all. All right, going. Just don't panic if your pig gets off. We're gonna use you to either improve some of the pasture areas, help us, uh, break, break some down, till it, then pasture seed it, or we're gonna put the pigs up in our forest to continue making simple pastures. They're great for, uh, helping to clear forest, but then stirring up the ground to encourage grass seed. Hey, I want you guys to notice the difference between yesterday on these chickens on this compost pile. But look, they've had no— they've about totally decimated this thing. They've had no qualms. Her plan is over the weekends, our exercise is to move that pile turn it from there to here. Oh, looks like Lily might be out. Look at you guys, the BMX bandits! You don't need to push. Look at you, I can't keep up with you without running. Look at these guys.

Hey, good morning!

You're gonna go bike riding?

Yeah, that's what I'm gonna do.

Is that why you gotta— did that encourage you to get up?

Oh yeah.

So where are you going?

I'm going to uncover the gardens. I'm gonna get Sally and go over there.

Not uncovering the garden, she's uncovering this Well, the far garden— you're uncovering the pasture. Yeah, because I ran into it yesterday.

Well, I've run into it a couple times too.

Yeah, that doesn't help it when it's hanging up. It doesn't come off. Okay, well, let me just try to get it. Well, the kids got it down. I think I'm glad I'm not the only one that has hit that, but I also think that I didn't hit it as—

I don't think I hit it as hard as you did because you go a little bit faster.

Guys, where's my water bucket? All right, any of these near done? You're just gonna get extra skim today. Hey, I don't think you'll complain, will ya? You left those scraps. Skim is like that. Moldy squash is like moldy squash. They're gonna leave that for last. Rebecca's pulling up our fart tarp. All that has to be done there is the tarps pulled up and the seed thrown down and the hay put down.

Jonah!

Hey, did you not have any problems getting them in without the lanes? Hey, what about the calves? Good job getting Flossie. How'd you get her without alfalfa?

What?

How'd you get her without alfalfa?

There's a little bit left.

Hey, good job getting the cows in the path.

Come on, let's go.

No gusta, Jana? Coming for you guys soon. You'll thank me for this. You'll think— actually, you'll thank Big Daddy for this. So you remember yesterday we ran out of alfalfa? Well, we were 11 days short of our Reedy Fork Organic Farm delivery, about 1,000 pounds. This one, this one's busted. We had to get 150 pounds to keep us getting there because, uh, what, I don't know, 10 pounds minimum. But to give any of the calves or extra, let's say 12 pounds a day. Looks like somebody tried to gerry-tape it. You guys a better view of that. This is good. This could be interesting. I always kind of wonder what this 30-gallon will hold. Looks like it might hold 100 pounds. Different angle for you guys. Sit right there, can you? How's that?

Oh yeah. There you go.

Lesson for today, kids: start at the end with the flap on it, even if it's not the end with the tag on it. Look at that, 100 pounds.

Hi, buddy.

I like this fence. Holds the camera up high and sturdy. Mmm, I like it. Worth it just for that.

Worth it just for that.

I'm just gonna milk. Y'all seen me do that 100 times. You haven't seen the beautiful one on Tart Gardens very much, so let's go give her— you guys, what's going on?

I'm building the crate. Okay, see, and then look how I did it. You drill the holes Nice. You stick it on.

Oh nice.

Drill your little pilot holes, drill your little pilot holes, screw in.

Oh nice. And then if we drag it on the counter, it won't scratch it.

It won't scratch it up.

Hey, hey, I was gonna give the people to you.

What people?

Will you take them? It's like we're a baby. This is like our fifth child right here. Yep, we're babysitting.

Okay, is that a good place to put them?

For now, we're gonna move them somewhere. Okay, so what's in that stall over?

Um, I don't think anything.

All right, this is our— this is officially our stall. It'd be better if we put those on pallets. Here, let's put them on this cruddy—

okay, I was gonna take that to the burn pile. That's perfect.

These are nice big pallets, so they're great for making compost. We're gonna save them. I think it's gonna rain.

It's going to.

Dang.

Wow, it's already sprinkling.

Yeah, boy. Could have been perfect if I could have gotten done yesterday. This is our onion cure, right?

Yep.

Oh, you can barely see me. That stinks.

Oh well.

Okay, so now what I'm gonna do is just pick up the sandbags. I guess I'll pick up that fence too and just pick up this so that we can seed it when it's time. I did it. That was a lot of hard work. The silage tarps are extremely heavy, but I am out of time. I'm going to an appointment this morning at 10 AM in Asheville, so I have got to get going.

I gotta get my gloves.

It's really zoomed in. All right, so I'm gonna give you guys back to Justin.

Hey guys.

Hey, how's it going?

You ready? It's going. The kids left this out. Why did you have this out, Jonah? Just say— I'm gonna hang it right there. Is that cool?

There's a bike ramp they were using.

All right, so that's from our Market Farm Days. That was at our booth, farmers market. Why not hang it right there? Okay, look at you, 2 gallons. Yeah, Flossie's bringing it. Are you gonna take it?

Yeah, would you please?

What is that?

Horsey.

Horsey. Good job. You're talking new words every day.

And look, beep beep, quack quack, quack quack quack quack.

All right, next up. What do you see, Flossie? You looking for any stray alfalfas? Come on. Good girl. I think Grace is wanting to milk a little bit this morning. Give her one scoop while I wash her up. All right, I got her washed off. Grace, do you know how to give the apple cider vinegar and RC Gold? Okay, go ahead and give her, um, three gigantic scoops. Believe it or not, Phyllis doesn't behave as well as Flossie, so one scoop for her to behave while we're cleaning her. I probably should have done none, but— and then 3 scoops while we're milking her, and then 1 more after we milk her the second time after we put mousse on. Thank you, Phyllis. Almost 2 gallons. That's pretty good. All right, Josiah has taken on— taken time out from that. Come on, I want to see the bicycle parade! Look at that guy go! Look at this girl go! Yeah, so this is where the pigs were. Let's do it. All right, I got half of it done. Let's count my work yesterday. We got a little bit more. This has been a little bit more compact. Maybe we should have worked on it to get to that, but I can do it. Here I had somewhat easy solution to the compactness. We had this lip— see this lip on the garden bed next to it? Well, watch this. I don't want that lip there because we're going to be mowing and whatnot after the cows. So it's also very soft because it's been under the, the tarp. So I just did this and then pitched it in the lower spot. It worked out very nice. One more. Time is it? It's 9:43. Okay, I got 45 minutes. I think I can do it. The only reason I hesitate— this is going to be pretty quick, but then how's that going to be? Oh, that's pretty soft. Oh, you gotta love those silage tarps. So I gotta fill in these holes. Oh, Rebecca only got one tarp uncovered. We got one more tarp And then beyond there, beyond the pig port.

You can do it, Justin, just stay steady.

I couldn't be more thrilled to have a buddy on this. You push it over the edge, buddy. 30 minutes to finish. We finished the pig area, we're halfway done with this garden, and then we have the garden and a half up there. 2,400 square feet of pasture right there. We still lack this. I don't think that'll be as hard. I don't think there's any divots at the edge. We'll just go over at the rake real quick. I just realized I was assuming Jonah fed the cows their hay, but I just realized they didn't. So we need to take a break and get them their hay. And while we're at it, we'll get some hay for our mulch, to use as mulch there. Okay.

Okay.

This is fun.

Okay. Hey, Josiah, did you give up on your sign?

No, I didn't have time and I put the screw in the wrong place.

Oh yeah, start on this end, bro. Okay. All right, let's get 2 for them and then 1, 2, 3 for putting over the seeds. So 5 hay bales. Oh, didn't mean to throw the strings in there. Taping this just high?

Yeah, I'm taping it in case you get shocked. Everything works better with the camera.

Yeah, all right, well, you're gonna see the old man jump this. How'd I do?

Good. Now see about back over.

Woo! Hey, Flossy!

All right, Josiah. 25 minutes to rake this down, throw seed, polar plunge, shower, breakfast. I guess we could skip a shower. How's that look, guys? Smashing. Yes. Oh shoot, we do have to spread hay. Okay, we have 7 minutes. The seeding is easy. You'll see. Um, the hay is gonna be a little bit more tricky.

I could do one garden, you could do one garden. Yeah, I could do that garden, then you could start on these.

Okay, grab this camera. Okay, you wait until I get some seeds down before you throw hay, okay? Oh my gosh, that feels great! 12— uh, 11:23. 11:23. Didn't pull her plunge. 23 minutes late, but hey, we got it done. All right, the way I'll make up that time is, uh, Jonah will do a lot of the afternoon chores and I'll check over them. Hop in, G. Let's go look at it real quick. Man, somebody drives by here, they're gonna think we got it going on. All right, let's see your clean job. Oh my word, what a good idea!

This is Mama's.

Wow, this looks very good implemented. Good job, I like it.

I know it looks pretty even, but it's not.

I like it. Oh, you cleaned it up! Somebody wants to ride their bike tomorrow when it comes. Good job, guys. Who wants to ride their bike tomorrow when it comes? Oh, that meal was never gonna taste so good after that workout. Josiah, what do you say we Polar Plunge after?

I'm okay.

What are you doing?

I'm not doing nothing else but our alumni.

Get off of there. There's a time for our alumni, and it's not tidying, and it's not now when we're supposed to be tidying for Look at my house.

Look at the house.

Oh well, maybe it is time for alumna. Okay, what about that sock? Two socks. Gideon, that's you, bro. Wait, that's Gideon. Wow, the house looks amazing. Good job. Just us guys, Mom's on an appointment. Do you guys like the beans? Yeah, I love the beans.

Smokehouse. He's building a beehive right now.

Why? Did we do that to our gardens? Gardens are some of the most productive food product— food systems per square foot. Well, you guys going with— you can also find organic, even great local veggies beyond organic. You can find them. Clean food, 100% grass-fed lamb. Good luck. A2A2 raw, 100% grass-fed milk, organic pork. No, no, that's why we're, we're, we scaled back to— gosh guys, we're gonna have still almost 5,000 square feet of garden. Yes, and done efficiently, we believe, can we can grow most of our veggie needs, but Scaling that down, we can focus more on that. You guys, it's a little late to be doing this, almost 12 o'clock. Gotta prioritize health though. This does wonders for our immune system.

Papa, you make it look so easy. Thank you.

What is going on here?

Use it up, wear it out, make it dirty. With that, since we haven't got new bikes, we feel so left out because everybody's riding their new bikes. So we just fixed it up some bikes.

Lily's old tire on that one. Yeah, you look gangster, buddy.

I know.

I am just finishing up some things. It's 3:15. You know, you get set back when you bust it in the morning. Hey, will you go start on the chores? You ready to do this bike trick? Okay. Do I need to follow you? You're gonna come back? Oh, you're standing. Good job. You're standing and riding. Let's go over there chores a bit. They said they forgot. Luchador. Some hay. We'll start there. Sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep.

Okay, let's go.

He's all business. You coming with?

Yeah.

Yesterday in some of our testing of the sheep fence, It was grounding out heavy according to the tester sometimes, and sometimes not. It could have very well drained our battery. We have 13 here. Watch out, buddy. Okay, it did not drain our battery. Well, we should walk and make sure the electrified wire isn't hitting anywhere. Well, there we go. There's one, boys. That's too close for comfort right there. Good job getting the calves in there. It's another one. They're hurrying. Somebody want to go throw hay with me? Yeah, they don't have enough hay. That left flank right there, she's full right now. But she won't be in the morning if we don't get her some more feed. Okay, I just happened to glance over. I don't know why I didn't check, but she proud of water. Not out, but they don't have enough. Yeah, that's not gonna— maybe they switched it. That's probably all they could carry. You know why that's filling up? I'll just tell you. This is going out Wednesday night we're having the webinar, so if you've seen this before, 7 PM, we're gonna get on there and talk about what permaculture can do for you. One of the topics is how to turn problems into solutions. Okay, they call me for supper. A more classic example is the problem of maybe this manure left in one spot. Okay, so much nitrogen right there. Well, to turn that problem into a solution In the summer when there's flies, we can get chickens to come behind. But maybe in the winter— see all these plops? See all those plops? Chickens spread that in the winter— I mean summer. But in the winter, maybe we could get a drag behind our mower and spread, spread the nutrients. Okay, we're done. Let's turn this back on.