Playing Catch Up

Gideon swears that's all the eggs we got from yesterday. If that's right, we got problems. Here's another one. Maybe he did the two different baskets. Still, we need more than 10 eggs from like 30 hens. Let's put a pulse on that. Nice. Hey, you and I are the only ones working today. Yeah, we're the only ones up. This is your horse training workout plan.

Yep.

You wrote it yourself? Yeah. Wow, that's something right next to the wig. Anyway, we're family growing our own food for our health and longevity. You just can't buy this stuff in the grocery store. Eggs in the grocery store are going to be very many weeks old, and as we all seen a number of times, egg prices can just shoot up like crazy. So It's a bit of a food security— what gives, ladies? What gives? It actually is probably not them at all. Probably, hopefully it's just a matter of collection. Ian says he did all 3 chickens, but did he? I hope that's the problem. Hope it's not them. There's an egg right there. That's, that's not conducive for egg laying. We can fix that. A couple eggs. That might be leftovers from yesterday. Food's good. Water was fine, but I'm gonna tap it off, top it off. I cannot believe this. Rebecca is sleeping in. I'm pretty sure we're supposed to harvest collards this morning before we have to go to the chiropractor. Town day. Big day yesterday, and we're still recovering from our trip. What do you think happened to this? Isn't that crazy? There's a brown shell over this green one. Since we checked our pasture recovery, I want to say, look at this grass coming up. That's everything. That's everything we planted. That's rye. This is the buckwheat. The vetch not coming up so hot. I don't know if I see any, but we got rye and buckwheat. Meat chickens are about to come on it. They really have an impact at first, but this comes back with an explosion. Explosion. Oh, we have some casualties. Meat chickens here, egg-laying chickens there. We gotta move these guys and then we'll go, you know, put a pulse on the pasture posse and see if they've got some eggs. Turn off the fence. How do you move sea monsters with just one net in broad daylight? I'll show you. Go ahead and get up our net on the side that we're gonna move into. We're gonna move them over here. I just love that this cover crop is coming up. Look at this. This is grass for the chickens. It was not here. This stuff was not here a month ago. Look how they all started coming over automatically. Okay, this may have nothing to do with the eggs. Their waters really shouldn't be empty ever. Now it seems like they just got empty, but still. Now they're starting to make their way over there naturally. Look at that. Okay, we're gonna go put up— we have a fence here back, you know, the old fence. We're gonna start putting up the new fence, and let's just put it along through here, corralling people in. Look at what this stuff— look at what we're asking it to grow in. It's Rocky. I'm so excited about this. Chicken meat we are growing is munching away on plants we planted that otherwise wouldn't be here. How special is that? He just engulfed that rye. Goose is going to be happy. That's the side effect of homesteading, especially when you do it in a regenerative permaculture way. We're using plants and animals to do the work of the farm. You infect positive change. We just ran through the pigs— well, we ran through the cows and the sheep, then we ran through the pit the pigs through, then we ran the layer egg chickens through, then we raked what they didn't rake smooth, and we planted cover crops. We used the animals and the plants to do the work of the farm. We work together. But we have— in fact, we affected that change, and we can see the results rather quickly. It's extremely satisfying. I think if I go ahead and get them water— I got to get them water anyway— they'll be even more attracted to come over here. And this— putting up this back fence, it's going to be even easier. We have them contained, so there's no rush. I'm a hair worried because this— that this crop was so young. Hopefully I didn't ruin it, because any grass they make look like that at— after they're done with it, and it explodes back because it's just an explosion of compaction and manure. It's normal grass, it grows back right away. But is this too tender? Maybe. We'll see. I can plant behind them again. Water is up. Let's get the rest of these guys over. The trick is we've got to pick up this net to right there. Then redo it right here while getting them over. So it's not too hard. I have 3 cripples I can euthanize, or I can just see what happens. Sometimes they snap out of it. They seem pretty vibrant. Maybe this one, they might take a chance. I'm over here near the feed. Everybody kind of went over just with me being here. I actually have 4 casualties. I'm not too worried about that. I think they probably happened not all at once. That's also why we get 125 when we need 100, because you're going to lose some. Where you have livestock, you have dead stock. Sometimes you'll know why, sometimes you won't know why. Sometimes it'll be Nature's fault, and sometimes it'll be your fault. In any regard, I hope you have pigs because then they don't go to waste, or a big compost pile, or suspend a bucket with little holes in it, 8-inch hole, 1/8-inch holes, and put these in it. The flies come, they lay their maggots, those crawl out of the holes and you feed your egg-laying chickens. Roll that, Austin. Flies will go in there, they'll lay their larvae, the larvae 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. Boys have to get up or we're not gonna be able to leave by 9. That's an hour and a half. You're gonna have breakfast ready at 8. Okay, I see beautiful one up, so I better hustle.

I need to get in there and do my tomatoes. And check on the cucumbers. First, I'm gonna work while that dries out a little bit. I'm gonna work in my raised beds because the boys collected grass clippings for me, so I need to weed and put those grass clippings down. That, I have found, works tremendous in not only keeping weeds at bay but also just moisture in the soil. It's just all around good, and then it feeds the soil too. So you can see way down there—

wrong way—

that way, all the grass clippings that they got for me yesterday. So look, I've got a lot of weeding to do, and then I'm gonna cut that one sunflower branch off because it's really shading one of my pepper plants.

I'm gonna feed pigs first. They're the most anxious. You guys hungry? You hungry? Everything's normal in these chickens. We, uh, I forgot hay, so hopefully that's not needed. And it's not an egg layer problem, it's a chidler collection problem. I don't know if I'll have room in my basket. This is the problem I'm talking about. Hey, Gideon, come here! There's no way he did. Did y'all honestly get up at 7:30? You're gonna hit in your phones. I got up at 7:30. I actually did. Up and at 'em at 7:30, not crawling out of the bed at 7:30, ready to work at 7:30. Listen, there's no way you got these eggs just for me. Come here, look how much I got. If you want your audiobook at night, you've got— that also includes getting the eggs. There's no way you haven't gotten it for 2 days.

I have pretty much finished this one. There's still a couple in there, and I'll get them, I'm sure, at some point. There's a lot of weeding to be done. This is what happens when you go away and it rains and it rains and it rains. Okay, so I'm gonna grab some of these clippings in this bucket. And this is what I'm gonna do for the next hour at least. I might go get a hoe to help hoe up some of them. I've got a handheld hoe, and I think I'm gonna pull up my peas, and then I'll put my tomatoes up, but I'll show you guys all that. I decided, because I'm down here— I mean, I was inside— I would look for my— oh yes, this is where we hide them up there so that the small kids have a harder time getting them. And also I need to get— I'm gonna try to find our spare Leatherman so I can cut some of those sunflowers. So these are volunteer sunflowers and I love me some volunteer plants. All of this calendula over here is volunteer. I've planted some sunflowers. We do have that one big sunflower that is a volunteer as well. I planted some smaller sunflowers in there as well, and then I have some calendula because I want to grow more calendula for medicinal purposes. Henry's squared away, and I'm going to get back to working. I'm gonna do this bed, finish this bed, and then these next two are— I have to absolutely have to get into them. I'm gonna see if I can't put those stalks in water and get those blooms to come out because there's some blooms on each of them. I don't know if we can get to the college, and then we have to go to the chiropractor, and we have to leave early because we're making a town day out of it.

Yeah, because John has to be back for his lesson. I know, so we have to leave at what, 9? Probably.

What time?

I need to go to office supply store for a staple. Staples. This your coffee?

No, I think that's Ruth Ann's.

Oh, Ruth Ann, you forgot your coffee. Look at this barefoot gardener.

I'm trying.

Earthing, getting the sun in your eyes. When I was researching which mulch to use, talking with Groc, they were saying the grass clippings tend to be better on a smaller scale because they, uh, degrade so quickly, and it's a little harder to tame them for a larger scale. Is our lettuce still good, or has it gotten bitter from the heat?

Um, I don't know.

Or is it actually protected under that sunflower?

It's protected under the sunflower. Yeah, but it could be getting bitter, but we have more coming, so yeah. Um, I'm just keeping it just in case we need it and it's not bitter.

Well, salad has been on the menu because that's what path. Lettuce will, when it gets warm and mature, it bolts and becomes bitter and goes to seed. And I think that sunflower is helping it.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, because it's not— hasn't bolted yet.

Shaded. What's made you want to pick up the camera and vlog again? I don't know. Well, I think you building the house, I feel like through a hurricane and losing your mom is a lot.

Yeah, yeah. I'm still like, I feel I feel like maybe I can be more—

Mm-hmm.

Um, involved, maybe.

Can I throw these peas to the chickens?

Yes, that's on my to-do list.

Be very careful.

Hold on a second. Hold on a second. There's tomatoes planted behind those.

Oh, okay. I see them right here.

So you have to be very careful.

One of my favorite things. Absolutely never gets old. Digging the weeds. A waste, and I'm right here. I was right here. Throw it to the chickens. Look at them, something to do. Turn that into chicken and eggs. I'm gonna come help you, uh, it's just let me check this breakfast posse, and then I gotta feed the big pigs, and then I'm all yours. So it looks like we don't have time to do the collards, right, Rebecca? So we'll do the collards and broccoli tomorrow.

Yeah, I think I could. I think if I have the kids' help, yeah, I can do it.

That'll be all hands on deck tomorrow project. There's no way this water would have lasted all day, but I'm checking. Gotta check. We aren't raising chickens, we're raising chidlos, so that means we need to check over their job. Well, also because we're raising chickens and we don't want them to die. If you're gonna only have one posse of chicken— I have three posses of chickens. One's working compost, one's in the, uh, next to the kitchen garden right here, uh, feeding the garden. The other one is, uh, doing hurricane relief, building back soil. But if you can only have one posse, that's probably better, especially if you have kids doing the chores. Put it right next to your garden. If you have a mobile coop though, you can do it all. Like right now, if your garden wasn't in, you, you could move this out and put them in a net on hurricane relief, or working a compost pile, or move them into a greenhouse for the winter, whatever. See, he's done a better job overall on this chicken chore closer to the house. Most of you are going to have kids doing the chores. Do it. What we learned from Ruth Ann, it builds character. Do it. They need to do hard things and succeed, and that gives self- confidence, prepares them for future obstacles, all kinds of good stuff.

Squash is going to be on the menu soon.

Oh good, I know we're gonna have that squash casserole, aren't we?

I gotta get some cheese here from Azure.

Yeah, when's that happening? We prepping, we're gonna get ready, we're gonna quit the grocery store in August, we're gonna do it. And hopefully we keep doing— hopefully we keep going.

Well, I'm thinking that Because, you know, we don't have the milk to make cheese. Yeah, so I'll keep buying dairy.

Yeah, well, that's not the grocery store.

Living a life without cheese is not one that I want to participate in. They already took my gluten.

They take your cheese, you're just dead.

I don't want it. I don't want them to take my—

no reason for living. We grow our own food too, but we, we're not afraid to buy some cheese. Because we really like to eat and we really like it to taste good. Yeah, and we're working towards growing our own cheese. That's why we're raising up 2 more milk cows. We'll have 4 milk cows here. Shall we get some before shots of Beauty's work? And then hopefully we'll remember to get some after ones.

Should have gotten this one, it was a disaster. Yeah, I gotta go get some clips.

Okay, we'll get some shots here. There's your lettuces all up under another sunflower. Did you mean that, or is that a happy accident?

No, Annie did that.

All right, good Annie. Good job, Annie. Do you think that was intentional, knowing that lettuces would want shade?

We talked about this other lettuce.

One sunflower right in the middle of the lettuce patch. Here's some aged grass clippings. Look how wonderful that's keeping it away. Sure, here's a little weed. But it was so easy to pull out and it was only one. Here's a couple more, but look how easy this is to pull. And we didn't even put the grass clippings on that thick. Had we put them on thicker, it would have been more effective. Just fed the chickens. I just found this spade shovel in the— hey, one thing I'm doing to save money, every time I see something that's not where it's supposed to be, I pick it up and put it back so that one day we're not buying this shovel. I'm gonna put it with our other— our hoe. Here, you want a hoe? Can you trust him to hoe? No. Okay, do you want to help Mom or you want to go with me? She's got me on a ton of errands. I'm gonna feed the pigs, then you want tomato clippings, tomato clippers. Oh, where do I get those?

Down in the high tunnel. There should be in the box that all the clips are.

The pruners?

The pruners.

And then the clips? Yeah, also in the high tunnel. Yeah, and the wheelbarrow. Okay, it's 8:15 here in Fletcher, North Carolina. Beautiful morning. Uh-oh, it feels so nice and cool. I just love calling the North Carolina mountains my home. What's this? Oh, he said these are carrots. Yeah. Oh, they do look like carrots, don't they? What is that weed called that does look like a carrot? So proud of him for being able to Recognize a carrot.

Although it wasn't a carrot.

I can see where he's coming from. Clips, no clippers. I did the yogurt. Really? Yep. Well, how much, how much starter yogurt did you put in there? 3, whatever the mama said. A third of a cup? Yeah. How'd you measure it out? With a measuring cup. Nice, dude, you're making yogurt. You're hungry, aren't you? Yeah, you missed that yogurt. All right, did you count our strawberries? No. Take inventory of our strawberries. Yes, if we have 20 packs, we'll know, hey, we can have— if you guys could give me like 4 every 3 weeks, and we can proportion it off. Yeah, that's an idea too, because you put in work on the strawberries. The, the, the, the, the point is trying to pace ourselves so so we don't eat everything, or so one person doesn't eat everything. He's on a strawberry kick, but you know, he has on a farm, he helps pick up the strawberries, but we just don't want him to eat all the strawberries. I'm gonna have to deal with the same thing with strawberry jam. I like a little bit with peanut butter, but I don't want to be the only one eating the strawberry jam. I think I got Mom's 3 things. Whoa, no, no, no, no. All right. That's enough for every month. 15. Imagine that's in 6th, and you could take a 6th. The bigger ones have to be for baking. Yeah, special occasions. Let's talk to her about that. Got Mom's tools. She's having a quick breakfast. She's weeded this one. You weeded this one-ish. Maybe you haven't weeded this one. I weeded it. Absolute pleasure. Yes, I said that. A pleasure to weed. This ain't bad either. That's a good payoff at the end.

I need to go inside and eat my breakfast. Lily is making an extra special breakfast for the kids today. So that's exciting. Henry, where are you going? You gonna go follow Papa? Oh boy, yeah. That was too long. I should have eaten 30 minutes ago. Those pancakes smell so good. Too bad I can't eat one.

Onions. Tomatoes. Onions. Peppers. This is resealable, which is amazing. Just added the pepper. I'm gonna make a bed of cabbage. How about that? Way to spice up with not enough leftovers of meatloaf, right? We stretched this, man. Is it as good as it looks? Yeah, she got some. Mom approving the vlog. You're looking at the vlog and cooking at the same time. I haven't had this in a while. Mexican. They're sending me on a mission. They need more more red onions. Going down the aisles of our grocery store. Garlic aisle, potato aisle, corn aisle. Look for the biggest, fattest one. Oh, here we are. All right, they're kind of little, so I'll grab a couple. Well, this turned out smashing. How'd those purple onions turn out?

They were kind of white on the inside, so I think they haven't matured enough, but it's all right.

Supper was amazing. Tomorrow, more broccoli coming our way. More collards. Let's see what we can do. Big day tomorrow. Happy day. Hope to see you then.