Preparing for an at Home Beef Butchering

Oh my word, they cleared this for us. They need something to eat for a day. Why not put them on our garden? Okay, we gotta move these guys out. We're gonna cover this for a little bit because they're— cover it for a couple weeks and then we'll get the, uh, that'll kill off the weeds even more. And then we'll harvest the potatoes. We gotta get the corn out of here so we can cover it right here. Instead of mowing this lawn, let's put our sheep on it first because they needed somewhere— something to eat today. Gotta hustle because all we have is this morning. We have to set up for our beef butchering today. It's tomorrow, so we have to get it set because I'm leaving butt early tomorrow to pick up the carcass because we do not have this afternoon on account of my physical therapy for my shoulder. Grass growth is slowing down this time of year. You're getting less light, it's starting to be a little cooler. Uh, we need to make the best use of our entire farm as we can. We have to supplement with hay, and I would like to do that as less as as less as possible, as little as possible, is to get these sheep in these little nooks and crannies. And we can make our cows' paddock smaller out in the main pasture, and then therefore that slows them down because you don't go around the farm as fast. When grass is growing slow, you rotate your animals slow. When grass is going fast, early spring, early summer— or sorry, spring, early summer— You move your animals fast. Leave room for Beauty's high tunnel. She might be doing tomatoes today. Come right here, come down through there, up and around, maybe to the persimmon, and then over. And then we'll hit that tomorrow. Tomorrow we're going to be in a butchering, so I think about that. I'll need to set that up tonight. All right, I got it set up. You think that's a day? Looks a little big, but we'll see. I got an idea for the corn. Yeah, hopefully we can get this before breakfast. I doubt it. I think it's gonna be ready in like 5 minutes. I've been pulling up this corn. Corn's already a heavy feeder, taking a lot of soil. Look how much soil it pulls up when I pull that rope. Okay, I can knock it off, but it takes time and I still don't get it all off. I'm just hauling that to the pigs. I'm just moving my soil. My idea is, should we cut these way down at the bottom and then the— hopefully the roots will just die off? Here, you want to cut? No, I'm gonna cut. Okay, cut it down low as you can. Okay, that tarp's got to sit on there. Yeah, there you go. That works. Oh yeah, this is working. Hopefully the root will just die off and rot in there, and then we're not even disturbing the soil. Well, she just called breakfast and we got it all cut, so it was worth aiming for the impossible. We'll come back after and pick it up. Helping. Well, the generator is helping. It's not helping that we're out of power. Not all our outlets are on the generator, so our dishwasher isn't going down in the farm kitchen. Gideon, let's go! We need our farm kitchen to be washing dishes downstairs. Getting the— that's where we're gonna butcher tomorrow. We gotta get it picked up. I'm getting kind of— I'll be honest, I'm getting kind of stressed out. It's after 10. Oh, I've got a PT at 1. I needed to get this corn covered and this ground covered before we do that, before we get ready. I don't know what you're gonna be getting ready about right now. Come on, get in! Let's go! I've come up with a list. Get the corn and the COVID crop on— or sorry, we got to get the corn up and the silage tarp down. Sharpen knives. I just sharpened all the knives I could find. We have more knives in the shed. Okay, I guess we're all working together on the corn. Well, it's handy having you too. Geez, what a difference between him and them and then Gideon and Henry. All right, come here, come here, grab this.

We don't have power. Strangely enough, our generator's on. Weirdly, um, I called the power company. I felt like— I feel like the last week of my life I haven't done much on the homestead. It's been a lot of like other things. Insurance, talking to insurance, making choices at the cabin. I am painting. I'm gonna bring you guys along. A lot of this stuff is like me at the computer making decisions. No, If we had unlimited funds, I would just buy a vanity, but I'm trying to like get a vanity that I want for the best price, so I have to shop around. All right, Jonah's gonna drive me over. We're staining and we're painting, we're doing both. So, um, I had to get a paint. They don't do stain samples, but he said it's basically like the same thing. It's the color. So will you get me two different logs? This has been a lot of my life. Um, do you have smaller ones? Yeah, that's fine. I just wanted to do the new because we have some new logs that we put in and then some old, so we can kind of get a— but I think the stain that we chose will probably cover it nicely. First up, let them— we're gonna let those dry. I've got a trim piece and then I've got the backsplash piece. Is what it's coming out to be, and I'm really liking these colors. So Jonah had mentioned to me though, what happens if we just keep the logs the way they are? And I was like, oh, that's an interesting idea. So I'm entertaining that idea, um, if that's what he wants. I thought he wanted to paint— you know, that's terrible. I thought he wanted to paint it. I guess he doesn't, and that's okay. Like, we all change our minds. I had a color picked out and now I don't want that color anymore. I feel like we're back to square one. I'm hoping that he sees something that he really likes here. There's so many decisions. I think that's where I'm at. I'm at decision fatigue. I got to it when we did this house, like, because I'm not just making decisions for the remodel, then I'm making other decisions too. Um, and some of you have probably wondered why, like, Justin does some of the cooking. It's because I'm decision fatigued. I am tired of making decisions.

We finished the corn. Can we go? Yeah, can we start on the list? Let's get the tank. We got to keep this carcass on ice when it gets here. Don't let it bounce. Grab it, it'll bend. That's ain't cheap. How's the bottom holding up? Good. Oh, it is holding up good. All right. This is our everything tank. Stainless steel, so it's non-toxic, no plastic. We soak chickens in it, we draw bass in this, we do cold plunges in this, we scald pigs. Is that even big enough though? Maybe not. What? Maybe not. Okay, let's get the— you want to get that blue bin then washed?

What about that?

What? I think that thing also has holes. The advantage of the holes—

one bag for carcass.

We need 4 of these. This is pretty tight for holding carcass. 529-pound carcass. They did a good job, huh?

They did. They did such a good job.

That deck made all the difference.

It did.

The one gift from Hurricane Helene, that telephone pole. Here we go. That's big enough. There's a hole right there.

Yeah, but that's not the hole that floods.

Jonah had the idea. He would have the idea. Get the machine, right? Oh wow, that's not even getting it. Okay, wow, that looks a lot better. We have stains here. Let the sun sanitize it and we'll get the— we need to get the forks on the track loader. Can you do that? Get the forks on the track loader, let it warm up. Yeah, and that way this will be ready tomorrow because in the morning after chores I'll be gone to get the carcass. You put some ice in that. Well, I interrupt this program. Power company's here. Needing to get to a down line. Boys are moving the horse panel. That's a big truck about to want to cross this bridge. They might use our bypass.

That—

we made a bypass right here for this reason. Utility trucks, fire trucks, you don't want to go over this locust bridge, go right through the creek. He's got to get through over to the neighbors to pull his tree out. Can they get through here now? Yeah, yeah, they got to get over there to get the tree out. It's a huge mess here. What is going on over here? You can't let anybody see this. We gotta clean this up. The dishwasher, that was not working. Power's out. No, and that was not on the unit, so we gotta wash by hand. Gotta get the sauces out of here, the coolers out of here. Everybody, we gotta get this table wiped down. We're gonna get another table here. We're gonna get the couch out. We gotta put this here long ways. Y'all can't find something to do to pick up, I'm gonna put you on the dish duty.

I am now trying to help Justin with the internet because we're going live tomorrow for the beef butchering. I think we used to have a date lazy chain up there. I think that's what they called it. I feel like someone called that for me. All right, we've pieced it together. We're gonna go up and keep trying to figure out— solve all the problems. You like the green one?

Okay, green's nice too.

You like that? All right, I got it done. I realized I did not show you you guys any of those colors, so I'll have to go back. But there is— looks like wood chips here, like a wood chip guy. Okay, so I came down here because the wood chip guy and Justin was talking to him, so that was good. I'm bringing Justin back to the cabin to show him. Talking to your new best friends?

You gotta tell them you're gonna tip them some cash, $20 cash, because they don't care. They're getting paid by the hour. They're driving to the dump. They don't care.

Do they put them at the dump?

They put them somewhere.

You saw the colors up there. Jonah picked this one.

I see that.

So we're gonna go with that one, and then this is the trim. And then in here, so this is the wall color that I've chosen. It's Creamy by Sherwin-Williams. I really like it. And then this is— he's doing his brain surgery back here, Randolph. Then this is going to be the trim color. This one. This is the backsplash over here. I think it looks really nice with these white cabinets. So there you go. Oops. So there, that will be that. Now, Jonah, I want to talk to you about this. Jonah had the idea to put beadboard about 4 feet up. Okay, so we would still have the trim color and then it would be painted this You painted this? Yeah, I did a sample on it. Okay, of that. And then we would have a trim piece at the top. Okay, it'd be about $200 extra, Randolph, in supplies. So do you think we should do it? Jonah thought that it would help keep the drywall nice. We've already had two holes in our—

yeah.

Drywall 4 feet and under, under 4 feet. So should we do it?

Yeah.

All right, I'm gonna confirm with Jonah. I want him to come over and see the colors too.

Okay, I've been putting this off. Oh my God, I've been putting this off. Okay, we got a little bit before supper. Let's just keep going at it.