Preparing to Survive off the Land (for 30 days)

Happy Sunday seed day! I wish you could feel it out here. It's 76 degrees. That's not bad, but it didn't really cool off last night.

I came out of the house and look at— this is teenage boys with a dirt bike. We've got to get tomatoes. I have so many tomatoes that are ready. It's supposed to be 90. I know that's, that's not real hot for a lot of you. It's very hot for us. I'm looking for all of my crates. They usually get all put together, but I don't know what happened. Justin must have come down here because the lights are on.

I turned them off.

Let's see if he's over here, if he's found crates.

Rebecca, you in here?

Hey.

Hey.

Did you find crates?

I found one.

I know, that's the one I found.

Do you want to turn the water off?

I did.

I'll go look for the crate while you start this grass. Yeah, I think you think we're ready for some— I know, uh, grass clippings experiments on a big scale. Yes, we gotta let it dry. Yes, that is a pumpkin. So much for the pumpkin chalice this year, huh? There's one too, babe. Is that a volunteer?

It must be.

Sweet. Goal of the day: get this hot work out of the way, harvesting tomatoes. Yes.

Green beans, if there's green beans to be harvested.

And then preserving tomatoes, green beans, blueberries.

Yep.

And maybe cabbage.

Yeah, I just need a sauerkraut, the cabbage still. I'm still working on, on all of it.

Okay, instead of overwhelm, we get to do it. And duty. What a wonderful way to spend the day. I learned that from Ruth Ann when I sent her a picture of us processing blueberries.

It's so funny because I'm the only one— I'm the one who did it.

I feel for you, babe. I feel for you.

Yesterday I got to take some of the tomatoes and cucumbers and the zucchini and corn to my friend. So that's always, it's always a blessing to bless people with the garden.

I was lucky. Somebody's idea of cleaning the porch. Shove it all in this basket and put it to the side. Again, gonna have to do that right in a little bit. Rebecca, I found the basket, but I hear Henry hollering. Gotta defuse this bomb.

Well, so much for that. Henry woke up and he only wants me, so I'm going. Justin's coming down. I'm gonna go get Henry.

Oh boy, I'm for let's go. He'll be okay. She's a tender soul. You gotta go minister to him. Bless her heart, she'll do anything for these kids. And I reckon that's the thing, we're first growing chidlers. Rebecca's gonna need to make judgment about the Tomatoes. I'm going to show you why grass clippings could be so very important. All right, here we go. I think I'd rather weed than preserve. That was refreshing when, with Ruth Ann, who I know as the preservation lady, admitted she doesn't like it.

I don't like to harvest and preserve things. I just like to grow things.

We left our water on last night. That might be tricky to weed in. Yeah, it'd be muddy. That's not great weeding. And plus, if I, if I weed and leave them, inadvertently they'll just grow back because they'll be so wet. So I think we have to let that dry out a little bit. Maybe I can harvest green beans.

I'm back, minus Henry. He's dressed though. He is back in bed. I don't know, whatever. Um, he wanted me to change him, so I did, and I let him know that I was coming back out to the garden.

Well, that was quick, babe.

Yep.

There's no rush to do the tomatoes, so just get the ones that are for sure, for sure. You didn't like that? You didn't like that suggestion? Two baskets for green beans, one for clean beans in the pillowcase, and another one for cleaning and vacuum sealing. Are we ready? Oh yeah, look at that, very ready.

I've got a nice load of potatoes— potatoes? Tomatoes. But look at how beautiful.

Midway check-in. I think this is really good for my arm, this, this type of movement. The good thing about the farm is it keeps me moving, and moving is key to healing. This is taking forever, but I'm enjoying my conversation with Rebecca. She's pretty adamant about not gardening by herself, which I can't quite blame her. Some people really like the sanctuary of the garden and being by themselves, and some people really like communion while they're out there, communion with others. Becca likes a little bit of both, more communion than solitude. I don't mind the solitude so much. I'll probably lean more towards that. How the pigs been while I've been gone? They've been good. Can you get them some stems of broccoli? Yeah, look at your squash plants, babe. Huge zucchini. You got one right there, babe. Oh, you got a yellow squash. Got one that's probably too big but still could use it.

3 crates so far, and I just have— I just have like these 10 tomato plants, so I'm gonna try to continue filling up this because the black crates are full. Can't get any more in them. So gonna work on that and then get in the kitchen. Fun tomato. It's got like a little wave or whatever. I don't know, I just love tomatoes. And that is a wrap for today and the tomatoes. I am planning this week to get to a farmer's market. I did not have good pepper germination, so I was supposed to have a whole 100-foot row of peppers. That did not happen. So I'm gonna go to the local farmers market and see what I can get so that I can make my salsa. I also need to buy cilantro from farmers.

Breaks your heart to lose one tomato among all these tomatoes. When you have multiple children, your heart just expands with just more love. Your heart expands the more tomatoes you get.

Of course.

Are you hurting over this one?

No, it's a big boy.

That's the biggest one you found yet?

No, I found some on these.

Is he fixing to turn into a butterfly or something?

Um, he would turn into a moth.

Wow.

But I found one, a couple on these that were like so fat and like green because they've eaten just so many leaves.

It's not crazy out here, it's 76. That's what my mom keeps her thermostat on. I think the trick is that sign of how hot it's gonna be. You already start out at kind of 76. You never— it's not cool. And that sun's coming. It's already on the sea monsters, which this is the last day we feed them, Brady. Before we go in and before it gets too hot, right here we got some weeds. We got some major weeds in the potatoes. Whatever weed that is, the pigs love it. That's why, folks, you put pigs or chickens by the garden. We're turning that problem into a solution. Substantial part of their diet today. Hopefully I remember I've taken a picture of this weed. I'm gonna see what it is. My perspective on weeds is a little different. You know, do I really want to eliminate them all if it's pig food? If it's free pig food? People grow gardens for their pigs. I guess that's exactly what I'm doing, so I shouldn't look at it as this negative thing. With this free resource, I'm closing the cycle. They're eating and surviving off our land. The sun is up. It's not too crazy hot yet, and we're going inside. Hope that doesn't roll too far. Open the door!

I actually mentioned it to Justin and I was like, what do you think about me doing this outside tomorrow? And his response was, because I was like, you know, maybe it'll make it easier. His response was, do you really want to be outside when it's 90 degrees? And that is true. I will just can inside, 'cause then at least I can be in the air conditioning. Just putting a little bit of vinegar on all of this. Okay, it takes it a minute to get started. I'm gonna just hit start. You may be wondering why there's so little bread. Well, I am gluten-free, and so because of that, I have to buy gluten-free bread. Gluten-free bread by default is very small. I only bought 2 loaves, 'cause this is like $15 worth of bread, which is ridiculous. I am going to go upstairs and pack blueberries. I— last Friday I froze berries, and then I— Saturday morning I ended up taking the berries out of the freezer, putting them in bags, and then reloading the trays and then freezing them. So now it's Sunday, I need to use those trays for tomatoes, so I'm going— I need to get the blueberries off of them. We have 5 gallons right here, and then Lily— I have 3, Lily has 2, she's down there. And then we already have 2 down here, and I left a half a gallon up in the freezer. Got these, and I'm gonna load them.

Oh, it worked!

It did!

Your— you boiled the the grease for that we cook in.

Well, so I took the grease and I got the— I put water in it. Oh, and I boiled that, and then all of the impurities that were in it, which is just like—

now you have a nice clean— I need you to try it for a second. Now you have a nice clean cooking oil.

Yeah, I'm gonna put this— I'm gonna break this up and put this into a container in the fridge. Oh, and then we'll have it for—

you don't even set it back in the—

well, I guess we could. Is it— is there something in there?

Pretty much a dedicated fryer. The family that tomatoes together stays together.

All right. Yep.

Or does this sound better? It's to make— the family that gardens together stays together. No, that doesn't rhyme. Family that farms together stays together. That works. Clean beans, pillowcase beans. Really? What you doing?

I made everyone slushy.

All right, nice.

My first time making one, so it's good.

We've got them all cut up. We're cooking now, aren't we, babe? We're getting the skin off. Randolph's gonna be real happy. We've got a ton to peel. We took a little break. We've got only probably one or two more trays to cook.

Oh, I didn't know we have one. I'll get it.

Yeah.

I have in here, I have 7 quarts warming up, another 7 quarts, and then I have this. I bet, my bet is gonna be 24 quarts of sauce. I think one great thing about this, getting all of this juice, tomato juice off so I don't have to cook it down, is it is 2:20. So, you know, we started picking at 6:30, but life happens and there's a lot of in-between. We ate breakfast and lunch in there. Um, the kids even preserved green beans. I feel like we're doing really good that my first batch is already in the can— in the water bath at 2:15. So I feel like I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna get it done before for dinner tonight. I'm gonna come in here real quick and see if I can find some local farms that do some things. I wanted to look for a maple syrup. See if we can't find maple syrup. It's actually too far. It's not within 100 miles.

Sunday is always a cold start because we take the Sabbath and then we've rested up and then it's like we hit it really hard. And one thing that's been getting us through, easing us back in— and you know, Friday we cheat, we have a cheat meal, and then we have leftovers of that on Saturday. This is kind of the last weekend hurrah, right?

Well, I feel like I'm doing this until Grow 30.

Iced coffee, because you ain't getting it.

I know, every day.

Grow 30, August 1st we start it, so that first video will come out August 2nd. We're gonna do film today, publish tomorrow. Schedule. Becky, we used to do 100 days of growing food. I know, we used to vlog 100 days in a row.

Yeah, and that day 85, I'd be like, why do we do this? We'd say that, why did we do this? By like day 85, I was able to voice it. Probably by day 70, I was like thinking it.

Like Jonah and Austin running hills after running to the church building and back, 3 miles there. They ran 6 miles and now they're running hills?

I guess. My timer went off while we were down there, and so I came back down and turned off that sauce. I got this one going. Got another 7 quarts in here. I'm hoping this is just 7 quarts and not 8. That's all that's going on. Dinner is starting.

Are we wrapping it up here?

We are. There it is.

It looks fantastic. Look how saucy. Indian chicken tonight. You better enjoy that rice. Rice doesn't grow anywhere near mountains in North Carolina.

Actually, there is a farm that does do it. Really?

I guess we're going to discover all the abundance around us. Could you sub it for potatoes?

No, not with Indian chicken.

The rice can be The chicken, certainly. Butter. Put some butter on that chicken and rice. Thanks for going with us on this journey. Happy day.