Pruning: Before It’s Too Late

Can y'all just put your hands in your pockets and look at me?

Look real serious.

Well, we had a good photo shoot, and for lunch we're gonna have a little bit of Southern soul food, leftovers from last night, except we did find some green beans from our garden. Yeah, for the family.

Not last year, but the year before that.

Is that what— these are that old?

There's one thing I I won't cook.

It's not because I'm a jerk, it's because it's sacred. And that is gravy. She makes the meanest white gravy ever. I won't even touch it. That's why, that's why just as soon as I got the baby, we, we did a switch out. A lot of times this is what happens to my stuff eventually.

What happened to that chicken?

It's like, I don't know, it started out well and it ended kind of weird. If that were to happen with the gravy, we'd all just have to give up and go take a nap. What's this?

This is arrowroot flour, and I do that because it's, um, we're grain-free.

So you did about a half a cup of bacon grease.

Oh, I did a couple of spoonfuls. This is all about— there's no recipe. I've never seen a recipe for gravy. I mean, I guess there are out there, but gravy is a feeling. Like, you feel it, you feel this.

What happened there, Beck? You undecided? Um, shoes are stopped, socks are bare feet.

I had a, uh, water in my boot. Oh shoot, did I get a, um—

even the beautiful one makes mistakes. Lily set the table nice. Doesn't that look just— it does. Perfect.

It looks like a perfect Southern meal.

What are you making?

Brownies.

I think I'll make— we've got cream from yesterday. I'll show you guys how we make ice cream. Ice cream maker. One of our early health adventures was back when we ate wheat, we used to grind our own We had a wheat grinding machine. When Rebecca discovered that she's gluten intolerant with her Hashimoto's and stuff, we sold the wheat grinder and we got this amazing ice cream maker. This is all you need. Probably one of the easiest desserts you can make. Maple syrup, cream, vanilla, 4 eggs. No, that's not it. One more thing. Milk. Let's get the yolks out.

You already got it.

That's 2 cups of cream, by the way. You can do that to this in a second. Half a cup of maple syrup.

Seriously, that's it.

Pour it into this thing. We ain't making memories here. We ain't making memories making ice cream. We already made the memories. So let's hit the button and walk away. 40 minutes. Come on, Henry, let's— we'll get happy outside. Come on, we got one more thing to do. Well, maybe two more things. It's starting to get warmer, and that means we're gonna have buds. On these persimmon trees. This one I think I actually pruned good. We had all our vertical limbs, all our inner, inner growing limbs. I could probably— after refreshing on the holistic orchard, I could probably hit that one since it's growing down. I've never pruned those trees since we got them, and they've been such a blessing. They've been producing and thriving despite Sheer, utter, total neglect. Is that how it is? Yeah, Mark Shepherd's shun method. Oh no, tell me they didn't run off with my clippers. I love these clippers. Oh no, the kids have run off with these pruners. I could use those in a pen, but there's a reason they didn't run off with those. Those are not as nice. Where are my pruners? Yes, my little orange pruners.

I know where they are. They're in your white cabinet.

White cabinet with your cameras? No, for pruning trees. Oh, they're like this big.

They're downstairs.

Can you go get it for me?

Yeah.

Can't find it. Oh wow, another gift from the cats. Oh my, where did you find them?

Downstairs.

Where were they if they weren't hanging up?

Uh, they're right inside.

Now I'm no expert on pruning, so don't look to me for advice. I'm just doing something, even if it's wrong. Even if it's like, hopefully not a lot wrong, just slightly wrong. Hey, you guys do me a favor before you get too involved playing there. Run cover up the garden. See, I don't know if y'all didn't cover it or if it got blown up. Because we don't have a lot of sandbags. Yeah, hopefully it didn't get blown up. This tree is gnarly. It's got a lot of work to do. I think I did a good job. Feels good anyway. I like pruning. There's something satisfying about it. What do you guys think?

I like killing. I like—

you think I did a good job?

Yeah. Yeah.

All right, there's a pile. Here's to hoping I did it right. These two didn't really produce anything last year, so hopefully shedding off some of this extra will really help. It's Taco Tuesday. What are we having tonight?

Well, tacos.

Tacos. She's got some onions in the pan. She's got some butter going in there. You're gonna cook the meat in that little skillet? Don't we normally do it in the big skillet?

We have done it in the big skillet. It's too much.

Really? Uh, she's got some Mexican rice coming on. What makes that rice orange?

Tomato sauce.

Okay. Josiah's making guacamole. Jonah, what you making? You need me to cut that? So you can brown that even though you're putting so much— 4 pounds of meat in that medium-sized skillet.

Yeah, I do this a lot, baby.

Look at him playing with the Kubota. You pushing that around? Rebecca's rice turned out nice. The beef— eat your beef, buddy. Yay, it's good for you.

Did you know that?

Good for you, buddy. Eat up, everybody. Enjoy. Well, I forgot to film the eating of the ice cream, but that's all. That's it. Oh, there's somebody's plate. Amazing brownie and ice cream. You know, Rebecca and I entered a very interesting phase in our life when our child can bake without our help.