In this homestead vlog, the host walks viewers through a day of varied farm activities, blending humor, instruction, and reflection. The episode opens with a failed attempt to make pork rinds, detailing the preparation, frying process, and the resulting burnt product, while joking about the mishap. The narrative then shifts to family dynamics, highlighting how the children and other relatives contribute to chores, learn responsibility, and support the farm’s operations. The core project involves establishing a temporary sheep paddock on under‑utilized land near Grandma’s house: the team mows the area, installs electric netting (Premier One), and moves five newly acquired ewes (from Greg Judy) into the enclosure, discussing fence layout, future expansion, and the goal of producing enough lambs for meat security. Concurrently, the host explains the removal of a deck top to address a potential basement water barrier and mold risk, emphasizing a long‑term, decadal perspective on property maintenance. Throughout, the host reflects on the balance between exciting new ventures and the necessary, often mundane, upkeep that defines homesteading, encouraging viewers to love the grind and find value in both innovation and routine.
Chapters
On today's episode of Burning Up Cookie Show, pork rinds. Uh, we grinded down the fat that was on these skins. Mm, did it— overdid it a little bit. That's okay, this is not baking lard. It's gonna be okay. We want flavor. That's what it should look like. Snowy White came to that. The internet says harden those in the dehydrator. We did that, and then we didn't have time yesterday, so they just sat there. I don't think it'll hurt anything. All it says we got to do is fry them up to puff them up. We can use our oil. Good morning. I'm up. Some bacon grease for flavor. What you making? Tea. I have no idea how hot I'm supposed to get this or how long I'm supposed to fry them. Almost to 200. I feel like in my heart I should go to 250. You ever had a pork rind? Not really. Oh, you haven't lived. Well, yes, Grandma bought some really spicy ones. Oh yeah, I would have just used salt. Yeah. Hey buddy, good morning. Good morning. Crazy hair don't care. It's at 250. Let's do this thing. Honestly, I thought it was going to start puffing up right away. It's quite anticlimactic. They sink to the bottom. I thought they were going to float. Uh-oh, am I doing something wrong? All you on the internet are saying No! No! No! Stop adding, you're screwing it up. Or you're saying, just hang tight, they'll come. We got some bubbling. They're starting to float. Holy smokes, I'm making pork rinds. Oh look, there we go. Look at that. Puffed, puffed up. Let's salt the ones we got. Is it too hard? It's too hard. So what? Oh, that puffy— that means hot. Oh, okay, you have to keep the meat off. You have to take all that off. Oh wow, it's a little hard, a little hard. What am I doing wrong? Look at that, that sounds awful crunchy. They're getting darker because the oil's burning. I'm burning the oil. Start off light. Now they're getting darker. Okay, here's a super puffy one. Not yet. They're starting to taste burnt. Oh yeah, look at that. This is the Burn It Up Cooking Show. You can't burn pork. I don't just show you when I figured it out. Show the journey. Can you see the haze? Yeah, yeah. Okay, burned up cooking show, full effect. Air purifier up higher. Let's put the vent on. How is it? Good. Good. Okay, so what happened? It didn't work out. They didn't puff up. It gets soft. They puffed up, they're still hard. There he goes, there's the truth. And then they burnt in the oil because I thought I had to cook them longer. They're terrible. Try You want to try one? No. Okay, everybody's coming. Can you do it? Yeah. All right. I wasn't so sure how useful a motorcycle would be on the farm, but there you go. Trying a new habit of not leaving a place till it's clean, starting with the garage. I'm not gonna overwhelm myself and make that rule for everything just yet. That's a challenge. An anvil. The boys kids did leave this here, and I should probably have them stop what they're doing and come get it. But actually, what they're doing is very responsible. They're out doing chores. They help a lot. They play a lot. They work in the morning. You guys don't see the play because they pretty much play all afternoon. Sure, they should put this back, and if they were here, honestly, I would have told them to. But they do need to learn responsibility. I get that. But they are learning responsibility. They're out each doing their own chores, and in this case, without even being asked. They're helping me, aren't they? Because I'm part of the farm. I enjoy the farm. It's really my vision. They're helping me. I can help them. Zane, getting it in there. We're gonna miss you, buddy. We're talking about setting up Energizer for the sheep up at Big Daddy's. We got to come up with a plan, bro. What's wrong with the plan? Nothing. Hey, how was the buckets? Good. We just finished sweeping and, uh, your daughter came in and filled her bucket, and so now we're right back, right back to where we were. That's why when we came here this morning, it was Jack. Now that's one good thing about somebody who's not naturally clean. I can let that go. I can go on, right? You didn't break my heart. We'll get it tomorrow. So I texted Paige about the pork rinds. You gotta boil them. Oh, I didn't boil. I know, I didn't. There was no boil instructions and none of the recipes. So you got boil at the very beginning, 1 to 3 hours, the whole big skin after the dehydration. No, no, first thing. I'm hoping unlike yesterday we don't get stuck. This is a swampy area, so I'm gonna get some speed. We're gonna set up a sheep's pasture, a brand new sheep paddock up on Big Daddy's. Let's get the mower and string trimmer. This is the obvious spot. Grandma's house up there. Totally underutilized, totally close to our house, totally away from the other animals. And this is the not so obvious spot, but this is what they'll love. This we just mow for where we think our paddock size is going to be. I think we could do week-long paddocks, so we could do bigger paddocks. Is this your idea? Yep, it's the extension cord. Okay, getting the extension cord across the Energizer under that. Okay, uh, mow right through here like this. Yeah, and then turn, just go, and then turn and make the connection. And we have our— we have our spot. Hopefully I'm showing you how easy this can be. Premier One sheep net, two of them. We ended up using two. There's a 100-footer and then there's— I think we can make a 50-foot, make the connection there. You have just an overgrown area, sheep will love it. Estimate a week. I don't know what a week is. He's a ram and a little lamb, but I'll know more after I try it. And next week I'll have a better paddock size, guaranteed. Yeah, you think that'll make it? Yeah. Oh, we might have to cut this corner. It is good to have double the fence. So that you can have the sheep in your one fence. You can set up your next one, move them over, and then pull the old one up and it's your next time fence. This is when I'm glad that Winnie is out and roaming around. Yeah. All right, you ready to go get these guys? Let them have a little taste. No, out of the bucket, out of the bucket. There we go. All right, we're in, we're in. How does that make you feel, Lily? I think that's good. Did you think it was gonna go that good? Probably. Do you think it was gonna be harder? Yeah. Hey, it's a lot bigger area for you guys. They're being really hesitant. I think it's because they're used to their cage. Notice how they're staying in the mown areas, but I think they'll get to it. Do this at home at your own risk. Got a ramshaw. Not sure they need it. They do have that tree, they do have that bush. But we'll just give it to them in case. Honestly, it's a little strange to me why they aren't just going nuts for the weeds. That's the kind of stuff they like. I gotta go. You guys stay here and watch it, and we'll hope that they eventually go in there, which I think they will. Yes, our deck top is missing. We have a wild jungle gym that we try to keep the kids off of. And don't come running out of that door. Let's do be careful. Yesterday we began a huge project and it started with ripping off the top of this deck. But it's not that we just wanted a new deck. It's not that at all. It's that I don't know if there's not or it's failing the water barrier. To our basement, and we're going to have problems with mold in the future. We do not have it yet, but to be concerned for the future— I'm a long-term view kind of guy, decades kind of guy— we're gonna have to unfortunately rip all this up. And look at this powerhouse of power and electric and— well, power and electric is the same thing. Internet and phone. We're waiting on the line markers to come. They were supposed to come into last week, were supposed to come yesterday, and now where are they today? We don't know. For those of you that like remodeling and digging up, it's going to be exciting. We said goodbye to Zane. Zane, you were a wonderful help. Thank you, buddy. Thank you for what you've done for the Abundance Plus community and the homestead community at large. Thank you, buddy. We all appreciate you. We got Grandma and Big Daddy here. We are looking for the cage, the cage, so the big cage the boys were supposed to bring back down. There's the little one. We're getting sheep, y'all. We're getting 5 more sheep, ewes, from Greg Judy. Why are we getting more ewes? Well, we need more lambs. We're going to need at least 6 lambs to meet our meat, meat need. We'll have a little bit more— what do you call it, not redundancy— a little more fail-safe, a little more cushion if something were to go wrong. Uh, oh, and we can sell the feeders if we get more lambs than we need to eat. We can sell those lambs. We got a lead of where this thing is. There it is. What do you think, guys? You got to get 5 little U's in there. Okay, I just reviewed the time lapse. Looks like they kind of nibbled on that from the outside. Come on, Nacho, you're just standing there in the sun. Come on, go get in there and get in the shade. What's the deal? Well, look who's here. Yeah, so what I was saying is that's the thing with homesteading, isn't it? And home ownership and land ownership. Sometimes we're doing exciting things and creating new things, But a lot of times we're just maintaining, and that's okay. We can come to love the process. You've got to love the grind. Learn to sit and be okay with the mundane.
