Recovering

Shh, we're up. Keeping him very happy so that Mommy can sleep in. That means pineapple smoothie. We ran out of frozen bananas, so hopefully this is still good. Yes?

Mommy told us. I woke up.

Oh, why'd you wake her up? We didn't, she woke up. She came out. Wait, wait, wait, wait. I hope you're doing that right. What? The ratio, especially since we don't have bananas, which is our creaminess.

Oh, come on!

But we're gonna add it back in if we have to. See how creamy that's gonna bring? This can bring in a lot of cream. Okay, you do it. Is it good?

Yeah, kind of.

Well, that came out nice and thick and creamy. What's wrong?

I don't want a blueberry.

Why didn't you say that when we were putting the pineapples in? Do you like it? We have a very rainy day on the farm today, so I'm telling myself this bit of a delay— well, it's not a delay. I mean, we're doing this for the kids, right? But this delay is okay. Henry, I believe these are the blueberries we harvested from our neighbor. Protein powder will sneak in there. Gelatin. Here, you put this in there, and then that's it. And then we're gonna spin it.

Oh wow, good!

It is? Okay, pigs will enjoy that smoothie. The aftertaste— I tasted it, the aftertaste tastes like puke. I give up on the smoothie. Make some eggs. We've got eggs. Okay, we don't have smoothie. Well, we— I mean, we We sort of do have smoothies. That smoothie was from the land. The blueberries, the yogurt, the milk. Something that was rotten. Spatchcocking gets everything cooked more evenly, especially the thighs and the legs. See, see how more evenly they're exposed? It's a spatchcock turkey. Now I want to know Is dry brining a turkey a thing? I dry brined on Friday a steak. It was so delicious. I think it's worth a try. Uh, don't know if this is necessary because I think we removed the skin for Turkey Devon. I'm pretty sure we did. Maybe I should remove the skin now. Dry brine it.

Oh, and turkey head.

All right, let's make yogurt. You think we have a gallon? Maybe. Our cows are slowing down drastically. I hope that's because, well, you have to— they fire away as soon as they have a calf, you know, the milk production peaks and then it gradually wanes until, you know, they've been bred again now and then they're gonna have a baby. Do we have any drinks on there? Maybe we should just milk.

Let's just make yogurt out of one.

It is very wet out there. It's been raining the last few days and it rained hard all night last night. Hard. I think it's gonna clear. We might be able to hang one of these chicken hoops today. At least one bar. You wanna carry the eggshells? We got about 10 minutes till your breakfast. Think we can do the chores in that time? Hey, I smell spray paint. I see a spray paint lid. No. No! Organic regenerative farm so we can spray paint inside. All right, let's get out of here, buddy. We don't need to be smelling this. Happy day. Welcome to another day in the life of recovery. Makes me wonder how we can be on this journey together. What are you recovering from? What could you recover from? I need that spray paint. I need eyes on the spray paint, please. Do you need to recover from a health crisis? Have you too lost a loved one? Do you need to recover from a natural disaster? Or, uh, we've had inflation over the last several years, so we could all use some financial recovery and some, uh— and how about with the— so did I finish that thought? And how about with the, you know, with egg shortages and things like that? We all want a little food security, guys. We cannot wait until the— you can't wait until the crisis to be prepared. You got to get chicks in the spring to start laying in the fall, to be prepared for a fall crisis, so to speak. Beautiful eggs. What's my motto? Let me be free. No, the other one, the other one. You can homestead, I can help, and you can help me. We can help each other. We can do this together. Let's see, how can we all work together to make 2025 our best homestead ever and recover from whatever it is we need to recover from. Maybe you need to recover the family. Maybe you want to have more family time and you want something positive that you can all do together, something that you can build together. Nothing better than a homestead because everybody can have a job. Get in! I think he's saying help. Oh my gosh, what's happening? Well, you have to. Should be dry this side. It was late, it was It was laying here, maybe off this rock. So here's how I can help. We can help each other. You guys probably already know because I've talked about it all last week. The Joel Salatin inspirational content, the Lunatic Farmer show, we just put out the second episode. You can get both those shows inside Abundance Plus. We're just chopping everything off, getting ready for the cold weather. Because I don't want to do this during the cold weather. How you doing? You're doing fantastic. Peepcake's much happier, much drier. I'm glad I moved him when he did because it is muddy over there. You would get sick, wouldn't you? But for New Year's registration— shoot, when's the Friday? Friday ends Friday, uh, about 6:20. We're giving away $30 towards any of Joel's book when you sign up for an annual membership. $30 towards any of Joel Salatin's books. That's mean basically you get a free book. Little piglets come over, they know what's up. Now we made it so— and I understand they can get over, but they can also get back, and he can't get over to them, but he won't hurt them. That's not why I separate them. I separate them because I want to feed her all she can eat, and I don't want him to have all he can eat. Also excited to announce a webinar schedule. Monthly webinars, first Saturday of the month on beekeeping. We gotta have one on meat chickens. We have one on growing herbs for medicine. Here, pig, pig, pig, pig, piggy. Here, look, you can see the full schedule at Abundance Plus. Oh, uh, preserving milk, making milk products with the Dohertys. Like, they're coming here. We're gonna have a live show with them here. If you don't know who the Dohertys are, you will have visited them a number of times. I look up to them. They're the most legit homesteaders I know. Talk about if you didn't grow it, you don't eat it. They live that. How's she getting in there? Like, how is she getting over there? I think the self-feeder jam, maybe. No, come on. No, it's fine. Let's lower the strap. We'll go across the bottom. It'll be much harder. Look, and I made it crazy tight. See what happens for tomorrow. He's got limited food. You guys got all you can eat. Leave him alone. The sun means we could be putting up a chicken hoop today. Another thing I'm excited about that will help you all in your homesteading journey is we were just able to add a direct messaging feature inside Abundance Plus. So y'all can be contacting each other, exchanging emails, exchanging phone numbers. You know, suppose you want to post some of your livestock for sale. Well, somebody needs to be able to get a hold of you. Well, now they can. They can DM you. Maybe somebody posts something and it touches your heart and you want to drop them a note of encouragement. You can do that now. Or you see that they're also in Texas and you want to contact them. You can do that now. Direct messaging. And then the premium level, you can direct message me so you can get access to me. And I will be that food-growing uncle you always wished you had. I always wish you could just message about a little bit of a question. I've got this little bit of a question. You know, the books don't answer it. Mr. Google Pants, I don't understand him. Uh, I just need a trusted authority. Well, DM me. And like an uncle who's getting towards his 50s, maybe a little bit slower with technology, so give me 24 hours, but I'll get to it. Check in, see what we need to get into. I know we need to get wood. The cold weather is coming. I need to get trough heaters going to the chickens and pigs. I want to at least hang one of those ribs for the hoop coop just to see if this is going to work. And for all non-premium members, just get inside there in the community. We have a wonderful app You can access Abundance Plus on the website, but also the app on your phone. You can access it on your TV to watch inspirational shows. But anyway, in the community, I'm also interacting with every post in there, and that's not even the premium level. So let's talk. What'd you make everybody, Bird Dog?

Biscuits and sausage.

Look at this day. I was not expecting that. I was thinking it would be a Make tallow day.

Clean up day.

So I'm excited. We're gonna do projects. Well, she was planting the garden. You're about like me writing a book. Well, no. I get distracted every 10 minutes.

So no, what I am is just trying to look for cabinets for the— you have to look every day.

It's not like I'm not doing productive stuff. It's hard to concentrate on something, isn't it?

No, it's not. I got seeds.

I'm pulled up. Okay, you're gonna plant our massive garden this year?

Yes.

What's the cabinet for?

Well, it would be for me, but I'm not spending the money on it.

So you're shopping for things?

No, I just saw it.

Sounds real productive.

You're a funny guy.

I'm a fun guy. Then we can't find it either, so I'm gonna just wait. Could be splitting wood, could be doing a hose. A pole for the chicken. Wow.

It's gorgeous. It's like in near perfect condition. So this is what people used to have in their kitchens, and so like they would put the flour in there.

That's a meal.

And so this is where they would prepare their bread, but like everything was kept in this, like, for baking. Isn't that cool?

Lily, you gonna kind of be in charge of the kitchen and watch Henry? Thank you. It's been over an hour. I think, I think it's gonna be done. Look at that even roast. It wouldn't be homesteading without problems. The pull cord broke on the splitter. We really need the splitter. I had some paracord stuff in here. Got some paracord. All-purpose, man. All-purpose stuff. I hope paracord will work for this. Would paracord work for this? You think paracord will work? It's different than this, you know. This is kind of not stretchy. You've seen how that did that. Can we just make it shorter? Uh, I wouldn't. Why not? Because you need a full amount of pull. I guess you could always put this back on if the paracord doesn't work. This is a relatively common mishap. I don't think we've ever fixed it ourselves, have we? That's not very— happened to us. Oh, after I say it's common. Fact check, fact check. We have a really good mobile mechanic, but we need this fixed now. And this year we're learning self-reliance. We've established most of our own food system. Time to learn self-reliance, and that means fixing things. I'm glad we have one that's mechanically inclined. I'm working on getting the wood boiler started. Ran out of wood this morning. They go get some charcoal. Jonah is gone. He may have fixed this thing. How's the treehouse going? Yeah, bud. Hey, you got it fit.

Work all right.

We fix things, bro. We fix things.

1 hour, we split a quarter wood. Might could fit one more over there. Let's get— let's rig a cover for the other ones, keep them dry. We really need to make the piece we cut out work. How to keep most of the water off of it. Dicing the turkey, listening to Tuberman interview my man Pavel. I don't know how to say his last name, from Simple and Sinister. It's my kettlebell workout, really simple stuff. Doing your part now.

I am.

You made cornbread for your channel yet? Because it's OG, isn't it? Did your grandmas? No. Your bosses?

No, I'm working on that recipe. I don't have one made yet, but I'm working on making my Aunt Flossie's cornbread. This is not her. This is another recipe.

You just make the cornbread just to put on the stuff?

I just actually put it on the side. I'll crumble some on top.

Oh, okay.

And then I'll put some on the— and then the kids like to eat it with it.

I just used the new DM feature on Abundance Plus. Members can talk to me. Previously we've had to use text, but now we have DM and it's super smooth. Somebody heard about the shingles and they want to send me some lemon balm. Heck yes. I mean, remember, I'll help you, you help me. They're helping me. Thank you, Elizabeth. I would like to gift Abundance Plus subscription to a friend. What's the best way to do this? Dude, Brandon, you are so nice. But that's the thing too. You guys can DM me about homesteading, about anything really. I just filmed with a guy, this is when we were doing, it's one of the old text guys, now we can DM, but he wanted to know some other carnivore influences and how can he transition. He's feeling great on carnivore diet, I've done that, I've been doing that for years. How does he then intro dairy? And so I walked him through that, you know, finish your carnivore as an elimination diet, and then you're feeling great, you're losing weight, right? And then intro something like milk, or probably preferably cheese or yogurt first, but just one thing, and do it for 3 days, see if it doesn't affect you, and then add it to your base, and then intro something else until eventually you have this lifestyle diet. I mean, you then intro fruit and stuff like that, and eventually you probably find yourself in a, this is how many carbs I can eat a day just to maintain weight, health, and without gaining weight and things like that. Okay, Rebecca, should I go try to hang this rib an hour before supper? Sure. You know, I motivate myself in the morning by saying, I'm gonna rest in the afternoon, and then I never do. So one day I'm not gonna fall for that trick. What? My morning self is not gonna fall for that trip. Just get through it, get your critical tasks done, and then you can read some books.

Read some books.

Here's what I'll do. I'll just try to hang one pole, and if it's successful, I'll have time left over for reading some books.

Read some books.

And if it's not, I'll just labor until supper. I need your help. We're gonna hang this, uh, ribs. I mean, it was nice out, and it's still nice out, but it got cold. Pole that we bent that didn't really bend. Wow, I don't know how we're gonna do this.

Holy cow, that thing's like 100 feet in the air.

I know. You know, I think even if I had some here, we're only gonna have this much pulled down into here. That's probably not much of a foundation. To keep that thing steady. I think we're going to need to add extensions to this. That's probably the key, that go down this whole post. We could add these as extensions. Shoot, then it could come down and stick down into the ground. That's what we're gonna have to do. It's not the ending I had hoped for, for that project today, but we are a little step closer. That'll be the positive side of things. A little step closer to figuring this out. A hoop house for our chickens for in the winter. We can get them in the front yard. Are you having better luck than I am?

This is so hot. I'm trying to chop it up and put it on here, but I can't.

It looks like you're having better luck than I am.

I normally crumble it. Yeah, it's going all right.

Okay, I swear my morning self is gonna catch on to my afternoon self and it's not gonna fall for the lie. I got 30 minutes to And I'm gonna get the, uh, the router to hook into the Starlink so that we can just do, uh, this isn't gonna make any sense, but so we can just do cable internet. We could turn the Wi-Fi off on our Starlink and just use our Ethernet adapters, and then when we want Wi-Fi, we do a router that has been attached to that. That makes sense. Come on, get in. Could have been putting our stuff that goes back into the cabin. You see anything like it?

Oh, can't see.

I do not know. I do not have a light. Are we gonna need a light?

We're probably gonna need a light.

Here's the camera. Can you see back there?

Yeah, kind of. I mean, you can see.

I'm not— go ahead, just look for any electronics.

Didn't we look for something for like an hour in here?

Look in that box right there.

I think I found it.

Really?

Yeah, it's right here.

You better not be kidding me. I don't know.

Wow, that gives off—

Okay, hang on. Oh boy, we can't see in here. We probably should have put—

Did you bring your phone?

No.

Vloggers can't see much without so little light.

Closed up everything for tonight. The cold weather coming in. De-icers in the water troughs. Dinner was amazing. Remember, until Friday, $30 off any Joel Salatin's books when you join him on his bus. See you there. What are you waiting on? Let's do this. Let's, let's, let's recover together. 2025. Happy day.