In this on‑camera vlog, farmer Victor (Speaker A) walks viewers through the aftermath of Hurricane Helene on his 1‑acre Primo pasture. He first documents the dramatic shift of the creek and the loss of the original water line, high tunnel, and bee pads, noting how the creek moved 50‑100 feet and stripped away soil. He reflects on the broader human toll of the storm while emphasizing gratitude for his farm’s survival. The narrative then shifts to the collaborative recovery effort, highlighting help from Farmer’s Friends, the crisis‑relief group CRR, and volunteers Josiah, Jonah, and Birdo. Together they assess the damage, plan a new irrigation layout, and rebuild the high tunnel. Victor explains the step‑by‑step repair of a potable ¾‑inch poly water line: selecting pipe, T‑valves, elbows, zip‑ties, and T‑posts, testing for leaks, and positioning the line to provide water within 100 feet of any point on the farm. He also describes seeding the newly exposed sandy soil, the emergence of grass, and the gradual restoration of pasture health. Throughout, he frames the work as a “recover” mindset for 2025, encouraging viewers to rebuild “one bucket at a time.” The video blends practical how‑to instructions with personal reflection on resilience and community support.
Chapters
Check it! See that red or that pink ribbon? That's our old water line. That's our old creek line. It's moved quite a bit. That's where Hurricane Helene really just caused this to make a huge turn. It's actually receding or just dug out the earth more, taking away tons and tons of soil. Like, where'd it go? We— it was banked all the way to there. We had a little access road here to get to one of our most premium postures. Where'd it go? We ain't getting it back. First, it ripped all the way out here, actually. So we beveled, did what we could to restore what we had, left a little bit of a bank there for future events. I've hated it, seeded it, hoping for the best. Hey! We got grass. Thing is growing in that sandy soil. Neighbors still got some work to do. Neighbors still have a lot of work to do. The high tunnel, that's new. Thank you, Farmer's Friends. The high tunnel was over here, 25 feet away from the creek that was at least this far down into a bank. It's crazy. It got all the way up here. We have sunken Earth. Water was 4 feet away from the pigs. We were this close to moving the pigs because we have something here. Came out here to assess, but I want to— do want to show you where the pigs or bees were. There used to be a fence here separating us from the neighbors. The bees around in here somewhere. There's their two of their pads. The other two pads got washed away. There went the bees. That's hard to believe because the— look, the creek was way over there. I mean, the creek's over there. It moved. It's 100 feet over there now. It's probably 75, 50 feet there before. I want you guys to know that this hurricane, hurricane stuff, we're very thankful. I mean, there's an 11-acre lake right there and a spillway that didn't burst. We would probably not be speaking I'm speaking to you, how that would have happened. So, and we know terrible, terrible things happened to other people during this hurricane. We don't want to belittle that. We're very thankful that we've survived, but not thankful at their expense. We still mourn and hurt over all the loss, from the littlest bit of loss to the greatest loss you can imagine. And this is, and I believe most people are inspired by, a struggle that has occurred in someone's life. Us being set back by the hurricane, um, there are levels of struggle, sure. Everybody has a struggle, and hopefully you're seeing us build back bucket load, one bucket load at a time. Yours may be a wheelbarrow, yours may be a dump truck. We couldn't get a dump truck, so to speak. Just make making do with what we have and continuing on one foot in front of the other. That's what this is about. 2025 is for us one word: recover. The soil isn't the only thing the lean took. It took our water line. First thing we've got to do is assess. Says it's time to get the cows out. They're, they're about to run out of hay. You might have more of this than I thought. Where's that going? Oh, there's the end. You can see our pastures are beginning to lush up, so they're going to really take off. I mean, today it's going to be 80 degrees. We've had rain and it's going to be 80 degrees today. This is just going to explode. T-post remained. That, that was to the end of our water line. I don't see— that actually works out. We could go from this T-post straight to the right of the high tunnel, kind of have a straight pathway through here. That'd be a little more central, and we could get water evenly distributed throughout this pasture. I learned during hurricane relief, you know, working with CRR, a crisis relief organization, the very first thing they do— you know, you want to hit the ground running— assess. Let's assess and see what we have. Okay, I've got 1.5 hours. I got till 9 o'clock. Hopefully start even building this. And then take inventory because we have town day. I could pick up some supplies and just maybe, maybe we could get this going by this afternoon. Okay, this is good. I've already done a repair here because this is our new system. It's just a tee with a valve on it. Even the kids could come and easily open and shut. Joe taught me this: when you're putting one in water line and you're thinking about your access, put the water line uphill to your access, and that way if you see a leak— you'll actually— if there is a leak, you'll see it because the water will be coming down into the pathway. We were about 10 feet down that high tunnel We need to finish the high tunnel, which is 100 feet, with the water line. Come down here along these T-posts to our house, make a torn turn to the yard hydrant. We're not winning any awards this year. We're hooking into the well pump. Maybe later in the season we'll hook it up to the gravity-fed water system, ideally, but for now that's what we'll do. Lost our water line from there over, I'd say, probably 125 feet maybe. Looks good here. Okay, let's see, let's see how much of this line we have. Makes sense that we would still have this. Our house did not get flooded, thank God. Water was all around it though. I don't think this is attached anymore. I can pull it. It's attached to something. See, right now it's not going far enough, so then it's at this awkward angle. Okay, I don't know what's stopping it. Oh, it's just hooked up on the edge. Okay, I don't see why we couldn't move that over. Okay, see, now that'll go over no problem. Now, and we're at it, that's not bad right there. You are crooked. It's like you are curious like this. Get your head straight. All right, we are sitting prettier than I thought. Let's start laying out this. Hey, here's somebody. I need somebody. Can y'all come here? Hey boys. Yeah, can somebody come help me? You think this line will get me the rest of the way? Hopefully this doesn't have leaks in it. Is that even more salvage? Even the right size? Okay, this is 3/4 inch anyway. All right, yeah, wrong size. Two elbows. One T-valve so that we can connect the hose. One male adapter. Good to there. Maybe some zip ties to tie in place, which I have. Found a valve. Found the T for said valve, so we have that. Calling it fate. We have one. Shoot, Josiah, could we get this done in 30 minutes? Forget just assessing. It's maybe possible. Hey, I may have for once overestimated a job. I'm usually underestimating grossly. We don't have elbows, but hey, if these are gonna work, let's take that little junk piece off, hook up our new pipe. Corner's in. Let's grab this, uh, straight away, zip tying it to our T-posts. I thought Jonah got us another— I thought Jonah got us another piece. This is a really quick water system, easy to repair. Oh, he did get us some. Good boy. All right, when you get done with that, Josiah, I'll need you here to hold down this line for me. Is 1-inch potable poly pipe. Uh, you get it at your hardware store. I believe it's actually Made here in Asheville. Made in the USA before it was cool, before we had to, right? Silver Line. We'll put the water joint in here. I like to put the joint, the water, every 100 feet. I would like to one day say you can go anywhere on this farm and you'll have a water source within 100 feet. We are on track. We've got that hooked up. But we don't have any clamps. Just us, we don't have any clamps. Brought me these, but they're too small. Oh no, there's one here, but that's probably squashed. Let's hope there's something. You would have looked here, found a ton of clamps. Well, ton is a strong word. One. I believe all we need is three. Two. You wanna hold those, Birdo? 3. Josiah tied us up. I did not think we were gonna get this far. Thank you guys for helping me. Josiah, hold on to one end here. We need to hook it up down there first. All right, there's more zip ties there and some longer in the pigeonholes. Last one. We're gonna be turning this puppy on. We leave at 9:30. I'd hoped for a 30-minute margin. We're turning it on. Oh shoot. Okay, this has got to go really good. This goes really good, we can try this before we go. Not leaking. Not leaking there. We're not leaking there. Do I hear a leak down here? No leak there. I think it's worth it to walk this line, see if we have any leaks. It just may be a miracle day. Zero leaks. Water. We got water there with no leakage. No, we're good. I thought I heard a leak. That could use a T-post, but we can do that later. I'm almost to the end. No leaks. Do we have water here? I told you there's a lot of pressure on this line. Why? Shouldn't be that much. Must have been air built up. There it is. For once, I underestimated it— overestimated a job, and we got water to our acre. Tomorrow, water to our 5 acres across the street, gravity-fed. Let's do it.
