In this informal, vlog‑style Thanksgiving special, Victor Justin Rhodes and his family spend the day on their farm preparing for the holiday. The video opens with Victor noting his sore sacroiliac (SI) joint and upcoming testing for a connective‑tissue disorder, as well as a glucose spike to 162. The family first tackles a broken electric fence that has let calves escape, debating equipment (excavator vs. track loader) and using a fence tester (reading 9.3) to repair the barrier. After fixing the fence, they shift to Thanksgiving food preparation: brining a home‑grown turkey (salt, maple sugar, rosemary, thyme, garlic), making gluten‑free buttermilk biscuits, pumpkin and apple pies, green‑bean and sweet‑potato casseroles, cornbread stuffing, and other farm‑grown items (butter, eggs, milk, pumpkins). Throughout, each family member’s role is highlighted—Rebecca handling the trailer and biscuits, Jonah cooking, Lily baking pies, Josiah watching the baby, and Mom overseeing casseroles. Victor interjects with jokes, dance prompts, and occasional health commentary, noting his foot pain, blood‑sugar spikes, and the decision to eat broth instead of steak. The segment ends with a reflective gratitude monologue, thanking viewers, celebrating the farm‑grown feast, and expressing thankfulness for family and community support.
Chapters
Uh-uh, not doing this. I better not do this this morning. Hey, wait on me, okay? Hey y'all, come on. I think I'm gonna change and go. We gotta work on the electric fence. Let's get out. I'll get you a momma. She's gotta drive. Happy Thanksgiving! Today I'm choosing to be happy and thankful no matter what. Awkward hug?
Yeah. Let's go see what's wrong with the electricity.
My SI joint is acting up this morning. Happens from time to time. Don't know really what it is, but that was making it worse. I don't know if I injure it when this happens, or God forbid it's some deeper issue. Like, my doctor is having me test for connective tissue disorder here in a couple of weeks.
I hope it's not. Sitting at 4. Okay, plus it was on the ground, so it's probably getting harder now. We have to get a fist tester to test it.
Oh, you're working on the fence?
Yes.
Did you milk?
There's no— there's no milk.
Oh, calves got to the mamas.
Wait, so I'm pretty sure that a steer was eating hay and Stepmuffin wanted to come eat hay. And he shoved them into the fence.
Okay.
Because the fence was all ripped up, and then it hit the, um, fence where the calves were staying.
Okay.
And so they busted over and all got out.
Well, let's track it down to make sure we're hitting— it's hitting as hard as possible. The cows have been getting out lately. That's our little project this morning on this Thanksgiving. They decimated this thing. I doubt it's warm. It needs to be repiled. What would you rather use, the excavator or the track loader? Excavator.
Okay.
Yeah, it's only at 60 This compost pile has been spread way out. It's never going to heat up to temp with these cold temps here, especially if we don't get that mass. Chickens just ripped into it. Billy, how's your area looking for your horse? You ready for it tomorrow? Lord willing, the creek don't rise. Just Peachy's coming tomorrow.
Well, we're gonna call him Peaches.
Is that right? That's his new nickname, is Peaches?
No, his real— his new name is Peaches.
Well, I think he's registered as just Peaches.
Oh, well, we'll call him Peaches.
Just Peachy. You can call him Peaches, it's like a nickname. What do you need from me?
Can I get the trailer ready?
Yeah, what you want to do is make sure it has deep bedding in it. Was that the only tester we got?
Yeah.
What's that hitting at? Okay, so that tells me there's probably something even in this. Hear that? Try it now.
9.3.
Okay, so it's over here. It could be that the fences are connected and we're hitting pretty good, actually. Take it apart. All right, so it's good from here over. Keep going. Do you see what's happened here? Our new pathways have exploded after after that rain. We have so much green on these things. Look! Oh my gosh, you see that? Woo! Starts right there, the new pathway. You can kind of barely tell. Hitting our post right there. Whoa, you all right?
Oh, it's got shocked.
We've got it hitting right here. It's hitting your little post right here. Hold on, let's wind this up. All right, Jonah, we're good. We fixed it in a couple places. Beautiful. One brine the turkey overnight. Homegrown turkey. What'd you put in this brine jar?
Salt, maple sugar, rosemary, thyme, garlic.
Wow. Does it count as cooking that I rinsed that turkey? Not really. Jonah, you're making biscuits for Thanksgiving? Lily, you made pies. Mom, you made everything. He literally just hid. Because you know what's coming, don't you, Josiah? If you did not cook anything for Thanksgiving and you show up to Thanksgiving lunch, you gotta go in like this. Josiah, you can't hide forever. Let's see that dance. Oh, I'm gonna show you what this is. This is— I want you to show— look, look at this foot broth. Gonna demo this. It's like so hard Jell-O. That's amazing stuff. So I could just have this plain and sweeten it with something and be like Jell-O. Yeah. Wow. Well, that's gonna be my morning tea. So sure, this tea bag is, uh, 17 cents. I'm not saving a lot of money. Although if I were to do tea, I'd add honey. That does bring up the bill. This is food we grow, and this is like— this is a health Tea, not so much. And doctor's orders, more meat because we left you at breakfast. You're not ready to eat breakfast. I am. I don't feel good because I've waited, I've waited too long. We should go. Oh, there's a window.
So that makes it just like they're cold.
Not as fun as tea. Not bad tasting though, and it's a superfood. I just got the frozen beans out of the freezer for you. Does that count as cooking? Oh, I guess I'm still going into Thanksgiving. Like, that's all right. No, you dance. Come on, Josiah. You're gonna be dancing like this. Come on, let's go.
Me, you, and Big Daddy.
Josiah. Look at these cooks of Thanksgiving. Mom, you're even getting a piece of the apple pie in there. You haven't done enough with all the sweet potato casserole, the green bean casserole, cornbread stuffing. This is the hardest part of making an apple pie, so I thought I would help. You like to cut your apples just so.
I do.
That's your— that's what you do. I do 3 cups flour.
Wait, no, no, this one. I do 3 of these and then one of these.
That's a teaspoon. Yeah, you making biscuits? We're gonna try our buttermilk. We're gonna have buttermilk gluten-free biscuits. We're gonna try this buttermilk. Oh yeah, it's, it's, it's there. It's runny enough. I was thinking it was like, it's like jelly. Wait, you just do it? Oh, you just do it too?
I just do it.
This is a thing. This is gonna be the best biscuits you've ever had. What are you stirring it with?
A teaspoon. I'm not a professional baker.
You don't have to be a professional to come over here and grab a wooden spoon.
Why waste the dishes? I'm dishes today.
That's it. Come on now, come on. Oh, you're right. And what do we have Miss Birdell doing over here?
We— well, I am baking pumpkin pie.
You're getting your pie crust set out? You got all the apples made? Gideon is straightening up the shelves. Call the Inquirer. Your famous green bean casserole. Everybody getting good dressed up. You can change your pants.
I should show off my outfit. Well, you were wearing pants that were not nice, so that's why I was just making sure.
Yeah. Oh, Lily looks nice. Get in her— Josiah, are you getting Henry dressed?
No.
Could you? Yes, please.
I don't know what to dress him up in.
Once he gets dressed, just his nicest clothes, and then he can go to Grandma's. Cream? Shirley. Getting the beans, getting the cream, sorting the kids. Maybe this counts as cooking. Becky? Yeah, a lot of stuff to get up there, Lily. Shall we start making trips? Sure. And this ain't all, she's cooking green bean casserole. We got tea over there, we got my steak. I'm gonna have some steak with all this, offset all the carbs I'm about to explode on. Rebecca, could this be the only mishap of the entire cooking?
Yeah, it was I don't know what's going on. I used our buttermilk.
Your fried onions are turning out weird.
They're not— they tasted—
and you think it's our buttermilk?
They taste fine, they're just not cooking like they normally do.
Well, some of them are burning. First round went like this. Cornbread stuffing looks good though. I've been number one support person, right, Rebecca? I may not have cooked, but I stirred the tea.
Could not have done this without Justin.
I'm about to load the car so I don't have to do the—
I load the car—
skip the cooking meal dance.
I loaded the car.
Um, I am gonna eat this. I am gonna crush this. Forget the steak. I can't watch this. I'm not gonna watch this for a day and a half and not eat this. I'm not gonna worry about it. It's gonna go on a long walk afterwards and fast tomorrow. Oh, well, I'll just do broth. Broth and soup.
I think that's a good idea.
Meat soup.
No pie?
Yeah, I'm doing pie. I'm gonna crush your pies, all three of them. Where they at? Give me some.
Um, you are in the car right now.
I got my glucose up to 162, which is size birthday. Let's go for the record.
No, let's not.
Eat a lot of turkey, maybe offset it. Yeah, I would maybe want to cook that steak for myself. That's one more thing to cook. My feet are hurting. It's kind of weird. I'm up there. I'm gonna go up there and cook the steak. I just want to sit down.
You've been a little hero.
Josiah watching the baby. Jonah doing afternoon chores. It's a family affair, and I reckon we all grew it too. We grew that turkey, so that counts for something.
And we grew the butter.
We grew the butter, we grew the buttermilk, we grew the eggs. What else? What else do we grow? We grew the milk, pumpkins, the pumpkins. Wow, that's exciting.
The garlic, the green—
no, the onions, the onion. Look at this. This ain't even half of our contribution. This is probably biscuits, cranberry sauce, cornbread. Yeah, it is probably pies times 3. Tea. Still got the green bean casserole and sweet potato casserole. Yep, but we're loaded, so let's take this. Come back. Oh boy, whose dish is today?
Jonah. I'm gonna help him.
Okay, I figured because it's too much. It's a lot and we have to leave it just like Okay, grab all this. Last trip. Look at this. That's serious. Okay, if you were me, would you cheat?
It's almost easier just to move to another state than to just move across the street.
Mom and I skipped Thanksgiving one year, remember that? We're just like, we're done. Went to Atlanta.
Oh, we did. Yeah, we did. We didn't want to deal with anybody or anything. I didn't want to feel like cooking. We just left. We left town, went to the aquarium. I also ended up getting—
I think we ate Olive Garden.
No, we ate Waffle House.
Waffle House Thanksgiving Day? You can tell how long ago that was. You gotta enjoy the process.
Okay, I enjoy the cooking process. I do not enjoy taking it in the car. And that's okay. It's okay to not enjoy the moving from the kitchen that I've worked into another kitchen.
Hey, that turned out real nice. Sit down. Finally, they got me carving turkey. Does that count as cooking? It's gonna count as cooking.
You are officially a cook, Justin.
You killed it.
Thank you.
Look at this.
It's amazing.
Look at this. Look at that. You ready to uncover this turkey? Look at this beautiful setting. He's gonna be the entertainment later tonight. You're the entertainment tonight? What are they gonna be doing for us? Well, they didn't bring any food, so they get to do the entertainment.
No.
Yes, yes, I can't wait!
We'll have to think of something.
We'll put some disco dance music on. Let's see what they can do. I see they can do it. Faith would probably do it. Disco, huh? Yeah. You like that biscuit? Hey Jonah, how'd the buttermilk biscuit turn out?
It's different.
Oh no.
That's really good cheese. Okay, so I'm gonna put that on your plate. It tastes great.
It's great. It turned out wonderful. Come on, Freddie. After meal walk. You have worked so hard though. I know, I've worked all day. Bless you. After dinner walk. Lily, we're about to eat them pies. Jonah's making some whipped cream. And it never stops. Into Thanksgiving, we start a turkey broth. Yeah, Thanksgiving wasn't too good to my blood sugar, almost got to 200. Took a break, walked 8 pies set down. I don't know what that third spike is. That up and down spiking, probably not so good. Was Thanksgiving worth it? Yes. Got together and enjoyed all a meal together. I wouldn't want to miss out on that. Do— have we learned more about myself and my body? Am I more motivated ever than to eat clean? In between these sheet mills. Yes, we had a wonderful Thanksgiving. A lot of it was on our farm. It's probably our best Thanksgiving ever. I'm just in flat-out grateful mode lately and just so thankful for everything. I'm thankful for you all, guys. Thank you for taking the time to watch these videos. We love and appreciate you. We know your time's valuable, and you stop and you watch and you find value here, and we We find value in you supporting that in us. And so thank you, thank you, thank you. I hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving. Happy day.
