In this vlog, Victor (Speaker A) vents his frustration with frozen animal waterers during a 20‑degree night and decides to engineer a gravity‑fed solution. After multiple trips to Lowe’s, he builds a stand with shims and metal straps to elevate a water line, creating a siphon that lets water flow from his pond, through a quick‑connect system, down to the chicken and pig waterers, and finally into a creek. He walks through the installation, troubleshooting frozen quick‑connects and coiled hoses, and demonstrates the system working as chickens and pigs drink from the flowing water. Alongside the water system, he constructs a weather‑protected doghouse for his dog Laurel. The video ends with a teaser for a follow‑up episode that will cover three (actually four) winter water‑keeping methods: gravity overflow, electric waterers, "elephant" waterers, and manual emptying, plus tips for keeping water clean. The tone is informal, enthusiastic, and hands‑on, reflecting both the annoyance of frozen chores and the satisfaction of a DIY fix.
Chapters
The boys have been around this morning. They have forgotten to empty our waterers as a result of a 20-degree night. Oh shoot, and that just broke the tray. I'm not scripting this, I promise. It's just split. It's not going to thaw out today too either.
It's—
the high is 31. I am sick and tired of dealing with frozen waters, and today I couldn't be more sicker because we got our coldest day yet and the waters are frozen solid. Oh gosh. I'm also tired of dirty waters. Instead of being a complainer, I decided to be a complainer who tried to find a solution, and so I looked to nature. How in the world does nature feed her animals? During winter. She keeps it moving with the power of gravity. So right here, I'm gonna do the same thing. I'm gonna use gravity to keep water moving. I'm gonna cycle it from my pond down to this waterer and then to the creek where it was gonna go anyway. So after about 7 trips to Lowe's, I think I finally have the answer, or very close to the answer, an answer enough to put it in with these animals so we don't have to deal with these frozen waterers. Welcome to the vlog where today I'm gonna build a stand for this thing and we're gonna get it in with the chickens. We have a stand outside the chickens that's working, but this obviously is not going to be permanent. We need to put a shim in here some sort of board shim. We'll strap it down with our metal straps, one on each side. I think that's it. I don't think that's too hard. Do you?
Let's do it. Where are some screws?
Got the screw gun. Maybe at a standstill because we may be out of screws. Are you serious?
Mine are just as plain, right?
Is that all we have?
Okay.
Got my two straps, got my board to keep this elevated so water shoots down. I'm ready to put it in there. Let's move it. Let's move it like we would when we're gonna move it, see how it works. If you go shut it off where it drains into the creek, water will stay in this line. You want to keep water in this lower line just to make sure, you know, it'll siphon. If there's water in this line, you open it up, the water that's in it will gravity fall through, therefore pulling your other, other water through too. See, now if I shut this off, water will stay in there. Now I don't have too long because that'll freeze now that that water is not moving, but it won't be long. Now you'll see water overflowing. Just cut off our supply to the waterer. To move this, we have the quick connects. Connect here. There you go. That was not that hard, right? Oh, and then I can move this waterer wherever I want. I want to have that run through the fence just to get as much as this, this out of the way as possible. Pretty smooth line so far. Now we just got to hook our hoses back up. It's a little easier said than done when it's all coiled up, filled with water. Yeah, okay, we got that taken care of inside. I just got to get this hose connected now.
Oh boy, can't have that.
Got that side done.
Should be the easy side.
Oh boy, it's already frozen. It's already froze. The quick connect isn't working great. What? I cannot get it on. Come on, come on, please be enough. Oh yes, there we go. 2 minutes more, I'd have been up the creek without the paddle. Get going, filling up, then we release it at the bottom. Okay, this is open. Just slow it down a little bit to let it catch up. Oh shoot, there we go. There's y'all's water, guys. Now let's time-lapse this to catch them drinking out of it.
You notice something different?
You notice that? We built a doghouse. This is set to be the craziest— whoa, Jonah, don't Is it protected yet, the ledge? It's got to be the craziest doghouse. It's just empty space under there, down below. And this will be a weather-protected doghouse for Laurel. Our handyman here, our cousin. Can't tell if anybody drank out of it, but they at least explored it. Going a little too fast. Hey! So he's spotting my hand right here. He thinks that's something to eat. So he can definitely reach it. Alright, let's set it up again. Come on, big bird.
Here. Nope.
Alright, let's do time lapse. Well, you hanging out in there? Let me see if you guys can see in here. Oh, look, Almanzo's in here. And that's nice. No more space. It's done. It's done. It was just empty area under this roof. You can access it. From underneath, from the bottom. This is the bottom. There it is. You can see he's— he pulled those boards down. Actually, I don't even think there were boards there. Right there. He just made some boards and put them up. No space. That doghouse takes no space. I don't know if they're— they're gonna. That's your water source, guys. The pigs just took a drink. They're taking a drink. Hey, look, the pigs are drinking! I wish I could get a close-up shot of that. They're not gonna drink while I'm down here because they're looking for food. You guys are drinking! Oh yes, guys, there's a big fat hen hanging out there. I want to see somebody drink from this. I want to see up close. So close, so close.
Here we go, here we go. It's working!
You saw it! Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! You guys see that? You see that? I'm so excited! We caught it! I've just been standing here waiting. And they're in there drinking out of that river water. It is so cold out right now. It's like 20 degrees.
Can you—
can you tell I'm excited? One less chore, and not a very fun chore. Boom! We got our house back. There's still a filter, just making sure everything gets cleaned out. Can't wait to run our stove again. Unfortunately, Gideon opened this. Of course it was not on, it was cold. Pulled that out. That means we got to clean out all the ashes to be able to shut that. Now we got to get somebody to come in and re-insulate and re-drywall. How you doing, Beck? Good. So the water is working. I'm pretty sure I saw pigs drink of it from afar, and I definitely saw chickens do it close. It was very cold, so I did not leave the house. I stayed inside all day. It was the coldest day of the year so far.
A little bit cold.
He tried to go outside a couple times this one. Tried to go outside. He was like 2 minutes. He would never wear enough clothes.
No.
Why don't you wear enough clothes? You can see the little bit of hair from outside. It's really chilly, bro. Okay, so tomorrow, tomorrow guys, let's show everybody. Show you guys the 3 different ways to keep your water clean and frozen during the winter. Not everybody's going to have an overflow situation where they have a water source above where they need the water, so there are 2 other ways, and we're going to go over all 3 in a special video tomorrow. It's about chicken waterers.
I know them all.
What are they?
Actually, I know 4.
Okay, say them.
Well, you can put them near a creek.
Okay, yeah, you can let them drink out of the creek.
And then you can get one of those electric waterers.
Yes, that's one.
Then you can build an elephant waterer.
Yes, that's my second one.
And then you can empty the waterers.
Whoa! You got it! Did you hear me say that?
No.
Okay, you got it. We're gonna go over those in tomorrow's video. Be sure to watch it. Hey, the word on the holler is Laurel's in her pen. See? You in your doghouse?
She's in there.
Do you like that doghouse? Well, let's put her, uh, let's put her, her bed in there.
Her bed is in there.
Oh, it is? Okay.
Look how big it is.
It's actually really big.
Okay, good.
Laurel loves it in there.
It'll be— oh, let's go on. Go on, Laura.
Papa, Papa, look! Get inside the tree and she'll walk in. You can watch her walk in. Look, Papa, go on.
