In this informal, on‑site vlog Victor Justin Rhodes and his helpers walk through a busy morning on their homestead. The video opens with a fence‑line mishap that lets steers and sheep escape, followed by a leak in the water system that the crew patches. They then discuss chicken feed efficiency, counting eggs (13 collected, about 3.5 per week for 30 birds) and calculate feed cost savings. The core of the segment is the preparation of a 6.5‑foot‑tall compost pile composed of sheep manure, spent hay, wood chips, and pig manure; the team turns the pile, adds water until it’s saturated, and plans to cover it with netting to keep chickens out. Throughout, they coordinate tasks such as installing fencing, building a chicken‑netted coop, and using a “Chickshaw” to turn the compost weekly. Interspersed are lighter moments: catching a rogue chicken, checking tomatoes and zucchini, making pork rinds, discussing upcoming movie plans, and reviewing home‑renovation projects (spa, sauna, pantry, pocket door, tile work). Several family members and helpers are named (Josiah, Kaden, Sam, John, Lois, Gideon, Lily, Henry, Randy Clements, Almanzo). The vlog blends practical farm management, DIY construction, and personal anecdotes, offering a snapshot of daily life on a diversified homestead.
Chapters
This is what happened. This fence line never got connected. The energizer's on, so the steers are out and the sheep. Come on, we gotta get them through this chute. Going good. It's not the worst way to wake up if they cooperate. Some excitement, get the blood flowing. Could be a terrible way to— oh good, got the sheep back in. Do we have another leak or is that residue? That's probably not residue, that's probably not a leak. Just shut off the water down there. We got another leak. Blew off that shutoff valve. Oh no, they didn't. Cows caught the hose, pulled it off. We're not supposed to run the hose through the cow's back. Look here, my soaked feed actually soaked. There's no grain on top. Now how to get the liquid off. I'll pour it off in the field. Will I? That's gonna splish-splash everywhere. Let's go! Smells nice and sweet. Look who's back! Sam and John and Lois. Y'all ready to get some work done? Yes, sir. Let's get it up here on this flat and turn it around and start going that way. Okay. Unclip it. Why would you get shocked? Okay, what you can do, take this one off first, it's quicker. No, no, go over it more. You're gonna— too much pressure on the corner. There you go. I'm curious to see if soaking their feed yesterday caused them, uh, to eat more all around. They're eating so little. That's so little. How many eggs did we get yesterday? We got 13 eggs. See if— see if we were good. See if we're about that number. It could just be that they're eating less. It could be they're getting a lot of food off this gigantic paddock. It's 150 square foot per bird. We're moving it every week in lieu of an egg basket. 3, 4, 15 today. I'm happy these chickens are only eating half of the standard grain consumption, a third of a pound. So they're eating half of that, whatever that is. When in doubt, count the eggs. That'll tell you if they're happy or not. 30 chickens, every other one laid an egg. That's one every other day. That's 3.5 eggs a week. That's good. That's good for a chicken. With shipping, that makes my feed about $4.30 a day. So for over a dozen organic pastured, that's half the price of what it would be in the store. This is the project I've been waiting for. We got some good boys to help us here. Guys, take the front of this deep bedding system off, okay? Yep. So that we can get in there. Then Josiah is going to get in there with the Mini X and stir this up. Give me one huge pile, Josiah. Then we're gonna put fence up along this, and we'll be able to bring the, the Chickshaw Mini Me here, or the Chickshaw 5.0, and We're gonna put chickens on, make— helping us make this compost. Okay, so y'all's job this morning is to get this side off. I'm gonna flip the compost. Oh my gosh, that's 6.5 feet tall! That's a 6.5 feet tall compost. I think that'll get warm. Is it warm? We need to wet it down. Water it until you think you've just absolutely drowned it and can't take no more water, and then double that. Hopefully it didn't already sort of ignite when the sheep were on it. And we can get this ignited. It's got sheep manure, it's mostly spent hay, there's some wood chips, and there's pig manure in there. No, no, no. Okay, that's lower. Put it— if you're gonna just leave it, put it up high. We're gonna put a net on top of this. We'll have to because you're right, they're gonna jump up on that and jump out. Everybody come work together.
I might get to swim tomorrow if my cut looks good.
Heck yes! You gonna swim with crutches? Well, just get to the water with the crutches. You're good. Why they're leaving this grass for this grass, I've got no clue. I wish they were hitting a little harder, but we'll take what we can get. Kaden, you come water this down. You should probably get a chicken net to do the rest. Yeah, we're gonna do a chicken net out like this so that we can put the coop in there. You're gonna need another Velcro strap for the bottom one. We've got a FiberTuff to make this turn. See, I think we should— yeah, because they're gonna go under that. We need a place for chickens to lay their eggs. We need a place for the chickens to get out of the way when we turn this. We need to turn this once a week. That's why we're gonna put the Chickshaw in here. Yeah, the manure's falling on the concrete. It's no problem, we'll scoop it up with flat shovels and put it on our pot. It'd be neat if the chickens were over it, but I can't think of a way to get the chickens out of here once a week for us to turn this. We've got to get this in somehow.
If we slid the bottom thing down.
Yeah, I like that. Can we weave these FiberTuff posts throughout? Yeah, yeah, buddy. Okay, it's pretty, Jerry. But it's working. There's a rogue chicken around here somewhere, maybe two. I'm keen on catching it. Let's put it in there. Is it about to get over there? Yeah, it eats up the pigs. Who knows what it's drinking. Here, it's— you're coming your way. Whoops. This is where we want it. We can get it in the corner in the pole barn. Okay, now there's no escape. Oh my, it eluded all three of us. Oh, oh, it's in, it's in. 7.4. How's our chicken doing? Oh, she's laying down in the corner. Come on, you're supposed to be scratching. I went to get the hose out and the chicken jumped up and right through our net. I'm thinking that chicken just doesn't really want to be there because it's all alone, and maybe these other ones will be happier and won't try that stunt. That chicken is already over here back with the pig. Thanks, it's a pig. Okay, maybe it'll be good to get some chickens over here tomorrow. Maybe you'll remember your chicken. Look at here, she went ahead and made dinner. Make dinner dinner and lunch at the same time. You knock it out all at once. Beautiful one's making sauce tonight. She said go see if any of those tomatoes are ready. I doubt they are, but let's go see. Well, there's some right here. I mean, maybe this is worth it even though they're little cherry tomatoes. Daily zucchini roundup. They get crazy. I don't see any tomatoes ready yet either. I've never seen such a show. Is this zucchini past Yeah, no, it's fine. Oh good. Look what I got you. Oh wow, is that enough?
Yeah.
Getting snacks ready for the movies. Us carnivores, we don't do popcorn, we do pork rinds. You ready to go to the movies? Yeah. Everybody's been working hard. It's summer, it's fun to get out of the heat and go hang out in the dark theater and watch a story. Are you going, Gideon? Yeah, because I don't know, did you even like the Indiana Joneses? Yep. You like the other ones? I don't know, he's kind of on the line. Now we took you to see Top Gun 2 and you didn't— you didn't like that.
I didn't like it much, but I did— stuck for it.
You did. You only— you did. We haven't been to the movies since Top Gun 2. It's been like a year. These are the pork rinds we made the other day. Okay, we gotta get it up to 400. What's 300? Yeah, what you been doing to that? I thought it was like 3, uh, 3 50. Yeah, ish, but it cools off when you put those frozen skins on it. I need that puffing sooner. That was not— dang it. Okay, 2 of 3 were good.
4, because I had phone calls I could make.
We're on our way. What's it like? We haven't been to the movies since Maverick. That was last summer.
That was August.
What was Jonah's condition? Jonah was fine. Pre-entry.
Oh my goodness, that man just fell down in the hole.
Oh, that's because Jonah Well, you're about to run into a car looking at the man falling into the hole.
It's not running.
It was a good movie. Oh, it was so good.
I hope this one is that good.
It's not. The reviews are not that great for it.
Where are you going?
Well, Randy Clements said it was okay. I don't care what they say, it was pretty good.
It was definitely Indiana Jones themed.
Unrealistic.
So like—
Bike scene.
Totally what I expected from Indiana Jones.
I don't know what all the bad hype's about. It's pretty good.
I know. I'm like, Indiana Jones, what were you expecting?
You like it, Josiah? Yeah, that's what counts. Will you watch it again when it comes out on tape? I think it was good. Lily would. Hey Henry, I'm back! Where did we go? Did you miss the mama?
Did it rain?
Look at this, our pork rinds are turning out great, by the way. I think it's the hour boiling trick. All of them are puffy. Whoa, it's hot! That's a hot plate. Yeah, that is hot. Thanks. Melted his cheese on there. Bandage coming off tomorrow, huh?
Yep.
He might be swimming. I'm getting my nose cracked.
The retractable screen. What do you think this height is? 10 feet?
Ooh, why didn't we bring our measuring tape? Did the stairs change over yet? They took them out a little bit. Stairs went down that way, but they're gonna go down this way so they can be accessed from right there.
This is wrong.
Uh-oh.
This is supposed to be a pocket door.
I know, I don't know, because I want it to be open all the way to that.
I think that they were doing a pocket door here.
Oh, our attic might be involved with that, but we got rid of that pocket door. Yeah, I guess that memo didn't get to them. They fixed the sauna. Oh, they did, but this can be—
this can be standard.
You don't need this normal door?
No, because I want the— I want the— I want the ceiling to be low in here.
Okay, my favorite room in the house, the spa. Cold plunge, shower. And sauna, sauna, shower, the ice bath.
I want this to be a wet room. Yeah, this whole thing. I want it to be all tile, tile on the ceiling, floor with a fan that we have to run 20 minutes after we use this room.
Yeah, you holding down the floor? Is this your home, Almanzo?
So fridge and freezer will be here. My good gigantic island, 11 feet long I think.
And the appliances aren't as far out as we thought. And the windows, the windows are coming next week. Next week they aren't far out.
