SPRING Homestead RUSH

Good morning, Winnie.

Keeping everybody safe. Hopefully it's not too light and Grandma's chickens are still on the roost. We've got to catch these chickens for Grandma before it gets light enough that they get off their perch, or it's gonna be hard to catch them. Just 5 in there. Grandma wanted to get back in chickens. She wanted me to show her getting back in chickens as a thank you from her to you all for supporting her GoFundMe and her fight against ALS. Thank you, guys. Come on, we got everybody. Now see these piglets? That's not gonna work, them getting out and about into the chickens. The piglets are supposed to be there where that one bigger one, I guess, can't get out. You can't get out? I don't feel sorry for you. You aren't supposed to get out. What's wrong with you? They're in this green greenhouse and it's overtime for them to get out, so it's not worth like fixing that so they can't get out of there. We just got to get them out to the pole barn. Josiah thinks he can lead you guys. I think he can too. Oh wow, that wasn't a good example of fastness, was it? I caught that pig. Maybe it's doable. Hey, you need me to get in Beefcake for you? Uh, go ahead. And short answer is yes, but first put up a pig panel so they can't get out of that pole barn. Okay, you think it'll work? Okay, what do I do to get this pan out?

Put those pins in and then get the pan down.

Gotta feed the boar. Door's so hard to open and shut, I'm just gonna climb over because I can. Look in here, it's not bad, but they've worn out the deep bedding. Into compost, and it needs more deep bedding because it's getting kind of gross in there. And we can't be having Beefcake getting sick because he's half our breeding program for the pigs. Glad to have you back. You feeling better?

Yeah.

Look at that tree over there, it's already, already all green.

Pigs' destination. This is where the cows were. They can stir up that deep bedding, help it turn into compost. This is where the sheep were. The piglets can go in here. Oh look, We've already got a pig panel up right there. You just got to put a pig panel up right there. Otherwise those little piglets would get out and just tear up everything.

Okay, on to Grandma's.

Good morning. We're gonna put them in there. You gotta, you gotta maybe let them out in an hour. Grandma wanted you to see what she's done here. It looks like she's put this around the premier one around where she wants a garden. She does not want to talk for this. Her voice is still— it still can be more diff— it still can be kind of difficult to understand her. She did want to show you guys that she's up and out. I'm putting them in there so that they get oriented. Their home was a high tunnel. Like, they don't know where that went. This is now their home. Let's leave them in for an hour. Grandma will put them up out directly. Grandma's got the Chickshaw Mini Me. That's perfect for moving around 6 to 24 birds in the, in the front yard. Yes, Grandma, get the homesteads out of the backyard into the front yard where they belong. Plans for that coming soon to homesteadbuilds.com. Let's see what else she's done. She's got a pergola here. Is that how you say that? Raised beds. That looks like, uh, just a trough. This looks like— I think that's a bottom raised bed. She's got a Premier One net inside set up, I imagine because this more permanent fence is not done. As we do our homestead work this week, I want to show you— highlight the animals that make this possible. You keep everybody protected, don't you? I'm learning that about 1 in 3 dogs are good, and she's one of them. Turkeys eat any of their feed, Lily? Yeah, they eat They're not eating a lot.

They ate.

That's bothersome. That's barely ate any. Did you fill it? Did you fill this up this morning?

I filled it up yesterday.

Is anybody dead? Dang it. But no turkeys have died. Okay, well, that's good. Maybe they're eating it. Maybe there's just not a lot of them. Okay, we have 16, so some can die. We can get down to 12. And our family has one turkey every month of the year.

There you go.

Next door to the turkeys, we have layer chicks. Probably, what, about 30? Well, 2 died last night, so 28. They're crowding around this feeder though. That's a good sign. Dang, I'd say you got your energy back.

We're just cleaning up.

Hey Beck, what do we do with that, uh, Track loader. Suffer. Hey, I don't know what— lift that.

Really, Papa?

Let's hope it does it. You gonna honk at me? Lift it up. Good. Tip it the other way. He was tipping that back and I'm afraid the blocks were about to roll out onto our glass door. It's been like 3 hours.

For the first time, he's still asleep.

Like, should I wake him? He's not gonna be able to go to sleep tonight. Look out there. I looked out my window. There's the piglets. Come on, Josie. Glad you woke up. You feeling better?

Yeah.

You think you were sick or just tired?

I was tired.

Oh look, there they are. Okay, so they're here. This is where we want them. Okay, at least you're coming at us. Is that got feed in it? No, there's feed right over there. Oh look, you're tricking them. Totally trick them. Leave the bucket over there away from this. I'll go get some feed real quick. Seriously, where'd they get out?

Right here.

You think because that was so wide? Yeah, you didn't do it tight. I didn't do it tight?

Yeah, you were the last fast one.

Oh really? Get in! You dropped an egg. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. That could have been really bad. That went really well. What if that— what if it happened at 2 o'clock at night? They're gonna tear up the garden, everything. Sorry. Somehow that stuff didn't crack. You don't think they can get out? Lily Bird, it smells delicious in here. How was dinner?

Good.

How was dinner? Good. Mom, I guess the sickness has ended. I guess y'all were just tired. You take a nap any day you want. Look how he's holding that spoon. Hot? No, it's cold. Show me how you eat that ice cream. Do you need help?

What happened? He ran up ice cream.

He ran out of ice cream.

Happy day, my man. You feeling better?

Yeah.

After 12 and a half hours sleep yesterday?

Yeah.

You ready to feed these piglets? Didn't get out last night. At my spot, you just opening the gate. Look, they ate half the grain. Look who's just checking us out right here. This is good. This is where we keep our feed. Almanzo. We can't forget the important role of cats on the farm. They keep rats from getting into our exposed feed. Like, our chicken feed is just sitting right over there. It's wide open and it doesn't get got by rats thanks to Almanzo and Royal and Sabina. That backfired on me, went the other way. We've got to straighten up this waterer, or of course they're gonna knock it over.

Yeah.

Now it's up. They look like fat little guinea pigs, don't they? Because you're getting fat on that cow's milk. Is that a crazy thought? Would that tin fit on top of our raised beds as a silage tarp? So instead of plastic, could I put down the metal?

Hey, every single little bit of their food already.

Yeah, how do you know?

Because I don't see any.

See that?

It's their last paddock in their— this field, and then they're out of food. We do have more out there, and we only have today to protect those trees where we're first going and getting water to them. Don't you start. He's already like, where are my shoes?

Henry, where are your shoes?

I hope not. You've been legendary. Henry actually helps me look for them, I think. Here you go, here you go, Henry.

Good boy.

This right here? Yeah, we got two tree protectors. Can we ride this third one up here? See this little tree? The trees will be a rub. For the animals, a shade, a fly catcher, because the spiders and birds love to live in them. But if we don't get these protected and the cows come in, and especially sheep, they will tear this to bits. Come on, let's see how fast we can do this. 2 of 3 trees for today. We got smart, we took the ends and we went ahead and wrapped the whole thing, and then we took these loose wire ends And we wrapped it around our T-post, therefore eliminating the need for clips. And Josiah's like, well, do we need to even clip it at all? I don't think it's going anywhere. It's a good question. Maybe the clips are for like when these are straight line fences. I don't know if it's going anywhere. Josiah, you guys get to meet Royal. There's one of the other barn cats.

He's better than everyone.

Well, you need some loving today, huh? We have some pasture. I'm also realizing we could go to the soccer field by one more day. We're gonna have to figure out a water situation. Okay, you guys might notice somebody's missing. Jonas, that bug is slowly making itself around this table, isn't it? Hopefully you just got away with a stomachache. Hopefully You just got away with tiredness. He got a stomachache. He didn't feel right.

Yeah, I'm not the only one.

You got it bad. Henry got it bad. Jonah got it bad. Henry was about to go to sleep. He's in that stage when he must not. Tractor video from New York. Are you my biggest fan? Are you my biggest fan of the tractor video? Nope, nope, he's not. I made a tractor video for kids. It was a lot of fun. It blew up. And our kids have watched it dozens of times. Yeah, tractor video for kids, Justin Rhodes on YouTube. All right, I hate to leave this peace and quiet. Like, Rebecca, what is this? Like, I just had 2-3 hours of office work right there.

Springtime.

Okay, look at Josiah and Gideon. Let me show this. Been working 40 pages. Chicken tractor plans step by step. Legit, legit. Can't wait. Been working on that Kickstarter coming June 1st. What? Too legit, too legit to quit. Hey, you'll sell some books, babe. Hey, remember when we did that, uh, the Kickstarter for the Great American Farm Tour? Yeah. And we went live and we made our goal in an hour?

Two.

Yeah. And I think we went out and danced.

You did, yes, in the cold snow.

I don't know why people want that. I'm a terrible dancer. That's where it ended up.

Where they like it. They like it so bad. So bad.

It's like that American Idol, the bad songs. Okay.

Yeah, they show the really bad people and the really good people.

Yeah.

So if you get shown, you get shown and you're really bad, that's bad.

Yeah, so you gotta, you gotta be one or the other, really good or really bad. No middle. Okay, Big Daddy's coming. He's got the parts. For this water line. Time is ticking. We've only got like an hour and a half till supper. The cows need a paddock tomorrow. This— there's this one part and I know that'll work, but is the water line busted? I don't know. It really needs to not be. It really needs to not be. Those cows have to move. Did you get stuck?

Yeah.

All right.

Hey, is that a little big for you? Thank you, Grandma. Now, after messing with the sheens, which is also important too because we need to get the pigs out into that pole barn out of the high tunnel, we have a 3/4-inch line here. We're moving over to 1 inch, but given that we have so little time left, I'm hoping this works. Put the 1-inch install off to another day, which would take longer. Also have this handy-dandy pressure reducer. Female to female, that's all I needed. Pressure reducer. Let's try it. Look at the baby, he's coming. You gotta watch out. Come on, come on, you want a ride? I'm sorry, should we let you play in it? I'll ask him. Come play in it. Should we just do it tomorrow? He ran from me. Okay, we'll let you do it. Just park it here though. Have fun. So I've turned on the water line, Josiah. Let's just hope it works. I'll do the chicken dance. This turns on. Oh, terrible dancing, isn't it? It works! Uh-oh, where's our— where's our fence energizer?

Why not?

Oh no, we gotta leak! If you didn't hear him, he said I shouldn't go so happy, it's leaking. It's probably gonna be broken right underneath that. Oh yeah, it's soaking right here. It goes underneath this. Be our luck. We're gonna have to move this compost pile.

Hey, see if you can find it.

Wait, there it is. Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa! Um, I think I have two male-to-males, which is what we'll need, and hopefully enough hose clamps. Here's some tubing and some hose clamps. Beyond the cracks, you know. Yeah, the problem is we don't want to spend too much time mending a line that we're just ultimately going to take out. Try it, Josie. Oh, now let's see what kind of water we got out in the field. This is where the cow's going tomorrow. Here's our water. Does this work? Do the chicken dance.

You're a good sport.

Good sport. Look who come away from the corn for you. Oh good, you found a reel. Try it, Gideon. Heck yes! Two more. You like this? We have a flood. Okay, it's a shutoff though, that's easy to fix. Well, while we're out here, let's see if there's another air. Of course, it might not be any water past that point. The hose is not here at the end, so let's make sure it has an end. Our little trees are budding, Rebecca. There it is. Okay, doesn't look like we have any leaks. And we're back with a small valve. Can you turn me on? I don't see Josiah. Water's off. We don't need it till tomorrow. We can move them out. We'll double-check this tomorrow. It's time to eat. Look at the little chef. What'd you make us tonight?

Um, steak, hamburgers, and french fries.

Well, this is not working if we don't do something about this, these weeds. Well, cover crop it looks like. We're gonna have a garden full of COVID crops instead of a garden full of produce. We put down grass clippings, but really, if we were gonna do just grass clippings, we probably should have done 4 times the amount so these, these plants couldn't get light. Look, Gideon. We got to keep that. That's some sort of squash or cucumber or something, and that might be some sort of flower. Hard to beat these UV-resistant silage tarps. This will hold it down. Let's cover this one too before it ever gets cranking. This one needs compost yet, so We'll do that another day. 3 beds covered, a 4th just needs compost. They're working on the 5th. The chickens, don't they do an awesome job? And the 6th, we got one more garden bed to do. Isn't this lovely? This cover crop worked out nice. Gideon's saying, where are these chickens gonna go when they're done? Yeah, so after there, they would come here. And then me, I have a compost corner with a chicken run right next to the garden for this kind of thing. This could have been produce, this could have been weeds, this could be crazy amounts of COVID crop. And if I didn't have that, I would just start running them around in the yard. If I didn't have a lot of room in the yard, I would park that and just do this in it, just do deep bedding, just add wood chips, wood shavings, a little bit every day. Just to keep the stink down. And they would just build up a compost area. You move this once it, you know, I don't know, gets up 4, 5, 6 inches. You then move that out of the way, pile up your compost pile, and do another one. And you could probably go back and forth in just that little area. So if you've got room for double the size, you've got room for chickens.

Well, that hay bale's gone.

Is that our last hay bale? How many hay bales we got left?

1 and a half.

Okay, thank you for letting me know. I have let Petty know, our hay guy. I'll give him a reminder today. We need hay. Well, we couldn't take them up to Grandma's. There's grass up there. The luchadors on the new 2 acres, they're not enough grass there yet, and we need to move them at some point. Really need to find a place to graze them.

We can put the calves in with the sheep, and then the luchadors up at Grandma's.

That's not a terrible idea if we run out of Hey, especially because it's spring and actually we're not going to keep up with the grass. So maybe that's really what we need to do, and we— and then we give the 2 acres more time for the grass to come up. Time for a big move. We're out of grass over here on this pasture. We need to go out to Violet's pasture. We need to get Stud and Flossie over there. It's a bit of a wild card move. There's a few places they could breach. And kind of run free. Let's just hope that doesn't happen today. Well, this is one of the distractions. They could technically go down there and get in the creek. They've done this move a number of times. I think they honestly remember it. I'm just crossing my fingers they go straight into the open net. Wow, really giving a little extra guard there. They're doing it! They know what to do. We did get our trees covered. We did get our water going. We're going to test it, make sure it isn't leaking at the end. But we also bought ourselves one more day by putting them here in the soccer field, mowing our soccer field for us. Of course, they'll leave some cow squats for us. Let's try to get this out of here, huh? If you guys haven't already met, this is Vanilla. She's our heifer cow. She's going into the stanching beautifully now. She's giving up mucho milk, probably 2 gallons. She's a great cow. I have a feeling she's gonna be our prized possession. This is Honey, close runner-up. She's gonna dry off though. We need to dry her off May 6th because she's gonna have a baby in a couple of months. You're gonna have a baby? Is that your first on this farm? Who?

Graham.

Oh, okay, that's right. Wait, no, she came with Graham. I think. Yeah, yeah, so this would be her first. They're not the cuddliest cows, but we don't like our cows. Last thing you want is a 1,200-pound pet coming up and nudging you to get to pet them. You could get hurt. She probably gave what, Lily? A gallon this morning, but in her height she will give 2 to 3 gallons. Honey, how much she give?

Um, 2 big Cory, so a whole bucket of that.

Okay, well, that's almost 2 gallons, 2 half of those, so. Okay, cool. These are 100% grass-fed, never grain, grass-fed genetics. Right next door to the cows, the sheep. These are all our ewes. That means these are going to be all our mamas. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, pot of beans. We have 11. These are the OGs, they've been with us for a while. We eat about 5 pans pounds of lamb a week. That's 40 pounds a month. That's 1 lamb. We need 12 lambs, given that each of these guys give at least 1. If they get more than 1, we have some extras that we can sell. Maybe somebody misses or something like that. Little Chocolate, oh, we should let you over right now to your mama. We separated Little Chocolate from Vanilla overnight so her milk would build up. Now let me spot you so the sheep don't get through, okay? There it is, little chocolate. Want something to eat? She's vanilla, he's chocolate. They're forecasting of all the cream we're gonna get, right? All her offspring will be ice cream themes.

Okay, then we get a mint chocolate chip.

Yeah, if she has a female, it could be strawberry. There's Rocky Road. Rocky, if we've got another guy—

we already have a calf named Rocky.

Oh, do we? Maybe it'll be gone. How we gonna do this? Well, we got to go open up the net.

How about we just herd them over there and then when we get there we'll open it?

Come on, she gassed. We could run ahead of them and then we'll come get the milk sled. We could open this up all the way because we got to get the milk sled out. Now the move's even trickier because we have cows in the new paddock and we can't just leave that gate open because they'll get out and we got to lead these guys, but The gate needs to be open, so I'm gonna go ahead of Lily. It's just kind of a big pain if they get out. Then we're chasing cows all over the place. Lily, you gotta spot me over this water line. If I catch it on the milk sled, I could rip it into two easy. Spot me here. If you hit that rock, it could destroy the milk sled. And we're getting caught. We will bury those water lines as soon as we are sure that's where they're going to go, and that'll eliminate that problem. Wow, I'm not going to lift that. You want to try that, like digging it out and kind of shoving the plastic under there? Get this out of the way. There we go. Now I don't think it's going to go over. Yeah, and it's probably going to just smash that.

Do we just try to switch that over there, pull it that way switch this back to over here and drive out that way.

Yeah, that's, that's the possibility. Or we go get the machine and lift it over, but I think we might compromise the structure if we do that. Hopefully we just get some clips of this process.

Watch out!

The problem now is we're going to be able to hook up here and actually make this turn and not break this thing going over these humps. Let's set you guys up on this side to find out. Oh no, another water line! I'm thinking about this, silly. Another water line. Hopefully it's downhill enough that we won't catch it. Well, it went right over it because it was a little lower and the skids shot out of this hill and they didn't rub it until they got over it. So that was good. I wasn't really ready and look, Honey is running. Let me see if I can sneak around her. Shoot, the gate's not open. Hey, she's gonna pass right by. Hang on, Honey. Well, maybe we can get there in time for vanilla. Now I'm running around with a bum ankle. Good job, Lily. You guys know I had the back issue last week. What's like the pain went on tour? Went to my groin. Now it's in my ankle. Can you go get Honey? My arthritis is acting up in my ankle. Can you just go get her?

I'll try.

I'd rather not. I'm trying not to walk so much, it's hurting. Thank you. It is. Y'all ready for new grass? What's cool about sheep is you can follow them behind cows and they aren't as picky as cows, and so they eat all this the cows left. And if I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times, The sheep eat some of the cow's parasites and vice versa that are on the grass, and so they're basically parasite vacuum cleaners for each other. It dies in the other one's systems. They don't share all the parasites. They pick up on some of the spilled alfalfa. There's one eye in the grass inside of the tree. Nope, didn't go for it. Dang it. I think these were higher up, they would reach under there and we'd be able to get to the string trimmer. They're not going to push their head through there like I was hoping they would. He loves to help. You do it. Here, you want the scoop? Ready for a ride? Okay, that's your own corn box. So I can get in here with the machine, mix this in so it entices the pigs to dig and help stir this compost pile.

Boom!

Josiah did it. I see corn sprinkled out. That kid, he's just got such a common sense intuition. He has stirred this up nice. We have a divot here we can put a, a fence across, and then we can have Beefcake out here and then the sow. Get it, Henry!

Get it, Papa!

I'm working on the Homestead Builds Kickstarter. Hey, you guys want to see this? Check out the add-ons to the raised bed.

Hey, good morning, Justin. Just wanted to show you this final product. Um, we've got your 4x8 raised bed, and I put the pergola on the top with a number of eye hooks on each of the purlins. Here you see I've got a cattle panel hanging from it. You can also strap it up at an angle if you want. Another option I saw fit here was I just strung a piece of rebar over the eye hooks and then tied some of the gardening twine down so you could string your tomatoes or peas or whatever off of those. Just different options. Also, you've got your removable sides with the half-inch hardware cloth. You see how you remove this one, they're stackable. Pretty cool. I tried a bunch of different latch options. This actually worked out the best and was the simplest, just these barrel bolts and drilled holes in the side. And then I've got screw-like pins in the bottom. You've got one hole here, another hole here, and they locate them and they stick right in. Pretty excited about it. Just going to take this guy out.

Switch right out.

Take the thing out. There's the pins on the bottom.

Stick it right back in. Done.

Keep your dog out, keep cats out, rabbits, whatever. Um, have any other ideas? Oh, on the top I left that long. I thought it looked pretty. And then I'll let you guys, if you and Rebecca want to look online and find post end caps that you like, you can just get them shipped to me or whatever, or tell me and I'll order them. But I think that looked nice up there. Um, also some eye hooks on the outside. People have the option of hanging like potted plants off the corners. I thought that would look pretty as well. But there you have it, your final product.

Let me know what you think. Mom is cutting eyes to plant potatoes. Hey, these are just extra potatoes. We didn't— we're slacking, didn't get seed potatoes. Guys, you can do this from old potatoes. What you need? You want another chip? Cleanest chip Mom could find. It's only 4 ingredients: organic corn, organic Bastet beef tallow and sea salt. Actually, 3— only 3 ingredients, and it passed the Henry test. You eat this 3-ingredient chip? Yeah. Is it organic? Hopefully it is.

These are my potatoes that we didn't eat, and they got kind of weird, so I thought, let's plant them.

I know I showed her off for lunch, but I got to show her off again for dinner. This little girl has made Mexican rice, beef, guacamole, salad, you even fried tortillas, salsa. All right, let's test our fix yesterday for our water. Cows must have water just like us. It's the most important thing they can have, and they really shouldn't go more than just a few hours without it, or we're in big trouble. Those cows, well, they're creatures and we want to take good care of them, but they are also our milk, our bread and butter, so to speak. Hey, come on, let's go see if the cow water is working. He's playing sandbox in Sally. Cross your fingers. Hope that I— hope this is working. And it is! Oh, our cows get water! We don't have to haul to them in buckets. Look, it's already been an hour and Vanilla's coming over looking for some water. Honey's thirsty too. Shows how important this water stuff is. We've probably got 10 days of grazing in this Violet's pasture. Do we have water, Henry? Yeah, we do. Hey, can you do the chicken dance? Are you looking at me like I'm crazy?

Grasp your feet, lay the eggs, lay the eggs.

Goodness, how are the orphan pigs? Hungry this morning? Milk? Uh-oh, why didn't it fall out? Didn't set it out.

How do you do this? I don't know.

Well, that'll give them something to do, break up that icy milk. They are fat, happy little guinea pigs. Little fat guinea pigs with that cow's milk. Get in there eating some grain.

They're loving it.

Yeah, Beefcake's getting moved today, and if he's not hungry, it's gonna be a little harder to move him. And with this, we don't keep this secure, these 10 hungry piglets would get out and terrorize the farm.

You don't have his buddy with him when you move down?

Yeah. Well, he doesn't have to. We need to get his buddy back into the woods. We won't need him anymore because he'll be right next to the lady.

He's gonna be on this side.

Who's easier to herd? Because we're gonna have to herd her— somebody into the back there. She's easier to herd than he is. Okay, well then she goes in the back. We've got to get the pigs out of the high tunnel, out of the stall, into the pole barn. We need Lucky. We need Lucky to start because we're gonna need that Trailer. Trying to start him now. I don't quite need him yet, but like, do we need to get him? He's battery charging. Let's see. She started! Just guess it's gonna be a good day. Lucky may have started, but so did the rain. A farmer, I'm gonna be careful about complaining about the rain. You never really want to do that, but it is going to create some Complications. It won't be hot in the high time if it's raining, but there is always tomorrow, and it's just getting hotter and hotter as we progress into the season. Hitchhiker.

You have the milk supply?

Nope. Let's go get him. Rain's gonna hold off on us. Just now a drizzle. Let me introduce y'all to Stud Muffin. Although we don't milk him— don't be fooled, that's not another— he is half our breeding program. We call him Stud Muffin, so he lives up to his name. And he's a stud. He'll impregnate all 3 of these cows. And believe it or not, he's about 5 years— only 5 years old. Gideon's 8. What if you were that big? And I'd say he'd probably be good, well, until he's no longer a stud. 12+ years. He is the A1, A2 genetic. That means his offspring— well, if he breeds with an A2, A2 cow, 50/50 chance that it's going to be A2. A2, long story short, is easier to digest.

Do you have to be talking? We're trying to do chores.

Well, this is the chore, honey. This is the chore. You all, you are our centerpiece. We're not out here doing chores, we're making a movie about doing chores. She's been getting beautifully the last few days. Now for some reason she's being hesitant. I hope she gets in because we're gonna have to go get the gates. Okay, we got a lot of other stuff to do today. We don't mess with this. We didn't calf separate last night cuz we actually don't have power to the fence. He probably would have busted over. Temporary out of power due to the house remodel. We need to get this brush out of here or else we're missing out on a lot of grazing.

It's raining again.

We're hoping this brush stays on. If it falls off, it's another delay. I didn't even expect— I forgot about this brush. Can we fit through this? Can we make it to that brush pile right up there? There's the steers. They have no grass. We are feeding hay. On this new pasture. There's some food over there, but not, not much. Brush pile falls off now, it's okay, we're there. See the grass coming up nicely? It's coming up nicely. Probably don't want to hit it when it's so young anyway, it would stunt it. And we got a lot of grass coming in over here, it's just not ready, and they would eat that down to the ground. They would eat this little ice cream grass down to the ground and it would just— oh, well, it's spring and we can't keep up with the main grass anyway. Let's let this build up. Let's put the steers out behind the cows and with the sheep. We're gonna need Josiah because this could get crazy. The rain can't make up its mind. It's holding off right now, but we did get a call from the post office. Our meat chicks are here. Lamb some breakfast. Grandma is gonna go get the chicks. They're not chicks, they're our guard geese. We do not have time. We've got to move the steers down, then the sheep over, then Nacho up the hill, then the pigs over. We're about to do this, but I want you guys to know this is a rush week. This is getting all the animals out of their situation and settled for the growing season management system. It's not always this crazy, this rush. We do get in a group Once we get everybody going, all right, we gotta get these guys out. We are running out of hay. Josiah thinks we can just herd them. Trick is going to be herding them over the creek for sure. Leave Nacho in. You go up above, Lily. Go up above them. Josiah, come bring up that end. Yeah, they get crazy. They get frisky. These are our 4 steers from our mama cows, and they will be our food probably, maybe, maybe by the end of summer. Definitely by the end of next summer. These are our beef. They don't like to stay to the road, do they? Josiah, you want to go cut them off up there from going up to Grandma's? Good job, Gideon. Shoot, I was hoping they wouldn't cross there. I was hoping they'd cross here. We have an opening for them right there. I open it now. Our sheep are going to join the steers. Problem is They're way over there in our CSA pasture. I think this is pretty straightforward through here, and if it went as smooth as that did, we're doing good. Josiah, you'll block them from going down the gravel road, okay? This is the same deal. We got to get the sheep out of their old paddock. They got to move every day. That's their new paddock. They theoretically could go anywhere. Yes, I think I could shut this. Sheep and cows moving every day. Uh, let the land rest. We got that fence up. That wouldn't hold them long term, but I think it would be a good shoot. But you got to do rest and sanitation. Rest for the land, let the grass recover, fully come back. Okay, you know where her hairbrush is?

Really?

Do you know where Mom's hairbrush is? Now I'm really conflicted. I should probably help find that brush. But everybody's in position for these sheep. They're gonna follow you, huh? Hey, they made it, no problem. If it keeps going this smooth, we're good. Okay, Lily, she's still out and find her brush. Will you go help her, please? It's a great balancing act. We've lost the brush, we got a chiropractor appointment, we got to move the sheep, we gotta move the pigs. We have a demo going on. Andrew, uh, Randolph's on the roof. Did you say there's a vulnerable tree? Do you think you can do it or do you need my help? I noticed we got a limper. We want to make sure there's not any infection. We can't be having them limping. They're not going to be able to get around and get the food they need to get. See, look, and she's eating on her knees. Put your feet down and we'll catch her.

That one and that one. There's two limpers.

It's— see, it's floppy. She does have some kind of cut up in there between her hooves. I'm gonna get like an antibacterial, and I'm back with some spray. Grandma's here with the geese. In between, in between her hoof, she's got some sort of puncture. Baby it for a little while and let it heal. The geese are here from McMurray Hatchery. Hey, it's been a minute since we had some geese. These guys are important because they protect our chickens from predators. I think we're gonna put them with the chickens, fool them into thinking they're a chicken. If we fool them into thinking they're a chicken, they'll better protect the chickens. That is helpful by raising them with chicks. How are the turkeys doing? Better than the chickens. We got 2 dead ones there. Do we have any more dead under there? Which is surprising because turkeys are usually more fragile than chickens. Although they say that, but I've had really good luck from McMurray with the turkeys. They make some hearty turkeys over there. Are they eating their feed?

Yeah, not that much though.

Okay, I am a little worried about that, although I think our new country order is coming tomorrow.

Sure, can we take them swimming later?

Let's give them— let's give them a couple days to make sure they're eating, drinking, and healthy, and then you can, you can take them swimming. How about by the end of the show? For you guys, that's probably minutes. For them, it's, uh, days. Did they already find the water lily? Oh, look, look, it's gonna find the water. Maybe that one's gonna get it. Nope, he's eating the grass out of your hand. Yeah, let's definitely get some grass in here. Oh, look, that one done ate the grass. Holy moly, over there in the To the side. Oh look, the chickens are coming to meet him. I think the chickens are intimidated. Can't do that, he'll go right through here. Now I'm hoping these nets are enough, but we're probably gonna have to put something physical here at the entrance because he's probably just gonna want to jet off into the net. They'll get all tangled to get out, but this is going to be a lot easier than putting up something physical. So we're just going to do low pressure to see if it works. Really couldn't even herd them down from there, they're so skittish. Let's widen their funnel. We'll pick this up and we'll run the funnel all the way down. Look, they're coming! They're going pretty good. Hey, look at that! Kind of nervous with him. He could really ram me. Is she gonna start? Start going that way with it. Can you block them from coming out this way? Me? Yeah. If Stud's half my cow breeding program, well, Nacho's half my sheep breeding program. He's got 2 withers. These are castrated males that we'll eat this early winter. Look at this, they love it. They love all this brand new stuff. Now don't eat that rhododendron, that is poisonous to them, and they know better. Look, they started to— hey, you better get your roses before, uh, the sheep do.

You're eating the roses!

See, they know what to eat. They went to start nibbling on this rhododendron. Which is toxic to them, and they stopped. But they were eating these flowers. One more species to move. Beefcake, half our pig breeding program, and his buddy have got to go. Kind of dark in here. It's not as airy. The deep bedding is worn out. It's gone. It's all composted. You've done your duty. You got to get out of here. It's getting stinky, and when you have stinky, you have mismanagement. How are we gonna block off this side?

Papa, I can do this.

We're moving everything today, Shawn. This is the last species. Peek, peek, peek, peek, peek, peek. Come on.

Peek, peek, peek, peek, peek, peek.

There you go.

There you go.

We could put it in here.

Look, look it up. Is that too easy or what?

He's gonna have a good time. Oh look, once he finds some of that corn— paradise right here. He doesn't need to have a buddy anymore. They'll go crazy without a buddy. What? Because he's got the little pigs right next door, and we're gonna bring the mama pig over there. We don't want them to breed, so that's why we have the divider in there. If they breed, we'll have fall piglets, and nobody wants to buy any feeder pigs going into the winter. We need to breed her strategically so we have pigs in the spring. The market pig. Well, if we're being realistic with ourselves, we are going to downsize a bit since Jonah can't help on the farm. I'm so vulnerable. We did sell these guys to a local organic pig farm, so I'm pretty, you know, I'm pretty torn about that. Excited but also happy. Good job! I miss being over here. I love this situation. They love it. It's pleasant being over here, and we almost got them there. Busy as it's getting in the spring, it'll be nice to give Josiah one less chore. Yeah, or scoop it up with your hand and throw it across.

I'll do it.

You help him. They knocked our feeder over. Sean is our plant guy. What'd you bring for us today?

Uh, just a couple of seeds.

You brought some seed starts too though, didn't you? I did. So is this, is this planting for the, the summer crops right here?

Oh, this is some stuff to direct seed right now.

Oh, okay. So those are all roots. Well, because I also too was going to say, like, if you wanted me to throw some carrots in a jang and run over one of those beds. I wouldn't mind some carrots. Carrots? She's always telling me, especially now, slow down. And now we're gonna plant carrots. That's true, because we're gonna have to weed so high-intense. Weeding— her heart's there. Oh, my heart is there. Next year.

Next year.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, she's wanting to plant these potatoes. Wait a minute, not only do you start the plants for us you install. That's some service.

So a little potager style, so it's flowers and veggies. So we've got some, uh, these are some lavender starts. You got some peas coming up here on your own, right? And then these are some cauliflowers. This is a nice dahlia plant. Put some onions right here.

Nice, I like it. Hodgepodge. Was that a volunteer too?

Nasturtium?

No, I just put—

that was a little smaller. I popped them down in there a little more.

And a little bit of flowers in there. It's gonna be good.

Those are—

and they're edible. Oh sweet, nasturtiums!

Both the flowers and the leaves.

Who knew? Isn't it fun to work in the raised beds because it's so easy just to dig?

Papa, is this far enough away?

I think so. Lily, next time you mow, let's get some grass clippings. While we got Shawn here with his plant auger, let's plant a row of potatoes next to these onions. Next sunny day we got to go hoe these onions, guys. Oh well. Gideon, where's the tape? It's our straight line and it's our measuring tape. It's about to be pretty lonely in there. Hopefully we're gonna get Miss Piggy out, and hopefully we're gonna get these chickens out tomorrow. They'll be happy to get out on grass. We're gonna do one right down the middle, start right there.

You're gonna place them and then I'll go and put the hole.

That's not a bad idea. And then we'll remove the tape. The kids are gonna lay them down on the line, then we can roll up the line, pick up the tater, drill, put the potato in. I do. You got one pig left and I don't know if it's gonna start. And it's cold today, but it could be hot tomorrow.

Kind of sputtering. One more peg.

It seems as though if I keep him on full throttle, Lucky stays on. So don't mind the loud tractor noise in the background.

Take it, Gannon. Try it first. If you do it, I'll do it.

We were gonna pull this gate out. And make it our chute. It's screwed in. It might be able to slide a foot. Unscrewed? Yeah, let's make that our chute. Oh, there's another one. Hurt her out. Here she comes. Dang. Come on, peek, peek, peek, peek, peek, peek, peek. Oh, it's too easy, man. It's going good today. Here you go, there you go. The younger ones are punks. Yes, we got her over here to the pole barn. I think that's a shoot we can make. What do you think, Sean? I think we'll be great. This will be out. No kidding, tractor died right here as I was backing it in. I think I'm gonna get Mark out here now that our pinch is over and we've got people moved. The pressure is off. I have to turn the fuel on and off or it leaks like crazy. Well, this was going good till it wasn't. Josiah told me they busted— he busted over. How was this attached? Granddaddy attached this for us yesterday. This might not actually been attached. Josiah, do we have metal straps? Well, my thought is this is probably an easy fix. I was afraid they might have dug under. You He's gonna breed her, and that's bad. Remember, we're gonna have fall babies if he breeds her. I don't see any evidence that this was attached, and Randolph wouldn't know that we had a lonely male over here that would do about anything to get with her. There we go. Watch, now he knows he can do it. He's not— he's smart. They've been enjoying that corn so much they barely ate this morning. All-you-can-eat corn buffet. She found the stash, but look, she had to dig for it. We had to castrate this guy because at 6 months old he'll be able to breed people, including his mom, and we need to do it while he's young and can still be handled. Look who found the leash! Where was it?

She's on Sally.

We couldn't find it. Mom, Mom's giving some comfort. Okay, we got this band on. We made sure Both testicles are down, and in about a couple of weeks that'll just shrivel up and be done because there's no blood getting to it anymore. You know what, he's a steer, so let's not collar him. We might collar him if it was a heifer and we needed to train her to sell her, but none of those steers have collars. And the problem is, put a collar on them and they're 6 months old, how you gonna catch them when to loosen it up? Haven't forgotten These kids won't let me forget. We're gonna take the geese swimming. These geese are only like 3 days old. Well, how are they doing, first of all?

Good.

Let's pan out the water while we're there, Gideon. They're fitting right in. Have you ever met a goose? Yeah. Have you ever met— oh, you're so gentle. So do you think a goose 3 days old knows how to swim? How old do you think they are?

Probably a week. He's already on the roof. Hey, go back in!

That's crazy.

He's not really good at steering.

All right, you don't want to swim. Let's not, let's not push it. Get you back warm, little buddy.

You want to hold it? You want to hold it?

Happy day, everyone. See you guys in the next one.