In this informal homestead vlog, the presenter walks viewers through a series of practical winter‑survival strategies used on a North Carolina farm after a cold storm. The video opens with a light‑hearted greeting and quickly moves into a list of tips: keeping children indoors, dressing in multiple layers, and building redundancy into heating (wood boiler, wood stove, gas furnace). The host discusses tool organization, proposing a lockable tool bag and a small fee system for kids borrowing tools. A major portion of the segment is devoted to troubleshooting a frozen hose: locating missing tools, using a hose‑repair kit (male‑to‑male connector, clamps), and a step‑by‑step thaw‑and‑repair process. Livestock care is covered with deep‑bedded runs lined with wood chips to prevent slipping and to absorb waste, plus straw feeders to keep water unfrozen. The presenter mentions a greenhouse for chickens and the problem of frozen eggs, recommending afternoon egg collection. Cooking is highlighted with a brisket, a pork roast with apples and herbs, and a duck‑bone broth prepared during a personal four‑day fast, tying nutrition to the fasting experience. Throughout, the tone remains conversational, enthusiastic, and instructional, emphasizing problem‑solving, redundancy, and making the most of limited daylight in winter.
Chapters
Happy day! It feels like -1 degrees outside. That's quite great for us North Carolinians. I think we're doing pretty good in this weather. I'm going to show you some tips and tricks we're doing to make it work, and we'll overcome some problems together. I'm sure we'll have some problems. This is what we do on a homestead in a really cold day. How do you guys like it? He certainly gets to stay in. Tip number 1: let the little kids stay in. Tip number 2: lots of redundancy and heat. And keep it going. I forgot to show you, cook really nice meals. Take some time, take some extra time for the meals. That's a brisket, it's the best. He's the best. Hey, did you find the tool for me? No, but it's downstairs. Okay, you good? Good. Wear lots of layers. Get off the one that closest to the four-wheeler. Get a hose inside. Kids have lost all my tools. No! Anybody got a tip on that one? I think I'm gonna have a tool bag and I'm gonna lock it away somewhere and the kids can buy their own tools. And if they need to check out a tool with me, maybe they need to give me $5, $10, and I'll give that $10 back when you bring the tool back. Maybe that's it. Can I get it with the Leatherman? I mean, that's an all-around tip right there. Carry a multi-tool, don't matter if it's cold or hot. I ain't getting on that in this mega homestead and we don't have a tool to get the hose off. Many, many minutes later. This way, I've wasted 30 minutes of my life. Still nothing. Sun's coming up. Hopefully it'll fall these things out quick enough. Look, listen, my speech is so cold out here. They've got water, it's unfrozen. You can't make mistakes like this— not rolling this hose up yesterday, not having tools. Come on. A deep bedded run for us, wood chip run for the cows. Plenty of room for the hierarchy to jostle about. Wood chips on the concrete. So they don't slip. A deep bedded barn for the animals. Wood chips to capture their manure and urine. Straw feeder keeps the waters unfrozen. It's going to be 38 degrees today, but because it's zero right now, I don't know if things will thaw out. I mean, that is above freezing, but things are going to be hard. These things are going to be frozen hard. Y'all know about my wood boiler, so let's just call this tip redundancy. I have a wood boiler, a wood stove, We have a gas furnace that can run on gas or electric. Greenhouse for the chickens. Collect all eggs in the afternoon or this happens. See that? They got frozen and burst the shell. Not all of them did. Well, Beck, I give up. You're going to town. I need a crescent wrench, a channel lock, pliers, and vice grips. Take the cold day not for outside projects, which is what I love the most, and just make yourself do inside projects. Like, we're gonna take these shelves out, line this whole wall with shelves from the farm— with from the farm shelves all the way to the roof. We're gonna have to make a special video about that. Wait a minute, Josiah says he's found the channel locks. You find the channel locks right there on the ground. What, on the ground? Yeah. Pro tip: we're gonna roll up this hose, get it inside, get it thawed out. After we're using it this afternoon, we're gonna lay it on this sloped road so all the water will come out of it and it can just be there. It doesn't have to be inside. Lay it in the sink. Tip 2. Yeah, definitely the tip. All right, thanks, my man. 3 hours later. All right, shoot, they are out of water. Hopefully our hose is thawed out, we can fill it up. It's handy having the house right there in the backyard. It feels thawed out. Will this work? We might be thawed out enough. It's working. Needs a patch, but it's working. What? Whoa, I know. Did you break this? No, we're gonna fix this once and for all. Ace has these handy dandy, um, hose repair kits. Here's a male to male, and then we've lost our female end. We'll just— or male end, no, yeah, male end. We'll just replace it. First you cut the bad piece off, put that in, one in, male to male in there, the hose on. I got your clamps on there. Okay, got that snug and secure. Should we see if it's working? Pressure on it, not leaking. We did it good. Thank you for coming and helping me. What are we making for supper? I don't know what it's called. A pork roast with apples and onions. Yeah, did the apples and the onions and the seasoning— thyme and sage and rosemary and salt and pepper, uh, browning up each quarter to lock in the juices. This afternoon, burn it up cooking show. A duck soup. I am on a 4-day fast with a friend. Need a little reset myself. Fasting documentary coming out Friday. Never-before-seen footage. I went 28 days, 31 days without food. Smolts are in the land. Smelling so good. I don't think I've ever had duck soup. Let me show you one last winter tip. Gotta unhook the spigot. Drained our hose. I'm gonna put it inside just in case. And you unhook the spigot. Good man. Did you check people's water? No, I have not, but they were all running, so they have water. Okay. I've noticed when you fast, that's the best time to cook. You want to cook so well because you're so hungry. I'm gonna cut this off the bones. I'm gonna start a bone broth. I'll just save this soup for the day after my fast. Happy day.
