Strange POWER OUTAGE

On my way back to the cabin and Josiah came to me with another problem. Lost power in the middle of the night last night, Christmas. The nerve-wracking thing though is I don't think the Holler house lost power. Yeah, lights are on. Generator is not on. It's nerve-wracking for two reasons. One, well, they're not gonna put a rush on just one little dinky donk house. Out of power the day after Christmas. Uh-oh. Technically, that should be waterproof, shouldn't it? We don't have our tin on it yet, so I don't think I worry about it too much. That— that creek, that was dry in the drought. I guess we're lifting up out of that because that's gushing. We have power over here. Did you see that? Well, the second reason this is nerve-wracking, because, uh, did we accidentally not pay, some auto payment not go through and we didn't know it. But would they really cut somebody's power on Christmas? Brilliant! Oh no! Barrel of feed is full of water. How? I don't know. That's fine. Maybe take them some extra.

Can they eat wet grain?

They can. Soaked feed's good. But it only lasts so long that you'll start— well, I guess they'll just ferment as long as it's covered in water. The pig's barrel had gotten full of water. Let's go check it out. The pig barrel was right there. I wonder if it was taking on all that. We've moved it from there to here. Soaked with the lid off. How was that leaking? This must have holes in it. I'd be awful diligent. I don't think there's any holes in it. Okay, our best idea is to just keep water over it, and that's just going to soak and then firm it. Well, it's pouring. I'm going to make a run for it. Gideon's calling me. I just trained in this very dark house. It's 9:30 in the morning. That makes it look brighter than it is, holding you guys up to that window. Like, look at that. Oh wow, it got dark in here. It feels so— look, that's a bad representation, this camera.

Yeah, it is. Look at the peripheral.

No wonder we were depressed when we first moved over here. There's no natural—

I know, we need to— I mean, if it would cost so much money to put in skylights, and we need to do other— no, there needs to be other renovations besides skylights. But that is one thing about this place.

Look at what's the south, a solid wall. The only— there is that one window in that door that I have covered up. It is so dark. Here's that window she's talking about. So dark. Let me show you the brightest room in the house. The laundry room is glorious, Becky. It can be your happy place. Let's go check on the lambs. Contrast that dingy old cabin with the holler house, and it's so much lighter over here. Did get the upstairs HVAC complete. We're ready to frame a wall around this, and that means we're ready for the electrician. Yeah, this is your bath. You're gonna take many a bath over there. Sweet little thing. 2-day-old lamb right there. Hey, look! Oh wow, is this Belle? Yeah. Oh, look, sit out here long enough, they come up to you. You can come, you can come. I'm not gonna eat you yet. Oh, get out the way, get out the way! Watch out! Look at that tail wagging like a nurse.

The snake on his back, it'll flip over.

Oh, I didn't know that. Oh wow. I don't see anything wrong out here either. I don't think I've ever been in a situation where we're the only house without power. It's on the power company's end because how are we gonna get electrician day after Christmas? Uh, okay, we don't need a creek down our parking lot. Haha, we got water overflowing from the silt pond and we don't have a good enough ditch right here to take it over to the creek. Draining nicely. Goodness, overflowing here, which is okay if we had it directed better down there. Like, that's max, near max. That's its normal drain. There's the silt pond. There's its normal drain. There's the pond. Might be partially clogged, Mattney. Might not be full on. We'll need to find that. Nothing like a good rain event to show your water vulnerabilities. Before, I'd be pretty upset about that, but those say we're gonna— we'll fix it in no time. Hey, hey, hey, look who's here! That's what I'm talking about. Been working in the office. Been working hard on this 12 Days of Christmas, all these giveaways. Power guy right there. Maybe that's supposed to be latched. Can I drive up through there and see the rest of this line? Uh, to up to that property? Yeah, let me check. I think I have the key. Can you get me the key to next door? We are not quite the end of the line. There is one behind us, so we should have that key. Tell me we haven't lost it. This should be right here. That's only—

okay.

Oh boy, not find the key. Shoot. Jonah says he sees the line down over there on the neighbors. We're gonna have to find this key. He walked up, sure enough, the line's down. He's right. He's got a lot going on today with all the rains. He's got a way to get us back online in, uh, 15 minutes, he thought. I think he's wrapping it up. He's getting his tools down. It's coming down. Did it work? Look at these cowboys, cowgirls. First time riding, Jonah?

Yeah.

Has she let you drive by yourself yet? There's a process. You gotta connect this back up here and we should be back online.

I know it. So I was fixing it with the Mini 8.

Oh really? How's he gonna fix it?

A ditch for the water to go into the pond? No, the silt pond is overflowing.

I know, but it— yes, there needs to be a ditch across the path there that directs it that way.

Thinking we'd fix this when it dried out, but it's gonna run like this all day and keep eroding.

Okay, if he wants to do something, we can dig a little ditch right here to get us over there. The problem up there is the to— I think the drain pipe has gotten clogged. Good for them for wanting to do something. Now they're wanting— you're wanting to dig a ditch.

Look at this, Papa. Look right here. The water's running clear because there's rocks here. So once he does that, it'll just take a little dirt and then they'll be rock.

What are you doing? You're wanting to dig a ditch?

He's just gonna go like that.

Can't be long term.

Yes, I was meaning for it to be temporary.

Okay, if we do that long term, it will eventually erode the dam of our silt pond And the point of the silt pond is to catch silt in the bottom and then it drains up top. See, you can see the funnel of our drain. Hopefully that doesn't erode this whole thing. They might need to get a bigger culvert pipe right here. Hopefully it doesn't wash this bank away. I'm letting them take responsibility because that's freshly dug. I hope, I hope that doesn't wash it away. It's not a bad idea though because then they just tear up this instead of tearing up our whole farm from here down to the barn. Don't dig down far there. Well, you boys did it. You fixed it today. Good work, Josiah. Power's on. You got to give me a dozen eggs for Wes. That's good, that's good, that's good. Come on. They're poopy.

Oh, they are?

Why are they poopy in the fridge? Oh, these are the old ones. We can't get those. Yes, they're— but they've been there. They're going to be old. Ah, thank you very, very much. Appreciate it. Merry Christmas. How's it feel to have the power back on? Good. You can have lunch. You guys can have lunch just in time. Wes, You're my new best friend, bud. Thank you so much. And all you service workers, power company, well company, all you wonderful people, thank you, thank you, thank you on behalf of all the rest of us.