“Suddenly” My Oldest is Truck Shopping

They're driving 2 hours away to Charlotte to see about a truck for Jonah. Task number 1 while they are gone: we've made mozzarella. I'm gonna freeze mozzarella so we're ready next time it's time for pizza. And after we deplete that, then we'll make some more and we'll never be—

Ah!

We gotta make mozzarella the day of. This— is how much 1 gallon of mozzarella— of milk will get you in mozzarella. For us, that's 2 pizzas. We do 4 in a session, so we need to get 2 more gallons of mozzarella frozen and shredded. We're aiming for the impossible today. Trim sheep hooves. Cover the bare ground from where Josiah dug the Everflow water line. Make mozzarella. Save my kefir. What else can we have? Oh, prepare for a webinar at 1, have a webinar at 2, make a chicken soup. You think we can do it? Sure. I've been feeding this New Country Organic Whole Grain Premix. Whoa! They love it. There's no grain left.

It's a perfect mix.

Nothing like scraps that chickens get more excited about. Pour it all out. Yeah, especially since it's mostly meat scraps for my chickens. I just made Henry's plane.

Oh nice, it's the most terrible.

Why are my wrenches all gone?

Some of them are upstairs.

Can you go get them? Henry, where are the wrenches?

I found those, those little ones.

Look, those aren't the ones that are missing. Maybe they are. Look at the— make sure they're the right size.

They are.

Look, they fit. How many are missing? 4 or 5? Tools is the cost of their learning. You really just took my Leatherman? Are you gonna put it back like you put back those wrenches?

Yes.

That's not what I wanted to hear. Well, I forgot the calf separate last night. I thought I had an alarm. Set a daily alarm for 6 PM to put up the calf. I set your put up the alarm for 6 PM starting today. As if the, the, the— this computer can hear the tone of my voice. We're thinking we might ban the males. They're all males. The one— the year we needed to replace our female breeders, they have all males. Did you guys notice? And you throw all males so we don't kill your bait, so we don't kill you. Now look at this little one, Josiah. They may be too little. It's hard to get the balls down if they're too little. They might be too little, so we'll wait on that. But you want a hoof? Yeah, do one. We'll let it out. Yep. That's why I want to do this before you leave, buddy, because it's lifting work. I'm thankful for you, buddy.

All right. Hey boys.

They're too loud. Since I got everybody separate, let them back in. I'm on the last one. Yep. Good job, Henry.

Yeah.

Open it all the way up. Open it all the way up. Here they come. Sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep. 9:09. 9:09. Okay, they'll be there in 1 hour 10. Josiah just said, I hope he gets it because then he'll stop showing me trucks. He's been obsessed and he's been showing us all trucks for months. Hopefully this is it. He's looked at a couple and they didn't work out.

This guy is going to be getting a new truck, hopefully a new used truck. You excited?

Yeah.

He had a bad dream last night.

—It was all rusted.

That the truck was all rusted and he bought it sight unseen. So yeah, I mean, we think we're gonna have a new truck today, but obviously we might not.

That took a good strong hour. What are you guys doing?

Taking hay for it.

Mom and Josiah ought to be there. Hopefully they're there. And test driving this thing, and it's going well because they've test— tried it and test— test drove another thing and it didn't go so well a few weeks ago. What you thinking?

Oh, look at this side over here.

That is rust. I do wonder where the guy is. It's been smoked in. It was— it's got some rust on it. I think it might Yeah, we're—

it's okay. We're gonna look on Facebook Marketplace and see what else.

We are done with the lambs. My take on this, what I've learned: these Seminole sheep has really amazing hoofs. And then the younger ewes, they're not terribly much younger, they're 4 or 5. And then the OGs, 5 or 6, their hoofs are so tough and dry. Yeah, it's Okay, all right. It's a bit of a confirmation that their time is near, you know. It doesn't feel healthy. Um, we would have, we would have culled them this year, so hopefully they can get pregnant one more time. The last thing we want is to have an animal on the farm that's what you call open and unable to get pregnant. So you want to cull before that happens. These Seminoles, I call them, they're these brown, and I don't even know what breed they are. They just came From Florida, that's why I call them Seminoles. Although they're little, they sure are hardy. And why do we only have two? Well, I really like them because they barely need any hoof trimming, and I actually made mistakes and trimmed down too far on them and drew blood. I felt bad. Just, just a moment. I probably didn't even need to clip their hooves. That's what I'm looking for in this farm, is animals that thrive on this farm with the least amount of maintenance. I want a self-sustain— I want a sustainable farm. For these kids one day. So I'm being mindful. So you better believe if they give us a female, we're gonna keep it as a replacement. Or wait a minute, it takes so good. Ike's so good. One day we'll keep a male from them too. It's just pointless right there. There's no way to get them through. What are we doing? What's the plan now? What? See, now what? There's no gate right there. Right there, you can just open it up.

Ah, there it is. Yeah, yeah, good job!

Just got a text. Let's get the sheep up. I'll check texts with y'all in real time to see if— oh! Oh, it's a no. There's a rust spot and cigarette smoke. Ah, but wait, but wait, we're looking around to maybe see another one. Okay, okay, okay. Yeah, you're in Charlotte, there's probably a lot more there than in Asheville. Let's get these wood chips spread out. That's a must. They must not be walking around in the manure. Notice I'm doing this alone. I mean, the kids are— little kids are playing in the hay. I was just thinking about things, and I was thinking, you know, it does go by quickly. And I think any young people watching this, the young men who, you know, and the women, the young moms, it feels like it's gonna be forever. And it is, it's gonna be forever. It's hard. It's what you're doing. It's never-ending. It's a 24-hour, 7-day-a-week job. I'm not gonna take that difficulty away from you. And there's no use telling you, don't blink, it's gonna be over soon. Because I think back on it to when I was there, I mean, what good did that do? I mean, how do you not blink? How do you cherish it more just because somebody said that. So I'm not going to say that. You know what I would say? This is what I'll say to you young parents in the struggle with the little ones: see you in a little bit. See you soon. See you soon. Because, uh, yeah, and, and, and this one's gonna be a whole different struggle. We're all divided. I can't stand it. It's also good though. I know it's good. Jonah's Mom took Jonah, they went and looked at trucks. Uh, Lily's got to do her barn day today with her horse. Josiah took her. I'm thankful for him and him able to do that. So it's just, it's just me and these two. And because they're the younger ones and I've slacked, they're not gonna put in as good or as much as work as the other one— older ones did. Just don't count on them. Not any hay bales, are you?

Nope, we're getting loose hay.

Okay, because there's a lot of loose hay right there. There, don't break up any hay bales. Don't untangle my rope halters. Who wants to go plant seed?

Not me. That bale weighs more than me, then we'll work.

All right, they're learning pulleys and behaving, so I'm not pushing it. Y'all come up there when you're done. I want to fight it. I enjoy working by myself sometimes. Just realized I am vastly out of time. 20 minutes to 11, and I really need to go make the lunch and supper. But if there's a priority on the permaculture farm, it is that if you have bare ground, you need to get it covered. Smooth it out. That's interesting. What are you doing in the trash bin? Hey, what do you need? Anvil right here. Oh, anvil. Lift it. Put it down for you. Yeah. Okay, that's your— that's your counterweight. Yes, the anvil.

And it doesn't even lift the bale.

And it lifts the bale? No, you have to help it. Oh wow, you're using it to stack hay. That's pretty smart. We're gonna get some hay for the seeds. We're gonna get these bottom pieces. You can feed these to the cows at the very bottom. Layer is rotten. We don't put these on pallets. I learned— Joel Salatin taught me, don't do that, because we were doing that. He said that'll be a place for rats, so just let, let a little corner spoil. And sure enough, maybe 2 inches are spoiled. And we fed this to the cows, they just don't eat that. But this is also good for mulch. 2 bales will probably do it. Look, if you're not going to help Gideon on the hay, come with me, come with me. I'll let you throw some seed. I'll let you throw some seeds. Hear that, guys? Hey, we came right by IKEA to get food for Jonah, plus he is eating the soup. I didn't pack enough soup, I guess. Should I go buy cabinets? Oh, oh wow. Yeah, look guys, she's not asking, she's telling. And I'm pretty sure you don't tell a woman not to go to IKEA. Just, uh, I know it's funner, but sometimes you got to do like things in life that aren't fun. How about, hey listen, how about you go help me plant a seed and I'll give you a piece of chocolate? Piece of chocolate bar. Just in life, if you work, you eat, and if you don't, you don't. Come on. I convinced you to go? I forgot about that real life metric. When you work, even doing something you don't want to do, you get a reward. So often you do stuff you don't want to do because of the results. Real life lessons. All right, I wish I would have showed you, but it looks something like this. What I wish I would have caught on tape was Henry out here helping me. He did come, you're just gonna take my word for it. He's nowhere in sight now. A friend called and I got on the phone. Look, I will show you this. Hold on, not sponsored or anything, just a tool I use. Nature's Seed, it's good clean seed, and I go get the Southeast mix. I'm in North Carolina. And I get the dairy cow mix. It's going to be a good mix of edible forages, and it's just a little patch. I could just do it by hand. It's gonna have clover in it, alfalfa, fescue. Mother Nature, she's modest. She likes to be covered. You better cover her before she does, because she would be dressing. This protects the bare earth from being scorched by the sun today. It protects these seeds from drying out. It holds that when it rains, it's gonna— won't be able to wash out the soil. Notice how I dropped the hay bale up top, so then when I'm doing this, I'm walking downhill with the load. Always think, carry stuff downhill. The crap lunch. Just texted them though. No way, no way, you didn't get any cabinets? You didn't get a truck? That's what they're telling me. Maybe they're gonna— are they pulling one over me? It's a surprise. An hour and a half to a webinar. Half an hour till I should really be preparing for it. Filthy kitchen. Soup to be made. Got a lunch coming. Lily's being way too long at the barn. I spent 2 hours at the barn, not to there and to back. I choose supper over a clean house. What is it? Go, Henry! All right, my man's pedaling. Those balance bikes are where it's at. Never had to teach him how to ride a bike. There he goes. Good job, Henry! Just wrapped up the webinar. Mom and Jonah are home. Yes. Okay. All right. Interesting place to play soccer. Hey, where's the truck? Oh, we didn't get it. Where's the truck? Where's the IKEA cabinets?

Oh, that— I can't figure it out. Like, I looked online and I know I could go in the store, but that store's so big and it would take me so long.

I probably would just I thought the woman would want to go see the IKEA cabinets. All right, what'd we learn? What'd we learn, Jonah? Buying cars? Yeah. Uh, well, he's— is he upping his budget?

Well, we're gonna talk about it because I thought we were just gonna up it a little bit. Apparently now it like went up like triple.

Apparently we're in the cigarette budget. Cigarette and rust budget.

Yeah, well, the other concern is, is like, how good is the car actually? Actually gonna be? Is it gonna last? Like, why— like, let's— maybe we—

I think anything under double— under doubling it is good. No, that's fine. Hey, you made us some bread! I'm thinking more like 46. Some focaccia bread. Well, he didn't get a car, but we're all back together. Everybody's safe. I'm calling it happy day.