In this vlog, Victor Justin Rhodes narrates the first day of recovery on his family’s 1,400‑square‑foot front‑yard homestead after Hurricane Helene devastated the raised beds, fencing, and chicken infrastructure. He walks through a detailed damage assessment, noting shattered panels, rotting cedar posts, and compromised concrete footings. The family debates material choices—whether to use pressure‑treated lumber, seal wood, or replace sections with new 4×4s—and plans concrete‑set post holes (approximately 1.5 ft deep and wide). He coordinates family members (Rebecca, Jonah, Gideon, Lily, Henry, Josiah) to dig, salvage usable panels, and prepare for a supply run to Home Depot/Lowe’s. The narrative emphasizes the emotional impact of losing a kitchen garden that supplies fresh food, the symbolic importance of the front yard, and the urgency to get seeds planted and chickens back in the run by week’s end. The vlog also promotes Rhodes’s 10‑year anniversary relaunch of his book Permaculture Chickens, directing viewers to chickentenderbook.com for bonuses. Throughout, the tone shifts from frustrated assessment to hopeful planning, underscoring resilience, family teamwork, and sustainable food production.
Chapters
Devastation and destruction stretching as far as the eye can see. Isolated, cut off from power, water, and cell service. Homes and businesses destroyed, testing the resilience of its residents. Hurricane Helene trashed our front yard. 1,400 square foot abundant little micro homestead up here. Oh, and plus Jonah actually dropped some logs during actually hurricane relief on the end here. We've been busy with other hurricane recovery on the property, but now today is about claiming our front yard again. We have seeds in the greenhouse coming up. We got— we growing our own food. This is very important to us, and they're gonna need to— they're gonna need a home soon. So we have got to— we can't put this on off any longer. We've got to get it done today. Day 1. Of recovering the front yard is just assessing the damage, gathering supplies. Hopefully we can get them all on farm. I don't have any budget for this hurricane relief. Salvage anything we can. I mean, maybe just get that out of it. I don't know. This whole panel is gonna have to be replaced. We had those panels— wedges held up nicely on both sides. Top board did not— I mean, this actually held up pretty good. Just shattered this on the end. These had to be replaced, plus these. Maybe we can add just a little bit on into here. It just exploded. That was from Jonah. This though was weakened during the hurricane. It looks like— I don't remember if it was in concrete or not. It wasn't, doesn't look like. I think that's because that one is removable if we were to need to take a big dump truck to dump wood chips in there, but we don't need that, so we can concrete that. Looks like we have some bracing on top. I doubt that's cedar though, so it's probably not going to last long. But once we have that strength in there, we can replace that. This post is in concrete and it's solid. The other ones, they're starting to rot because they're not protected. Even though it's cedar and rot resistant, it still is, uh, what, 6 years old? There's not even a post down on the ground there anymore. Yeah, this— the hurricane just put these— looks like rotten pieces just over the edge, not just the end of these boards. Although it might last another season or two. If we can figure out a way to extend and replace the rotten parts. Little ends have rotten and there's nothing to screw into anymore. Things drifting apart. This used to be a sturdy hurricane, hurricane-proof, uh, raised bed, and I guess it was hurricane-proof until it wasn't. We literally had water running down through here both sides, pulled the side of this completely off. I don't know if we figure out a way to extend it back to where it was or just shorten it up on both sides. This used to be a handy-dandy chickens in the front yard making compost by the raised beds partnering, and now it's just this dilapidated, ravaged pile of lumber. This mainly makes me feel setback. For sure. During the storm, we kept repeating to ourselves, "Will Austin play that?" How do we clean this up? How do you clean this up? How do you come back from this? I don't know. Rebecca said it, I said it, and it was this overall theme of this is setting us back years of work. And so here we are today Instead of expanding and growing, we're recovering, rebuilding. This is an important place because this is our front yard. This is our kitchen garden. We come out here just to grab a little something to go with the lunch or supper or breakfast. It's our front yard, continual impression. It's something we walk by every day, and I think it represents everything else on the farm to us and those that visit. So it's important that we get it up and running. We need to quit the grocery store for our health, as part of our recovery and saving money and putting money towards this house. And this is going to be a big part of it. And we have seeds going that are going to need to be put out very soon. They're a big part of it, and they're going to need a place to go. And we need our representation back, and we need to feel good in our souls again about this place. This side was easily taken off. We might even be able to salvage our piece of cattle panel. I'd like to because we have, uh, poultry wire attached to it already. I don't want to redo that if I don't have to. Okay, here To redo that 4x4, we have to get everything off the 4x4. A bit of a puzzle. Keep that in the air while we have it and it'll be a little easier to work with. You know what, we could leave that on. Why not? Gideon, go get me a shovel. Yes. Get two if you guys want to dig. Gideon, get two. How does it make you feel, the hurricane destruction on this, uh, raised beds? And it's annoying. I couldn't just leave us alone. Hey, aren't you glad you didn't do your improvements on it this year? Yeah, I know. I was wanting to stain the whole fence black and like spray paint the metal. This is your recovery. I'm just putting this fence back together. Yeah. And then this coming winter, next year, we'll get it. We're gonna probably revamp the whole thing. Yeah, that would probably It needs it. And do the fence too. And I think every post needs to be in concrete. Yeah, they're rotting. Maybe we can stain them before we put them up. Yeah, y'all want— dig a, dig a good size hole there, deep and wide. Probably a foot and a half deep and probably a foot and a half wide too. Okay, this thing was buried in concrete. I think y'all are hitting the concrete. That's a problem. Why did it rot? It was buried in concrete. It's just the concrete didn't come up high enough and the ground around it is causing the rot. I don't want to use pressure-treated because I'm afraid it would leach down into here. We're gonna have to deal with this every 5 or 6 years. Protect it better from the dirt. Maybe seal it every couple of years. You're weird. See if this hammer will straighten this out. Flip it over. Let's hammer out the other side. I think we got it enough. Where's the end of this? We're missing 4x4. It just washed away in the storm. We cut it down shorter. Cut it too much shorter. Dirt comes into contact with it. I think I might line this. Well, you want to see through. Figure out if we can line it with something, take these beds in the future. That, or we cut it back, add an extension here, give us another— put another 2x4 on the other side of that, an inner guard. We're going to have to get this dirt out of the way. Plants ever remind you of your grandma? Late grandma? These remind me of my grandma. I made a deal with Lily. If we finish the demo work on these, I've got to help setting up where her arena is going to be. She helps me, I help her. Lily, this and that arena is one of the last Things worth paying attention to. Well, that and the bridge. We still got the bridge to build. Got me some zip ties. All right, I got my panel zip tied, poultry wire. I think that's ready. Kind of invisible. The kids finished down there on that one. This one has been ripped off on both sides. It took a lot of the water. A lot of water was coming down through here and then around, so you guys got to dig along this side like Lily's doing so that we can put that back. I think I planned on replacing all that. Cleared out on both sides. If we can, um, get all the demo done today and maybe even go to Home Depot— we gotta leave pretty soon— or Lowe's, we'll be set up for tomorrow and maybe able to rebuild this stuff tomorrow. The goal is get the chickens back up here by the end of the week and have our raised beds up and ready. And how about leaves? We need to— nature's modest, she doesn't like to be uncovered. She's been uncovered all winter, but it's never too late to dress her. Hey bud, let's see what's entailed here. I'm gonna push it and you're gonna screw into it, okay? That might hold us for the season. See this? If I push that in, can you screw these in from the other side? Yeah, probably not the same ones because they're rotten. And we are in the truck. I gotta get in. We just passed off Henry to Mom, but they're backing up. Maybe Henry's coming. I'd feel really good if we could get some supplies today. That would really set us up good for tomorrow. My future self, my tomorrow self, would really thank me. He wants to go? You want to go with Papa? I think so. Okay. He decided not to go. Is he coming or not? No. Okay. Oh, I love you too, bud. I love you. He wants to give me a hug and a kiss. All right. Hug and a kiss. Give me a hug. Give a hug. Give a hug. Okay, you want to go? It's back and forth, back and forth. Okay, this is it though. We're not changing our mind. We already got him out of the truck into the Suburban. She's gone, come back twice. He's staying in the truck. Okay, here, strap him in. Mom gets a break. That's the— and I get a chauffeur. You only brought one shoe, Henry? Yeah. Okay, well, Josiah has to carry you then. And we got it. We're not riding the mower, it's cold. We're home and look what I found. By the way, I didn't show you. We got the 1x6 lumber, we got What do you call these? Flex head drill bits. A small size T20 and a T25. Wood blades for our Sawzall. Probably going to cut them down here. Thank you, my man. We got a lot done today. We got completely set up for tomorrow, which I think we should get pretty far building this and the chicken run. You don't want to miss that. Come with us. I'm gonna have to walk and talk. I've got to go to the bathroom. One of the chickens in there— by the end of the week, guys, I can teach you how to raise chickens from hatching to the plate. We're kickstarting my newest book on just how to do it. It's the 10-year anniversary of Permaculture Chickens, my original, uh, piece surrounding chickens. That's kickstarting now. We're in day 2. Get in there, please. Plenty of bonuses for getting in early, discounts, bonuses. That's going to be at chickentenderbook.com, or you can go to the link in the description. Happy day! Thanks for joining us. Let me be free.
