The 10-Acre Homestead | Falling From Success to Survival

Mid-2021, I began to suffer this excruciating, strange pain that got so intense we eventually wondered, could we actually go on? But 2021 started out as a fabulous year, namely in the beginning completing our pole barn. Put a pole barn in my backyard real quick. Let me show you guys the work on the pole barn done yesterday. Beams 10 feet apart. We're gonna build a hay rack according to Polyface Designs, and that's gonna hang right here and be on a pulley. And it'll raise as the deep bedding builds up. There's where the cows will be. The sheep will be right here, and their hay feeder will be right here. Why? Because this is then where we'll store the hay, so we just throw it over into the feeder. This is getting good. This is getting exciting. Concrete pad on its way this week. I didn't know when they exactly— they were coming So excited they're here today. They got the site level out. We've got to slope it this way, so over to a curb and then out that way towards the grass. Time to grade. Wow, those guys are good. They've got it leveled out. I guess they got some more work to do this week because I won't be back till next week to pour. What happened to your hair? This is what happened. I got wet. This is what happened. Yeah, I'd say so. The cement mixer is already here. That many eggs? See, I was nervous because I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to concrete. And are they doing it right? They cutting corners? But, uh, got Big Daddy down here. What do you think, Big Daddy? Does it look all right? Yeah. Okay, this is normal, just they're lifting it up as they go? Yeah. Okay, I'm gonna try to get it at least a couple inches off the bottom, but in the middle preferably. This was his job. General contractor, did a lot of concrete in his life. So we're in good hands now. This is an expensive day. But why? Why? Well, this is an investment to me. This is a message to my grandchildren if you ever watch this. This is how much I love you. And I don't even know you yet. We're hoping to put our initials in this so my grandkids will know what's up. Oh yeah, you still can.

We can't put our hands in it. No, you just write all our initials, Papa.

I'm gonna write so they remember who made this. We should have done it right away, really. Can you read what it says? You're big, big Papa. So my grandkids know.

I was thinking maybe we should put Nana, because I'll be Nana and when you're big Papa.

Big Daddy says try down here. Come on. What are you gonna put? Oh, that's doing real nice down here, Beck. Nice. Okay, that did good down here. Hey, if you're gonna sign your name, you want to do it down here. Everybody's making their stamp. It's done and it is blanketed. How much is it cured? A lot. You can easily step on that. The guys were stepping on it, I think. Put these blankets up. I'm walking on it. What would they have done without my wood pile? The amazing thing is those boys came at 6 AM, didn't leave till about 9:30. That's some workers. That's like almost 16 hours. They sawed nice lines in the concrete. We got a bunch of squares. See, we got a bunch of squares from where they solved. That's because concrete naturally cracks, so I guess we preemptively do it in a more orderly fashion. We gotta finish this up. Let's start with the floors and go up from there. It looks like we got our back on. We're working on our front now. Jonah, you've been working on this? Yeah, I put this in. He's put— he put one more board in.

That's all it called for.

Okay, good deal. Let me make sure you, you did it right. Yeah. What's the problem?

You can't get that on.

Did you open it? Did you open it all the way?

Yeah.

Oh shoot, that is open all the way.

Here, I have some other carabiners that are—

oh, give me a— give me a rubber hammer. We'll get that.

No, because you'll break the thread.

Well, what do you have? Solution?

I have some carabiners, some pretty good ones.

They gotta be heavy duty like that.

They're heavy duty.

Try the rubber mallet while he's gone. Hurry! Where is it? Where'd it go? I couldn't find the rubber mallet in time. He's back. I just got a wooden mallet. Let me just try it. Okay, don't tell me when you break the thread. I won't. It's just bending that. Hang on, we might have to tighten that up first. He brought us these and, you know, they'll probably work. We put these posts 10 feet apart. That's where we're gonna hang our feeder. We've got to get way up top and hang some, uh, O-bolts. Johnna, can you come put that over on this side? Thank you. Fred, our grader, is coming tomorrow. Can we get him to put wood chips in here? We do not have our panels up. I wish we would have had that so it would contain wood chips. You know what he could do? He could pile— he could do a pile of wood chips and then we'll spread it. All right, we got that ladder up. I asked them to spot me, but as soon as I started climbing, they walked away, so I don't think they're great spotters. Oh, Arun! Arun, will you spot us? You may have wondered why am I putting the hay feeder way up here. Well, I'm not. I'm putting pulleys way up here. Okay guys, get me the, uh, drill. Well, we got the cable in, we've got the hose clamps on it. That's looking pretty good. Before I put this next one on, I'm gonna go ahead and put my clamps in— my clamps on to the, to the line, to the metal wire. We've got the end set up, we've got the cable here ready. We just got to tidy up. I think Big Daddy's going to town so he can pick us up those bolts. Hopefully we're gonna get this finished this afternoon. All right, we got the trough in, we've got it cleaned up. You're getting an idea of how it's going to start to look though. We've got to give us some 2x6 support posts here and put some semi-permanent 6x6s in here with some cross braces. So this— we still, we still got a ways to go. It's a lot. We're just going to keep going at it as much as we can, and eventually we're going to get this done. It's going to be so Sweet. All right, this afternoon we've got our supplies. Let's hang this thing. I have ordered our additional lumber for some low retaining walls, some braces, some more poles. Fred's coming tomorrow, the graders. It's gonna be a huge day, but we're getting stuff done fast. Well, we winched it and just pulled it right out, so we're gonna try something different. Can you get it up through that, or do you need a ladder? Can you get it through that? How? Oh, okay, good deal. Bring it back into the other hole. I wound it through the 3 holes. Let's see if that holds. I think it's holding. I think we see movement down there. There are some more things we can do before before our lumber gets here tomorrow. I've put our retainer fence up high. We're gonna do a 2x6, 3 of them, so 18 inches tall mulch retainer. And then they'll have this fence, uh, this is in place held by blocks. I've got some straps, metal straps. This is This is just a regular gate, but I'm gonna use the straps to screw and hold that to the wall. Okay, terminado! We're finished. Well, as far as we can go. Okay, buddy, we're gonna start mounting our retainer wall. Quick, everybody look busy! The inspector's here.

Yep.

Hey, you feeling better?

Yeah, actually I am.

Okay, you're walking.

Yeah, I am.

That's good. Kind of wobbling. Look, he's got us a nice corner shim right there.

He's Big Daddy.

Yeah, we gotta prove our point.

We got Big Daddy here. We got Big Daddy's replacement.

Big Daddy's coming a little bit for the ultimate inspection.

So yeah, yeah, you think I'm an inspector.

We got 3 inspectors, 4, 4, 3 workers. Sounds about right. Oh, look who's here, the big time inspector. It was hard to get that middle one in. Now we're going to pick up the 6x6. Thanks for the workout. That was a good practice. But if you cut it short enough to clear that, then it won't reach. It'll bend that. I guess who cares if it bends it? We'll just bend it back. We could just hammer it back and then drill it in. All right, so we have to go up this way and then lean it. That actually worked. Very nice. Didn't bend that metal plate too much. Just hit it back up with a hammer and it's in. Jason cut that perfect. I'm gonna climb way up there, take a measurement so we can put a 2x6 in to mount that to it. All right, I climbed up there. Super sketch because that pole isn't leaning against anything. Sharp ladder. The only thing else we have on farm is the tractor. Ain't gonna lift it up that high. We could get in the bucket and go up there. Now we're gonna try to get up into the bucket. If I get up into there, you are gonna have to hand me the tools. Oh, up there! Woo! I need you guys to cut me a 2x6. 2 foot and a quarter. Some view up here. Wow, holy smokes. Yeah, why didn't I think of that, Jonah? Ladder to the bucket. Wouldn't be as dramatic, but not as cool. Rebecca, you sunbathing?

I am. I'm enjoying my sun.

I think you're enjoying heckling us.

I am enjoying heckling.

Okay, so she's gonna—

but I am enjoying the sun too.

They— Nate's hanging the cross beams there. They're working on the metal. There's only so many people can do that. They're working on getting the post pinned down. I'm gonna go ahead and start on the trough. We're gonna make one half that size, so 5 feet. From Polyface Designs. Let's do it. Okay, an hour and 10 minutes I built that thing. It was a lot quicker than the first time. 3 days, 4 days. Now that was just here and there work, but that's all the difference of having some help. That's all the difference of doing it once. That's all the difference of having all the supplies here.

Doing it when it's hot.

Yes, because I like it when it's hot. Yeah, it's a little warmer. Jason, are you getting some better luck over here? Yeah, I think so. I got one more of these to put in right here. Yeah, right here. Okay, and then we're gonna set up all those posts. Yes. Okay, I think we're gonna have time. What, about an hour-ish till 5? The sun is dropping. We've got one more. Thought we were done. I thought we were done there, but we've got just one more, one more height. We got to get the tractor, get up there. They only hang up here. That's a foot and a half gap. Tractor should be able to do it no problem though. This is the hardest one yet. I've got, I've got to just attach it here and reach way out and kind of hope I can screw it in. I built this huge pole barn, fully equipped. With a run barnyard for cows and sheep in my backyard. Now to get to this point, first we had to come up with the design. Then we hired the guys to come build the pole barn. Then it was the concrete. Then it was configuring the setup. That actually worked very nice. Then it was getting wood chips in here. Then it was setting up the gates in the front. And finally it was getting hay. Holy smokes!

What?

How many hay bales you got on there? Are they tied? Oh, they're tired. Oh, whoa, wow, look at that! And then the day of today, we set up our fence and went to get the cows and sheep over here. We've got alfalfa. Jonah's got a staff. He'll herd them. I'll try to lead them. They mosey. We'll get them on over there. And we're leading them. They're following me really good. I got one. Let's see if they'll all follow me. Oh, I'm coming. He's chill. Stud muffin's chill. Well, this is easier than I thought. And then all of a sudden, Flossie just started feeling frisky. Where's Flossie going? Right here, honey. I got your alfalfa right here. And ran all over the place. They're getting crazy. Why is she getting antsy? Hey, right here. Hey, come on. We did manage to get them all in. Here, look, not too much drama. Here. And then Flossie just charged right out. Oh, oh, what in the world? And Jonah finally managed to get her back in, herding her around the house and back down in here. We were able to get everybody back in. This way, honey, this way, this way. There you go, there you go. Okay, Flossie found the water. This is good. Hey, this is a brand new habit to them. They're going to be a little crazy at first, but then they're just going to be old hat. Why did I do this? I first heard about Joel Salatin doing this for his cows during the winter, giving him a rest. So I'm looking forward to a rest, not having to move the cows every day, but more importantly, capturing their holy cow. Because what happens in the winter is if they poop on the ground, yes, that's eventually organic matter, but it doesn't break down right then, and it doesn't sink into the ground. There's the microbial activity in the ground doesn't eat it and consume it and improve the ground right then. What happens is it stays on top of the ground, and rain and sun and snow end up what you call leaching that out, and you don't capture that rich manure or urine. And this is one way to do it. A deep bedding system. Capture that stuff in like wood chips, and that preserves it through the winter. And then in the spring, we bring pigs in to till and further turn that wood chips in with that manure, and then we spread it on the weaker parts of our pasture. I mean, that's all cool and stuff, but in farming, when you have to do chores every single day It's sometimes good to have a rest. My bedroom is right there, so it will be really good for a season just to become downstairs through the house, come out and do chores rain or shine, don't even have to get wet or snow, and cuts our chore time significantly. This will prevent burnout. This will give us a much-needed rest for the season. The plan here is Lily will go into the trailer. We have an escape door, and hopefully everybody will go in. We didn't bring the feeder.

There's a feeding pan right there.

We tried to get them in just the open fence. that didn't quite work because they could escape too easy and go off to the sides. The camera wasn't rolling. I forgot to push the camera to record. But anyway, you make this funnel where it's wide up here so it's easy to get them in, and then it gets more narrow, narrow, and there's— they don't feel like there's a way to escape us. And we— Josiah and I gently gave them pressure and they walked right in. We shut the door. Dang, I wish we would have captured that. We are going to try what you call the flird. We're going to put the herd and the flock together. Oh, here he comes! Okay, watch out, Lily! Stop! He's just going for the alfalfa. He could care less about those sheep. After months of hard work It's finally happened, and I feel a real big sense of accomplishment. I feel like this is something really big. I look forward to the nutrients we're going to preserve from this, the way we're going to be able— see, we only have a limited amount of acreage and for grazing, so we really need to get more out of what we have to sustain our 2 cows and our bull and our steers. That's a lot. And one way to do that is to make the land we already have so much better. And this will go a long way in doing that because the loads of compost will get out there. One of those cows, 50 pounds of manure a day. Mixed with wood chips, that's going to be a lot of material going back on our poor— on our poorest parts of our pasture. In the spring. The moment we've all been waiting for— let's try to milk these cows right there in the pole barn. Well, Rune, unfortunately the two mamas are close to the edge and we need Stud Muffin and Hamburger out. So I'm thinking let's get everybody out and then put the mamas back in. Hopefully getting them back in will be as easy as getting them out. This is our routine now. Getting a routine, it'll be a lot easier. We've got the mamas in here. My plan is let's put the alfalfa tray in there for Flossie and for Phyllis down here, and they'll be kind of contained in this feed trough. Uh, we need to get the leashes too. Do we have both leashes? And Flossy doesn't even have a collar. Oh boy. I think this is where we have some leash or some collars. Nope. Sheep rope halters, solid start, cow collars. Bingo! Hey, you guys think I can leash her without, uh, getting her to knock off, huh? No, I don't think so. All right. We'll get her some alfalfa. So what we're trying to do is we'll get Flossie in first, and hopefully Phyllis won't bother us. I should be able to put her collar on while she's eating the alfalfa. That worked brilliantly. It was so easy to put the collar on, and then I leashed her to the far end of the hay rack, so I don't think she can even pull her head out. All right, let's get Phyllis in. And then let's get our milk. You want to get our milking supplies while we do? Oh, what about— yeah, oh, it's over there. This is working beautifully. I just got washed her off. She's ready to go. I'm liking this. We're out of the— we're out of the elements. It's wide open, it's bright because of the open walls and the skylight up there. How do you guys like it? Isn't this nice? We got plenty of room between us. We can have our stuff in the middle. This is, this is so nice. It's working out so nice. Flossie pulled her head out. It moved the hay. It scared Phyllis. So we're gonna have to get— look, Flossie's done with her food. She's getting restless. Let's— do you think we can somehow reach through and tie to the post? Yeah. Okay, we're gonna have to give her one scoop of alfalfa just to buy us a little bit of time. Now she's tied to the post and hopefully won't move that hay rack as much when she's bored and whatnot. This one, I couldn't quite reach the pole, so I went around the gate. We'll hope that do. Okay, if we're all ready to milk— are we all ready? We're all washed? Yes. Okay, let's give them 4 big scoops it off Alpha and we can all start milking at the same time. Would she let you milk Josiah? Hey, we're in business! I bet it's a little warmer in there, huh guys? Especially with the hay blocking the north wind, a forest line over there, a house line over here. The only open area is the south, and that's what you want because that's where the sun is going across the sky warming these fellas up. We've got a bit of a watery mess. We've picked up poop with shovel, but still we've got cow slurp. Josiah's got us a broom. Can we get this closer? That's not— this is like valuable liquid here. Let's just get it closer to these. The key to deep bedding in your backyard is keeping it clean, keeping the manure up, keeping the manure buried. It doesn't stink out here. It's nice, it's pleasant, it's good to be here. I think if we let it go even more than one day, it would start getting pretty nasty. Brianna asked me if, if this was easier than moving them out in the field. Yeah, and I think I see what she was saying. Well, actually, yes, it is easier, but even if it was the same, we're getting hundreds This is a— this is making hundreds of pounds of compost every single day. So it's worth it because otherwise this manure would have leached over the winter because the ground wouldn't absorb it because there's no microbial activity right now in the winter. So it's worth it because we'll use these compost on our weaker pastures. Whoa! Doesn't that look much better? Where are you going with the trailer? We are gonna go move the pigs. It's Pig Raider day. Boy, this is shaping up nicely. Look nice. Bet you $50 the tractor doesn't start. Give me my $50. Randy said yesterday, you have a name for that tractor? It's like 32 years old, we don't have a name yet, but I think I do now. It's called Lucky. Lucky the tractor, because we'll be lucky if it starts. We got Lucky hooked up to the Suburban. Everybody do the Lucky Start. Cross your fingers. The Lucky Tradition. Wasn't so lucky when you hook her up to the Suburban. Hungry pigs, you guys ready? We've been waiting a long time for this. The cows have been on deep bedding, we've been mixing in corn. It's time for these guys to go and turn that compost, help us with the compost process. I'm gonna start undoing this cage. Hey, you want to go in there and get their pans? Maybe not from here because they'll follow you. What if— can you see how they're paying attention to us right here? What if you snuck in from behind and got their pans? Good idea. Yeah, I learned— take your Leatherman and undo those pans there. Grandpa Chuck, you're gonna— you're risking it, buddy. They're hungry this morning. You ready, beefcake? Here you go, Rune. Lift it off. Let them, uh, see that pan. Just let them explore. They can be together now. They can breed. She's eight months old. They can Breed whenever she comes in heat. And then in three months, three weeks and three days, we'll have babies. Big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big. Pig, pig, pig, pig. Look how curious they are. Big, big, big, big, big, big, big pig. Rune's got it. They're not going to be tricked. This is a good thing they're so timid. I mean, it's a pain in the butt sometimes, but it's better than them being too aggressive. Let's do one step at a time.

Remember how big he is?

There we go, there we go. One little bite at a time, we'll get you up that ramp. There we go. What would we do without this Polyface Farm ramp? This thing is awesome. Awesome. We're there. He ain't gonna do it. All right, we'll scare him and then he'll jump out of something. He's following you. Go for it, go for it. Oh no, don't leave. All right. Well, now they know where it is. They want that grass like everything else. He has no care to go up there. Here we go, push her up there, beef. Man, if it was just her, it'd be easy. I have to go get reinforcements. Wow, that gate works out nice there. Just like, come to this side and hold up this gate, and I might pressure them with the pig board. Just crawl through. Do you think I can fit through?

Maybe.

Oh, oh no. All right, let me end this way. Okay, you put it back. There's too much room in there. We blocked this off. We need to create more of a funnel, more of a chute, so that I can herd them with this pig board, get them in the chute, and then just pressure them in there. All right, we've got our chute. Maybe we can do it there. I can funnel them into here. And then maybe get them pressured in. I was able to lean one end against this water, this tarp pallet over here so they don't go behind there. All right, well, we did it! Aroon! No 300-pound pigs loose and out of control. All it took was a little chute. I'll remember that for next time. They were so calm, I thought they would just walk right up the ramp. Will the gate open all the way to here? I think it will. No chances. Want to put that up, remove that, and put it across. Oh yeah, that'll work. Good job, Josiah, raising that up. We don't want the pigs tearing it up. Is it tiring? There's a little help. Is that helping? Yeah, that's probably good. Josiah, will you hand me the pig board? I'll get in and pig board them out. Thank you. You guys are probably wondering what this is, where I got it. No affiliation. I'll leave the link for this. Hey, I'll leave Polyface Designs for that ramp. Oh shoot, we didn't leave room for the ramp. Did we even get the ramp over here? We need the ramp. Every day is an adventure. All right, I need to pull up enough so we can get that ramp. Is that good? Good. You think it'll go down for sure? I think so. How are we going to do this? I'll get in there, hold them back with the big board, and then you guys get situated out here. Okay. All right guys, I think you can open it. I don't think I'll just jump off this as high as it is. All right, we're going to be where, uh, Gideon is, just how you're behind the red gate. Well, we'll let them go down on their own if they will. No pressure. They're going. No pressure from me. Gentle pigs. That was easy, wasn't Okay, I'll spot you guys. I'll hold this. Just drop it to the floor. Yeah! Oh yeah, good job, guys! There is corn buried all up in this manure. Look, they're already looking. Look, this is compacted. See, you can see our corn residue on top. They're gonna find that and they're just gonna dig all day. They're gonna turn this this compacted material that's already starting to heat up, 100 degrees, and turn it, give it air, add more manure and urine, and just compost it for us. You guys will be happy once you get the hang of things. We will keep feeding them our food scraps, but nothing else. There's so much corn in here, they'll have plenty to eat for weeks. Look, he's already got something. Oh, he's eating hay. We'll take it. This is what Joe Salta son calls the Piggerator. So they're gonna aerate it. Yeah, I think these pigs are gonna aerate it. This is a Burrow Holler first right here. He's getting something. Oh yeah, I don't want to leave. This is fun. We gotta go milk. Look, they're doing it, they're doing it. We also started to clear forest to make new pastures. Okay, he must be just scratching and just getting the trees out of the way, and then he's gonna go back and dig. That's my guess. We've got this bank that's way too steep. We've got a little bit of pasture there, a little bit of pasture there. With— for somebody who doesn't have enough pasture, there's a limited amount of places to get it. We're getting it anywhere we can. I'm gonna, uh, paper off this bank, and we're gonna use that as our field dirt, and then we'll have— but once you get these big trees open, it's going to be really open, and hopefully having pasture this year. He's gonna push that tree down. Oh my goodness. Hey guys, stay back. Oh, boom! They're working on tapering off this bank, going to use it for field dirt. Back and forth with the dump truck. The loafing area is coming along nicely. They're scraping up the surface of this. This will be an access road. Looks like these prepping Looks like they're going to work on the French drain under this platform. If— we're thinking we might, if we get this seeping area fixed, it might actually fix this seeping area, which is bogging down our driveway here. Looks like they're about to dig the ditch along through there, and then put a French drain in it. It'll take this wet weather spring out of here. Nice, nice little drainage ditch there. We got a little bit of water right there coming up. Yeah, that could have been the source of the whole thing, huh? Well, it don't take but just to trickle over months and months and months, and then you get old wood and mucks and stuff piled on top of it. Yeah, so you're pretty happy about this? Yeah, I think this will be fine. They've dug up our wet spot. And it looks like it was seeping out above our French drain. Yeah, so this, this is the end of our French drain right here, right, Fred? And then it was seeping up, up there. It turns up a hill right there. Yeah, that old one does. So they've dug up the soil and they're gonna put gravel in. We're getting near the end of our projects. They're gonna dig up this old culvert drain. There are a couple of extremely beneficial side effects of clearing forest for pasture, and one is being able to saw your own lumber, especially since lumber prices skyrocketed this year. You want to change out the blade? Yeah. How old is this machine? I bet it'll be 23 in June. That's doing pretty good then, wouldn't you say? You sharpen those at home? Yeah. Okay. The second benefit of clearing a forest is the plethora of firewood, especially since now we can heat our home with a wood boiler. 100% of our home 2 hot water heaters as well. This Central Broiler— not an ad— heats our entire house. 1,400-1,600 square foot living space plus 2 hot waters with firewood. That means we're not using oil or electricity to heat our home. First, once it was installed by a professional, you turn the power button on. It does run by a little bit of electricity, just a little bit, but we do have a generator. It will keep it online in the event of a power outage. And really, we just started a fire in there. It's just smoldering right now. We just started a fire in there. Do you open that? And the blower came on. It's, it's so easy to start a fire because of that blower. And look, it keeps it at— what are we at, 189 right now? That's the water temperature. So this is a wood boiler, so it's boiling water. Well, I don't know if it's boiling water. What's 190 in water? And that's what it's using to heat the house. I'll show you in a minute. We filled the top with, I mean, a bunch of water. We've got a chimney and it goes out above our bedroom window there because we tried a shorter one and the smoke just got blown in there and it was a little rough. By the way, there's not a lot of smoke. This is a gasification stove, so it burns its smoke, burns its creosote. I located it right here in the back of our house. We have wood sheds, wood curing here. Trucks can come and dump wood here and then we stack it. And really guys, I don't even have to go outside. I can go through my shop there, there's some stairs, and go straight upstairs, and I would never have to go outside. The firebox is in there. It's absolutely huge. It will burn one good strong cartload or one good strong wheelbarrow load in the morning. And then in the afternoon. Here, I guess, is the— well, they call it the reaction chamber. That's where I believe it burns the smoke. That's also where our ashes come. See what we got there. We got some coals have fallen down. Yes, that is a lot of wood, but guess what? We didn't have to import any fuel, and we live on a 75-acre homestead where most of it is in forest, and we're thinning out a lot of those forests to create pastures. So we have all this wood anyway, why not create our own fuel from our own farm? And while we're at it, we'll grind up the branches and make our own wood chips. So we have our deep bedding and our fuel source all off the farm. This is heating it up, it comes down, which by the way, we have a pump there, and we turn the pump on once it gets to a certain level after starting it. And then we open up our water lines, and then there's an insulated water line going right through there into the house. Let me take you to the other side. I'm on the other side. You can see it's coming through, and it's in our basement, crawling through, rolling through these red lines. Now They come through, goes to one hot water heater, and then keeps going. Now let's come back out into the hallway because eventually it's got to cross over, and it's coming into our furnace room. Oh look, the cats are no dummies. They get in here. It's nice and warm. It's nice and warm. Well, you guys are warm in here. It comes into our other hot water heater. Look, I don't know, it's some kind of plate that— I'm telling you, it heats this hot. Another line goes over to the vent. You hear something, right? We do run our furnace fan, so it takes a little bit of electricity for that, pushes it through our vent system. Guys, it's not like a radiating stove or anything. It comes through our ductwork. There's a coil. It's— the water is heating up. This— I wish you could feel this. This is nice and warm. These are coils the oils that are hot and the air is pushing through there, and so it's heating it up. This is, this is brilliant. I'm tickled with the system. We've had it for a while now. You know, I didn't know. It's my first time with it, but it's absolutely amazing. Okay guys, good night. I think— how did you guys get in here? The door was shut. Okay, I better leave the door cracked. I want to starve my cats. Inside, no lie, all you do is adjust the thermostat like any other heat system. Beautiful One likes it warm. It's on 73. Still needs a little more heat. We do have the Beautiful One a fire, so this is a little bit of a supplement heat. Not needed, it's ambient. It gets it extra hot and in here, and then the wood boiler doesn't have to work as hard. What's cool about that is it slows itself down automatically or speeds itself up to keep whatever we have it set to on the thermostat. The real kicker is this hot water. Oh my word, that's too hot of water to scald a chicken in. That's our wood heating system. Extremely satisfying. With it. There's something really cool about being able to provide 100% of our own heat from the land. The third benefit is all that brush we can turn into wood chips to be our carbonaceous diaper, as Joel would say, to absorb our animals' manure when they are in one spot, especially in the pole barn and the greenhouse for the winter. But hands down, the most exciting thing that happened to us in 2021 is the birth of our son, Albeit, at a gas station.

This is the part of the YouTube video I always fast forward.

Although the labor was taking longer than we expected, I mean, this was to be her 5th child. She labored, she was laboring well, and it was very peaceful. Time dragged on, so eventually we did an exam just to figure out if this was gonna go anywhere or if we just needed to slow this down and kind of end this thing. Sure enough, she was 8 centimeters. That means we're going places. Like, you get to 10 centimeters and you're having this baby. Oh, yay!

What does that mean?

They're not going home. She continued to labor and hit what you call transition. I guess it's this time between labor and pushing, but normally that's a relatively short amount of time, but she ended up hanging up there for about 5 hours. Mm, and just was getting tired. We did another exam. Turns out the baby wasn't dropping, and we had to make a hard decision.

So Justin and Rebecca just left for the hospital. Baby sounded great, but he's just very, very high and not descending down, which basically means she can't push him out. So thankfully, her blood pressure is great, her heart rate is great, his heart rate is great. So no fear, but they're going to the hospital just to see what maybe the next step is.

We're driving in the car there. It's a really intense situation. I can tell Rebecca's in a lot of pain.

The pain when I got in the car, it was like through the roof. It was like 100 times worse than anything I had ever been in. What did it feel like? My whole body just hurt. I don't, I can't even describe it. So— it was so painful. I can't even describe it. Like, I was having— I felt like I was just having contraction upon contraction. My back hurt, my arms hurt, my legs were like— I just was like in so much pain. I was thinking, I'm gonna show up at this hospital like a crazy person because I literally feel like I just need to scream, and they're gonna look at me like I'm nuts. And of course, like, not knowing like what was going to happen when I got to the hospital, whether they would be able to, you know, deliver me, or if I would have to go in for a C-section. I didn't— you know, there's that— there's like a kind of like not sure how this was going to turn out, and just being like, there goes my my desires, my dreams to, you know, do this at home where I would— where I really wanted to.

She's saying, speed up, and then slow down, and then roll the window up, roll the window down. I want you to help me. Help me, Justin. But I know you can't help me. She was like, let me off the hook. I was trying to think, how can I help you? I said, we're gonna get you help real soon. Then she said, I gotta pee. And I looked at the GPS, 12 minutes. Rebecca, we got 12 minutes. Was that enough time for you?

No, I was like, I was like, that's a long way.

So, and then before I knew it, she was like, my water broke. And I said, okay, do you want me to pull over? Yes.

I literally felt like someone poured a gallon of water on me. I don't, you know, I have no idea how much water it was.

Luckily we were right near, near a gas station, and I pulled pulled in, and I look— I, I looked at your pants to confirm it, and yes. And then I went to the midwife. Not really. Like, if that's all it was and we, we would have kept going, the Suburban would still be clean. Let's air the rest of this out. It needs some— it needs some fresh air. I asked the midwife, you know, she was following us, and I got out and asked her, what do we do? And, you know, we started talking, and before we could even make a decision I heard you— what were you saying?

I screamed, "Help me, help me!" We could hear her screaming. I could— I could not, um, I couldn't get my pants off. I was trying to get them off because I could feel him. I could feel his head down.

Next time you decide to have a birth in the car, let's not do form fit. I mean, I think it's my fault. I think I grabbed these. Then I'm like, "Do you want me to turn—" the suburban lights are on. Like, "You want me to turn the lights off?" Like, "There's people about." "No, I don't care." Then I'm like, "Well, I want pull your pants off? Yes. And I'm like, okay. And it's like— and I didn't have my Leatherman on me, so there's no cutting it. And, and I could feel— I could feel something in there, you know. I felt a little bit. I'm getting it down enough, but then the midwife has come and, you know, they're down. I think we can see the baby and the baby's head, and we get these pants off somehow. These pants were not wanting to come off. Tight knuckle. Where's those like pants that button up all the way? The midwife is taking over because the head's sitting there. Becky, you're giving birth. You are? You're giving birth? He's out, Rebecca. He's out.

My body literally— I had no control. It just It, it pushed him.

He's okay, he's okay, baby. He's crying. Okay, we gave birth in the gas station. He's fine, he's fine.

Good job, good cry.

Everything's fine though, the baby's fine. We're at Black Bear Pizza at the city stop. Come on, let's get another cry out of you. Okay, chase Henry. He's, he's okay, baby. You didn't have to go that fast, but— Keep crying, buddy.

Good boy.

Good boy. Before we went, while they were prepping you, I got my little pocket camera. I thought, I'm gonna need this at the hospital. I don't want this big bazooka camera out. And it was in my pocket. The midwife there, she took over, there was no room for me. And I'm like, in one hand I'm literally calling the house to tell them, all the support team at the house, and I've got the camera in the other hand and I'm like, I hope I capture this.

I know, and actually I'm so thankful that you thought that because I was in such a confused, like, it was so, it was happening so fast. Like, everything had, I feel like it happened so fast. Like, literally my water broke, we pulled over, you were there. Yeah. He was coming and then he was like, and then I was holding him.

In my arms. And you gave birth to this little guy. Do you feel okay? Oh my God. Do you feel okay, honey? I do.

I can't—

I want to see him. Okay, he's so good. I want to get this shirt off of me so I can be skin to skin with him.

Okay. If we unbutton this one, I think it'll be— I don't know, just do whatever.

Okay, I'll get you—

Oh my God, Justin, this is the most intense thing I've ever done.

Bless you.

Oh my God. Henry. Henry. Oh my God. Yeah, it was, it was the craziest thing ever. It just happened to us. I've watched that video several times because I'm glad that we have it because I wanted to see what was going down.

Yeah, so as soon as he came out, he took, you took your sweater off. That's when the midwife was like, we need a blanket, we need a blanket or something, and she was, she was really calm. I'm saying this like all excited, but she was really calm. And we hand her this, uh, Chuck's pad. Jonah, will you go grab me a Chuck's pad? So Mom hands her one of these and she's like, no, I need, I need something like a sweater. So I took off my sweater. Where's my town sweater too? Where is that? I hope it's been washed somehow. Hey Grandma. Hey, do you know where my black sweater would be? The midwife says it was in the dryer when they left. Oh. Uh, right there is some clean clothes right in the hallway. No, I got put on the— that's all the other stuff from the night. Rebecca's shirt, well, my shirt, uh, the— her pants, but not the— not my sweater. Oh well, maybe it's better that way. I was wrapping up the edit, by the way. I'm editing right here. I can be near Mom, Be near little baby. Be little baby. Grandma's calling me. I think she must have found it. Yep, it was in the bottom of this basket. Are you serious? Was it dirty? It's not dirty.

It's not too bad. It'll be clean tonight.

Well, it got put back in with dirty clothes, and I don't think it hurt to wash it again. What do you think, Grandma?

Ah, no, put it right in there.

All right. And then that's when she got in. Yeah, and she's like, let's get in, let's warm it up. And I went around and turned the heat on and got things going.

And then the midwife took over from there and it was exciting. And he was crying immediately. I mean, like, literally she put him on my chest and he cried. Good job! Good Luke, go cry! And then he was, he was just screaming his little head off.

And you asked me later if I cried and it was like, no, it was like too much adrenaline, too much excitement. Excitement. Usually I cry with every birth.

I was honestly just in shock, like, one moment, because the whole thing with me driving to the hospital was like the pain was so intense that I just wanted to stop. Like, I didn't know how it could stop.

Did it stop?

And as soon as I delivered him, it was all over, and I was just like, I mean, then there's the other, another a type of pain of that I just delivered a child. Yeah. Um, and a little bit of feeling, you know—

Oh, that's cool, is you weren't bleeding all over the place. No. Baby was crying, doing fine.

Yeah, I mean, we were literally like—

And we could go home. We— it wasn't—

there was no reason to go to the hospital anymore because the whole reason we were going to the hospital was for the delivery.

It was gonna maybe be an emergency situation.

Great. He was doing so good. It was like, there's no point in us driving to the hospital. Yeah. Why don't we go back and do all the checkups at home and get checked out and get settled back in, and we had all the birth professionals here, you know. Here they come! I'm sorry, this is insane.

That's our wedding day right there.

I do wish that I had been sitting on this, on a Chuck's pad, instead of— we had put it in the throw-up bowl so that if I threw up in the car that we could put that on it and yeah, it would absorb the liquid in, it wouldn't slosh all over our car.

And I went out to the car after. It was a— it's a mess. I'm like, if we have to— we're gonna take this to a detailer. I gotta clean as much as I can. It still stinks. They're gonna— it's like they're gonna call the police because they're like, what in the world happened? We're gonna have to explain ourselves.

Well, it happened. Don't call the police. People, we had a baby in the car. Um, I think I have found somebody. I need to call them today and ask. If they will, if they will detail our car for us to get. It's so bad. Yeah, um, I'm just thankful that we, everything turned out and that it worked out the way it did. I would never want to give birth in a car again, ever.

Look at his little bum. See that little old house? That is the original farmhouse that Grandpa Henry bought with the 75 acres. We're using 10, but we have 75 acres. A lot of it's— most of it's in forest. We name our fifth son in honor of my dad and his dad before him. Bought and built on this land and cultivated it. Henry was married to my granny, who I knew, who I loved, who loved us. She was famous for— she'd give you anything. In fact, before you would leave, she would say, do I got anything you want? And I'm telling you, if you said, yeah, Granny, I like those pants you got on there, she would give them to you. That's the kind of person she was. She gave us quilts, handmade quilts, countless, that will just be in the family forever-ish. And that's who married Henry. So you know what's really special about Henry's birthday? Henry's birthday was also Granny's death day, and I didn't know that. And I was just texting my mom and saying, you know, I didn't remember that. I was texting my mom and, uh, letting her know the baby was coming, and she said, "Oh, that's, that's your granny's death day. I don't think your granny could be any more honored than a birth take place on her death day." And as a giving lady, I think that's true, and that's special. Hey, look at you, designated babysitter this morning. He's looking grumpy. He's what?

He's looking grumpy.

How's my baby's mama? Good. Nice setup here. It's eating so much with the table. Are you in some mood? You in a good mood? I'm in an okay mood. Okay, good.

I'm in a mood that I gave birth 5 days ago. Bless you.

5 days ago. You feel like you're healing? Yeah. It's rough. I saw it.

It's hard. It's, um— It's a lot. There's just a lot that goes into it, 'cause like, you caring for a newborn, your body's healing, it's making food for that child. You don't sleep all night, which would be very helpful in healing. It's just this very interesting thing. Like, nobody— like, if anybody went through some sort of medical procedure that did this to you, no one would be like, here's a baby.

That would be a terrible idea, wouldn't it? Oh, Mr. Man. He done pooped. Little man. No, he did not poop. What do you say? Oh, she heard you crying and you'll jop. Are you about to get Are you about to get the mama? Are you about to get the mama? Are you excited about that? Are you excited about that? Can you look at me? Can you make eye contact yet? You're trying, crossing those eyes. She hasn't quite learned how to make eye contact yet, but one day soon. You hear me though, don't you? Hey everybody, I'm new here. What is your name? He doesn't know everybody yet. What is your name? Josiah. Okay. Gideon, what is your name? Gideon. Oh, it's a beautiful name. Are you hungry? Hey, is he pooping well? So good. Okay, good. Make some mama happy.

I am. I have to say, for the drama that was the birth, postpartum is going much—

that's right— calmer. And that's what the midwife said.

I'm very thankful for that. Yeah.

You got child duty this morning, Josiah? Okay, that's a good duty. It's kind of cool having so many kids and some of them older. Like, we're taking turns taking care of little Henry. Josiah did it, or Jonah did it yesterday. Josiah will do it today. Hey, thank you. I shouldn't say they take care of Henry. Mom takes care of Henry and they take care of Mama. Works out nice. There is something special about having that fifth child. Yes, we are older and we're feeling that at 42 and 41. But there is something to be said about, I don't know, getting older, getting a little more— I find myself being a little more appreciative, you know, noticing more things the little guy does. As I get older, I'm getting a little more appreciative of time, and I realize this could be it. I mean, this could be our last one. I mean, it's inevitable. A last child is inevitable. So as you get older, you get wider, wiser, are more appreciative, perhaps. You also get more of a network. Big children, real big children help on the farm with the room. You usually are more successful, and that includes increasing your social circle, your networking ability, and, um, and generally your resources. When we had Gideon, it was the Katie bar of the door. All our kids were young, we had no help with them. Arun was not our neighbor. Grandma and Big Daddy weren't living here. We didn't have all the homesteading YouTube friends that we have today. We didn't have you guys. As you saw in the first episode of Rooted, we were strapped financially. We've been blaming it on like Gideon's spirit of why we haven't had any more kids. But I wonder, it was his spirit, but our lack of resources at the time, it was just— it just felt so dire compared to this time around. I think that'll work, putting that hay bale behind that. The sheep aren't as likely to pull it out, or the cows. Let me give you an example. So, uh, little Henry, meconium. So what first comes out, it's tar-like poop. It only happened for like a day and a half, 2 days. When that was over, it was sad. Sad over the loss of a certain kind of poop? Yeah, a milestone gone, maybe forever. Don't grow up. I used to wish this hard baby stage away. You're so tired, it's hard to have a schedule, you know. He wakes up at 9 when normally you go to bed. I used to wish that away, but I don't wish it away anymore. I wish it to stay. Normally I'm like, just give me that walking baby stage, that 1-year-old stage, my favorite. But it's coming soon enough. You want to— let's go. You want to come?

Come on, let's go. You will hold my pet.

We'll be at this stage, uh, before before we know it. Come on, come on! I'll be begging them to come work. We're all in a good mood. See, Jonah got you a snack. That's good. Breakfast. Yeah, the meals began.

Yeah, I know, right?

I've been watching the vlogs with me and him.

I'm a big old sap. You are. He is a big old sap. You're really enjoying him. I'm really enjoying him too. Justin the sap. He is a sap. He's, he's all about this.

But Rebecca was not the only one to be giving birth around here. We also had our very first lamb babies. Some went well, some went not so well. Last night we were woken up by a sheep bleating and we thought Oh, could that mean it's had its baby? Something's wrong when a sheep's bleating. It's midnight. Rebecca and I were woken up by bleating. Sure enough, I turned on the flashlight and looked out there, and then I heard little bleats, so I knew there had been some lamb babies, but something was wrong. So I took my light and went down to them, and sure enough, there were two lamb babies, and it was as I feared. The lambs were outside on the other side of the pen. It turns out there's this gap between the gate and the deep bedding that they were falling through. I was easily able to pick them up. Oh my goodness, their heartbeats! I could hear their heartbeats as I was carrying them over, and I put them back with Mama. But I had to stop them from getting out again. My first thought was to grab a couple of hay bales, and I did that, but then, I mean, it's midnight, guys. Then somebody— they started— the cows started eating the hay bales, and I'm like, okay, give them more hay. Also, what about the other side? The other side is a bit open too. It's not as big of a drop. Oh, I'll put something over it. So I went and searched to put something to protect them from going that way. I found some plastic panels, and I was able to use those. I think we'll probably eventually replace these gates with mesh. In all that time, I was glad to see though that they were nursing. She's been a good mom. Look at her licking them. That one's shaking its tail. Good position. That baby lamb has Figured it out, that's for sure. Turn around. She's letting him do it. This is really cool. One is nursing right now, the other one's about to find it. I think she's gonna be double nursing. Stout little guys. Way more stout than I imagined. Bigger too, bigger. It was so fun picking it up though, so stout, but heartbeat. I could feel its little heartbeat. Oh look, the one's laying down. I'm sure that means it's happy. Who is this? Okay, I'm having a good look at who this is. I think it's Ryder, which happens to be our wildest ewe. So I'm not going to try to handle the lambs or anything right now. Maybe wait until the morning. Phyllis checking it out from the outside. The cows can't get in here with the cows. There's two baby sheep. Yes, she gave birth to two. Yeah, she gave two. Anybody else got any?

Is that Ryder? I don't think so.

I think that is Ryder, isn't it?

Wait, I think that's Belle.

No, it's not Belle. Do you guys want to go see them closer? Okay, walk quietly around. Oh look, it's a mobile thing. Oh look. It's so friendly. Proud little thing. The plan is we're gonna— we're just checking on them now. We'll come down when it gets a little lighter after chores, and maybe we'll see what it is. Do you think it's a boy or a girl? I think it's a girl. Does somebody want to go pick up a lamb and bring it over here? I will. Here's one in the corner you can get. You know, they're surprisingly strong though. I don't think they're getting crushed, and they're agile. Not like a little baby calf.

Weighs like 4 pounds. Mine weighs nothing. Oh, feel it, feel it. It's so soft too. Can I hold it?

All right, I guess since you have it, is it a boy or a girl?

Boy.

Boy. Yep, there's its testicles. Yep, boy. Floppy's having her baby. Babies. Early morning. She's laying down, she's got one hoof out. She'll rest, then push, then rest. It's time to milk the cows though. I hate, I hate to delay them. That's the one that's got a bunch in her, right? She was so big. Okay, she's pushing. Uh, I think I saw a little nose. Mama's laying back down. Come on, Mama. You can do it. All right, I've done second milking. We are done. Went okay without the alfalfa, probably better than you can imagine, but definitely a lot easier without alfalfa. She's kind of tucked back in, so we're gonna leave her alone. Really, it's been about an hour. She's laying down. Looks like she might be pushing right now. Are you pushing, honey? I don't see any progress to speak of. I'm gonna set you guys up on a time-lapse right here. I don't, I don't spend too much time out here because I think she's more at peace with me gone. I'm making her a little nervous, so I'm gonna put you on another time-lapse and we'll come check on her in an hour. Henry and I are out here now checking on the baby lambs. What do you think, Henry? You got any action? It's the one back there in the corner and we got no action. Can you hold him for a second, honey? Yeah. Okay, thank you. Yeah, that's her right there. Nothing. Maybe she's paused. Okay, look, we're starting to see some progress. I see a lot of goop coming out, and I see— I see hooves again. Okay, we're making some progress. She's laying down and she is pushing. She's in full on. Oh, the head's first. Shoot, that's gonna be hard. Because I believe the hoofs are supposed to come first. She is in active labor. Come on, you can do it! Come on, get that baby out! Come on, come on, baby! She got the eyes out! Come on! Oh, the baby's alive! There's the hoofs! Gosh bless your heart. Good girl, good girl. You get that head out, you'll get it out. Okay, she stood up. Head's Still sticking out. I can see the lamb breathing, that's good. If it's like cows, we just want to make sure she's progressing every 20-ish, 30 minutes, getting further along. Ryder's lambs nursing meanwhile. Get on the phone with a few buddies and see if that's all right, that it's just the head. The baby's moving. Come on, Randy. I'm gonna have to help because it's gonna get stuck. It's gonna get stuck on the legs, uh, so I'm gonna have to try to push the head back in and get the hooves to come first, or try to help. I don't even know if she'll let me help her. She's not gonna let me help her. You're gonna have to try to catch it, Jonah. You'll have to kind of straddle her head. You can You want to put her up against the wall? I'm not feeling the legs right here, so that other left leg is way back up in there. I feel like I'm gonna have to pull this baby out. I can't reach in there, but she's gonna fall and kind of need somebody to hold her up. The bucket What bucket?

Get that bucket under her. I can't get in there.

There's no way. Like, there's a— it's hard, and I— there's no way I'm gonna get my arm around that. Okay, I pulled. I hate it. I had to help. Hate it. But mama and lamb are all right, because you never know if maybe I didn't have to. You pulled it right out.

You did? He did. You pulled it out?

Yeah, because there was no way. I tried to reach in, but— Is it alive? Yeah, it's alive. Becky, I tried to reach in, but it was just too tight. There was no— it was not like pushing muscle, it was like pushing bone. It was so tight. I hate that we had to do that, because what if we didn't have to? We can ask other people too. Would it have been okay? Right.

Well, I want you to ask Greg. Yeah, yeah, would this—

would he just— yeah, I'll ask Greg. I've cleared its mouth so it can breathe. Okay, she's got another one coming. Uh, we got a lamb. Given birth. And well, we've had 2 lambs give birth just fine. One had twins, one had singles. The third one, only the head was coming out. Okay, that makes me feel a lot better because I'm sitting here thinking, well, could she have been strong enough and figured it out and gotten it out? That makes me feel so much better. I'll explain why here in a second as I explain it to Rebecca. Deep 100% respect for what Greg Judy has done with flock. Not babying them. No grain, no, no medications, no assistance. 100% respect for that and want to continue the flock strengthening. How's this other one? We want to make sure the hooves stay out. Okay, that is a hoof. Okay, I did get a hold of Greg Judy. She would have died in the pasture. Because he's got 100, 200 ewes, he can't attend the birth. The reason that makes me feel better is because she wouldn't have pushed through. She would have died, and all the babies inside of her. So now we get to keep the babies, harvest them for meat, and then harvest her for meat, and nobody's dead. Are you crying? We've already intervened. We'll certainly intervene again if we have to. All right, we just finished lunch. Kids have come down and check on them, and the second one has passed, but, uh, definitely didn't make it.

Really small.

I will get in there and remove it so Mom isn't confused anymore and she can minister to the one that is doing well. Yeah, I think it, it might have been turning than this one. Yeah, something was wrong with this one. Now let's see if this one's a boy or girl. Hey, you got you a girl! Bandy has had a baby! Hey, did you guys know they had a baby? He's putting the calves up in the stall.

Sure enough, she labored and birthed fine. How do you know? Well, the baby's fine and she's Yeah, I guess so.

That's what I'm talking about. Just had the baby. We walk— she's pregnant! We thought maybe she was in ill health because she never shed. Oh, that's a skinny looking thing though. I know, I think it looks a little skinnier than the other ones, so let's hope for the best here. That's it too, guys. I know some of you, uh, are having a hard time understanding our hard breeding system, our We want them to thrive and thrive on their own. These guys are— everybody that's here, one of the commenters said, you know, we've got a lot of things going on. You know, we're milking the cow, we're running a business, we're, uh, we've got chickens, we've got pigs. We need our animals to just be able to do— that lamb has got to make it on its own because everybody that makes it on own can make it on their own, and we need them to be strong enough to do that. Do you think it'll make it?

Yeah, I feel like all of them were that small. Yeah, and I feel like it just happened.

It's so weird because look how big they, they just grow real fast. It looks like maybe the baby's hind legs are a little weird, but it was probably just born. Look, it's wagging its tail. I think it's all right. It's wagging its tail. It's looking. I won't come. I'm gonna leave you alone. Okay, I'm gonna leave you alone. I wonder if you've got another one, Bandy. Hey, Belle, look, she's being a good mom. She's licking it. That gets the baby up, gets it nursing. It doesn't have a lot of yellow on it like, uh, Floppies did. Floppies showing sign of— it would have been meconium. This is just our opinion, guys, but animals have a natural ability to reproduce. They have a natural immune system. So I think anytime we start tampering with that, meddling with that, we run the chances of, uh, weakening that line. Jonah, you got the pail? We don't even have the pail. Okay, here's the pail. Here's the pail. I'll keep them from going back. Arun, will you get the Scragglers, go wide. Uh-oh, this could be a mess. Help them, Shepherd. Shoot, they're not gonna know to obey these lanes. Okay, these moms will. Let's get them caught up. Come on, come on, come on. There's at least one mom here that knows the drill, so that's good. Come on, look at these little lambs scrambling on the hay. They're surprisingly compliant, these little guys. We got to keep mom in the fence though. The fence is not on, it's just a dummy. Come on, mom. Come on. I know, right? They're staying right on her, aren't they? Good, good, good. Catch her in here. You got a shot, Jacob? That's movie stuff. Come on, mom. Come on, mom. Come on. Now they're speeding up a little bit. Yeehaw! This is what I'm talking about. The cows just trampled this and the sheep are all over it. This lily or whatever it is, this is what they like, what the cows don't like. Beautiful. I just can't believe this. This is so amazing. They're just going to town on this briar and lily patch. Since we built a pole barn, we didn't need this old barn anymore, so I turned it into a people barn. Grandpa Henry's barn, 80 to 90 years old, and it pretty much turned into storage. This old animal hide been hanging here probably 60 years. My kids had this thing. We got more farm storage. Storage Storage is great, but it seems like, I don't know, a little— I don't know, just not very honoring of Grandpa Henry. So we're turning Grandpa Henry's barn into a different kind of business. It's not, not that great for animals. Storage is dishonoring. Hey, how about a community center? I like the flex. No, I'm gonna thumbs up. Oh, okay, nice. You like that? You like that idea of the community center? Just an expansion of this learning center, you know? Maybe we'll have some workshops. We'll definitely have Rooted premieres there, other kind of premieres, events. That's one great thing this, this has done is it's created community. It's brought us all closer together. So it's always a little in me to have some physical, like, real-life hug-your-neck kind of events. And this is kind of a moment, isn't it? The moment we've turned this camera on us onto our farm, this became like a public adventure, but that even more so, that even a step more into that. You know, we've had workshops here before, we've had events here before. I don't know, but this is kind of like a Wow, I guess you're getting kind of serious. You're concreting the floor. I wasn't sure I was doing the right thing by putting all this time, money, energy into the people barn until I was finished and I remembered my late father. You see Papaw's tree? Think of him any? Think of him anymore? Well, sometimes. Yeah? What do you think? That's sad. My late father Boots, he said he was going to be watching the vlogs from heaven. So let's, uh, shall we go show him the people barn in this good light? Sure, he would be tickled pink about that. It's okay to be sad. I haven't cried in a while. Uh, okay, Pop. I think this is so hard because I'm setting this up so that I'm giving my dad a tour, so I'm going to talk to him. That's where it got hard, because I can talk to him. Maybe he's seeing us in the afterlife, but I can't hear him. There's that possibility, there's that hope, but still not the same. So for those that don't know, that are with us on this tour, this is the old, um, Grandpa built this barn in the '30s. And they, they homesteaded here. Sustenance homesteaded, meaning if you didn't grow it, you didn't eat. Milk cows in here, pop milk cows in here. We've since found a more efficient, better, more productive way, which is the pole barn. But heck, I mean, pop right there in front of your corn crib. We put this wood pile in. Doesn't that look nice? I thought it would look nice, some reason, to stack it all the way up and It turned out really nice. We got these flowers at Rebecca's new favorite spot, uh, Lindis. Have you ever heard of Lindis out in Edinville? That's really nice. It may be— I don't think it— I don't know if you've ever bought a plant, have you? Both sides. We're probably going to turn this into the gravel, but in the meantime That'll be for extra parking, but in the meantime, just seed it. We've, we've made your door smaller. You know, this is what's special. Grandpa built the barn from the land. All this new wood to make this door configuration and roof is also from the land. So Grandpa Henry's legend continues. Lily, your grandchildren will benefit from this wood and sliding door right here. It'll be gray, it won't look the same, but it will match. So it will match inside. You want to turn on the lights for me? We've concreted the floor, we've put photos, very nice photos of our animals on the wall. Thank you, Lily. We also have strung lights. We've got 2 or 3 carpets. For sound absorption too, and, and good looks. We kind of wanted to go for that living room feel. So that's the couches. We've got sound system, projector system, uh, chandelier kind of-ish lights that will be— there's only 3 right now, there'll be 5, no, 4, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and to replace those kind of ugly bulbs. And then we also have, if you want an evening bulb, like yellow light type of vibe. There you go. We got the American flag under— there's, there's foam underneath that to absorb sound. And the North Carolina flag. We're still proud to call North Carolina home. Oh, your dad's office. Grandpa Henry, for those that don't know, wanted to always build an office above the stall. He never did it. Well, we built an office for Chidlers. They've got their jingas up there. They were hanging up there last night having a good time. It works out perfect. It looks good. It's somewhere for the kids to go. So thanks for keeping this— thanks for keeping the barn and the family, the land and the family. I remember when you came to me when you got an offer on this place and you said, should we sell it? I said no. I was like 12 or something. I had nothing to give you for it. I had no vision for this place, but I knew I wanted it. So I said no, and although I didn't have any good reason, you respected that and you kept it. And now I know you struggled to keep it. Why do I know that? Well, it's expensive. It's hard. It's a lot of maintenance. I know that now because I'm paying the bill. So thank you for making that sacrifice. I didn't know what the vision was when I was 12. This is undoubtedly a big part of it. Community's happening here. This represents what we've done digitally, online, creating community, and it's been a wonderful thing. And I wish I could thank Grandpa Henry for making the sacrifice— $500, half a year's wage. I mean, put half of his money on it for 2 years, and then you made the sacrifice for $20,000, and now I'm making the sacrifice for half a million. And that encourages me to keep, keep struggling, keep grinding to make sure this stays in the family and to continue to make it better, just like you did and just like Grandpa Henry did. So now going into the spring, Rebecca slowed down, but the kids and I were still able to pursue her garden ventures. We've let the weeds get ahead of us here in the potatoes. Can you see the— can you see the potatoes? Yes. Yeah, get in. That's a potato. Don't hit it. And it's not a potato. That's not a potato, that's a lamb's quarter. Good job. Lily, are you being careful? Yeah. I wonder if you guys should go through that— the aisles. Oh yeah, let me get close to the plants. You guys get the stuff in the paths or right in between. Like right down through here. Look at this garlic jamming! Woo! Not many weeds to speak of in there. Oh yeah, we need to get over in here. Need to string trim around this. Johnny got the perfect hoe for hoeing in the onions. We need to harvest this old garden. I hate I went and let it go to seed. Now there'll be more seeds here in our garden now, but we need to get this out of here and come cover it with the silage tarp. We only have 30 minutes till milking. This might be ambitious, but you never know until you try. There's something nice about coming out in the morning. It's nice and cool. Hoeing, it's kind of like a haircut. It's kind of like a nice haircut. The garden just got a haircut. Bring Henry over here, guys. It's kind of confusing. We named a cart Henry. That was before we knew we'd have a son named Henry. Right here. Yeah, Jonah, you can pull these. Ribs up from our winter garden. We just saw some lettuce in there, but let's harvest all anything that's good— the lettuce, the any— anything green for the pigs and the chickens. You want to dig? Okay, dig the hole right here. Okay, Lily, you can plant it. One here, one on the edge, and one in the middle. Okay, we're gonna plant Mom's cucumbers in here and they will grow up this trellis, and this will be a nice, uh, it'll be a nice shady area. And it doesn't take up any more horizontal space. Jonah, can you go get us grass clippings please? Start at the people barn making it look good and then do our yard. You want to do areas where we don't have seed yet, the grass is still young. Let's start with our lettuce right here, guys, 4 per square foot, and then we'll come into this bed. What you working on?

Uh, flowers and herbs. I guess we could plant 2 of these.

What are What are they? Yellow squashes. Okay, well, in case one didn't make it. Yeah, yellow squash up a tomato cage.

Yeah, so I saw it online and I thought, oh, that looks interesting.

In this bed we added lettuce to our spring crops. In this bed looks like we have squash and a variety of flowers plus lettuce. In this bed, what do we plant here? I think this is just straight up flowers. Well, there's some cucumbers going up the trellis. Next we've got— well, we already had cilantro, and then what do we have? I don't know if we planted in here, but they had already planted squash and some flowers. Next up is already— look how nice this looks once the grass clippings die out a little bit, the contrast between brown and brown and green. We've got peppers, tomatoes, I think that's some kind of— oh, that's Tommy Tio. And the last bed, all it does is give you a before and after. Covered in silage tarp. That's how those beds were just so nice and supple and ready to plant. No weeds. We have nothing but some weeds around the silage tarp. This is what would happen if we didn't have a tarp over the whole thing. Before, after. Wow, it looks so good planted. The beautiful one has gotten called away. She loves this. This is her happy spot. I don't think she was done, bless her heart. Henry called. You got the tomatoes in the truck? Get— getting— you got to get them over to the greenhouse. You guys remember, right? We had our animals, our pigs and our chickens in this, uh, this hot tunnel. Let's plant some crops behind them. And what better than tomatoes and cucumbers because they love heat? I did a little mixture of Joel Salatin, Having Animals in a Greenhouse, moving it out on deep bedding, moving them out. Only I didn't get the mulch out. I'm going to leave it back to Eden style, uh, wood chip gardening. And then a little JM Portier Market Gardening with keeping the weeds at bay with the silage tarp. We moved the mulch out of the way. Okay, then we're gonna just get— dig straight down in there with just that. Grab me a tomato and then do that every 2 feet down through here. Here we go. And we'll just put that in like that, Lily. Okay, and put the soil around it, but then put a— put a plop of, uh, of worm poop on top of that. Okay, there it is. Jonah found it. Show them how it's done, Lily. Good. We've got one row in. I'm happy about that. I think she wants 2, but we do have 3 varieties, so I want to see if she wants 3. I know she wants to put cucumbers in here. She talked about, uh, green beans. If baby Henry was the most exciting thing that happened in 2021, getting our Kubotas had to be a very close second. Holy moly, here it comes! I see the pallet fork. No more wondering about if we had to order our feed in 1,000-pound totes, but we'd do better if we could do it in 2,000. Now we can. Brand new tractor. Looks like you got a round hay bale mover. And then this is, this is griples or grapples? They actually call them a 4-in-1 bucket. Okay, that's a 4-in-1 bucket you can pick up. Welcome to the holler. Something very special about changing the chicken's carbonaceous diaper. Looks good too, the contrast, the lighter Wood contrast to the raised bed looks good. Halfway through the year, our life and homestead was amazing, and then we had a chicken butchering. The goal, guys, is to get this done by lunch. Harvested, cooled. Oh, you got the ice? Yeah, let's throw the ice in here. You need a guy to help you? Yeah. Okay, so right there at the jawline, you're gonna go right above the jawline, put your hand below the jawline so you're not cutting your hand, and you're gonna slit. You could do 2. Do you do 1 or 2 slits, Jonah?

Just 1, I think.

Okay, and we got a bucket full of water to catch it. Okay, go for it, buddy. Pull him out with your left hand. Okay, you feel his jawbone?

Oh yeah, sure. Eat that whole thing.

That's next level, eating the whole thing.

You can eat it. No, I had a bad experience. Does it taste the same as cow liver? No, no, not even.

Cow liver was sweeter. A few days after that chicken butchering, I got really sick.

Justin actually got sick yesterday. He, um, he— hold on, let me get the baby. His feet started hurting more, and then he got really tired, and then he started needing to use the restroom quite a bit, and then just just got really chilled, so we got in the bed and it took a little while, but he worked up a fever. And so we think he must have the stomach bug or something. We're not 100% sure.

I feel like a sick dog. I'm sorry. Whatever that means. Is it normal to be going to the bathroom this much? Yes, it is. Alright. I'm about to go again.

Okay, well, we'll get some Medicine on your stomach in just a minute.

Thank you. Then we connected my illness with the chicken butchering and figured I probably got salmonella.

We have figured out what is wrong with Justin. He has what we believe to be food poisoning or salmonella specifically. All his symptoms line up with that. We spoke with our friend, um, Casey, who also had salmonella at one point, and it seemed like that is what we're dealing with.

This is rough. Food poisoning, salmonella is what we reckon, or salmonella. I've got all the symptoms for those things, one or the other, because nobody else is sick. I think it's 8:30. I need to, uh, I feel like I and maybe should take a nap. Feel bad, like, 'cause I'm gonna do it, do so much. I do a lot around here, so it's a lot when I'm out for everybody. Feel bad. So my job is to get better. So that means I should probably drink this water, even though I don't want to. Just took a hot bath for 20 minutes to sweat. Trying to take a nap. But then I started having these strange, intense physical pains. Got this injury, I don't know if from laying down. This pain in my butt. Hurts so bad. It's, I want to say it's worse. I can barely walk. The crazy thing is I can't really injure myself laying down. Like, well, what is this? I guess one of our biggest fears is like, is this Lyme-related? I've tried chiropractor, I've tried ice bath. This is the 7th day at this moment I've been sick or injured. It's been a week to remember. What do we got? 33. 33. 34. 34. I need to stir it in. 37, 36. Okay, I was hoping for 30, but we'll take it. Nice view though. Then through testing, we found out it actually wasn't Salmonella, it was Campylobacter, and that turned into a 1 to 5% chance reactive arthritis. The crazy thing is getting pain down my wrist, along the top of my foot when I bend it. I think something overall is causing the different pain in different area. If any of y'all have any insight, feel free, because we're not sure what the heck. The heat and cooling of yesterday seemed to work, so I'm gonna give that a try even though we're in the middle of a launch, even though we're we're in the middle of summer, this has got to be my number one job— getting better. We're at the hospital now. It's a good thing this thing has 1, 2, 3, 4 seats in it with Henry's stuff. He fell asleep while waiting. He did. Bless his little heart. Well, this one's not stat, so we won't know anything till tomorrow. Okay. Yeah, my hand, my hand is crazy swollen right now. The wrist, it's gone from the wrist to the hand. Your forearm looks better now.

It's like in his last two knuckles.

Crazy boy. So I'm spectating today. My wrist is, is getting there. Look, my hand swelling is going down, but now it's this ankle, like throbbing pain even just laying there. Sleep seems to be the only escape of this reactive arthritis. At least I'm sleeping through the night now and have been for a week. I am still having to take ibuprofen at night because it seems like every day something new pops up. I get a new throbbing. It's been my thumb over the weekend. It's feeling good this morning though, but I'm looking forward to hopefully soon no throbbing going into the evening. No pain medicine. The update board. Starting to understand reactive arthritis a little bit more. I really shouldn't have lumped this— the whole left arm. That would have been the left middle pinky finger. Okay? Took about a week to recover. The right arm should have been the right arm. It shouldn't include fingers, which my fingers hurt there now. So let's declare it healed too. That was a doozy. My right— it was really my right wrist because it's taking a tour of the joints. Just, uh, it might get out of my right wrist, but then it might go— well, right now it's starting in my right middle finger. And things started to fall apart across the farm. This is what the boys came to, an absolute massacre. Little holes in the side of these chicks, not one alive. Some shoved in the corner over there. Some shoved in the corner over there. There's a big hole right there underneath the wall. The boys said they saw a rat. You came out here and there was a rat in there? And then as I hit rock bottom, we had serious conversations. We had to wonder, do we need to put the kids in school? I mean, we're a homeschool family, that's our heart. And if we were going to put the kids in the school, which was one of the one of the first things we opted out of the system with, we would have to start questioning our food and our homes, our very homestead. And in this moment of time on this farm, we were back to the survival stage. We had made it to the success, maybe even significant stage here, but we were back to pure survival. Can't wasn't an option. Ultimately, I had to find a way. There was a time when I couldn't even walk that I got a walker from Grandma and walked out there, had Rebecca pull up the Kubota, and then would go out and supervise the chores. And we just hung on with threads. But as I slowly and gradually got better, we saw some hope and some good things happen, and we started getting grips and we started going from just surviving to a little bit of stability.

Oh, she's about to give birth. We thought she had given birth. Okay, so we got to hurry up. So exciting. Poor Justin can't make it out here, so it's me and Lily and the boys are already out here. A bunch of fluid just came out, so it may not happen right now. She's eating something, but there's no calf. Oh boy, I hope it's not another placenta. It's breathing, Mom. I think, I think it's breathing. It's sitting up. It's a beautiful looking calf. It's a boy. It's a boy. Oh, it's a strong calf. It's doing so good. Look at him. I know.

He's watching me. You like? Perfect. This is good. You guys are funneling them nicely. Oh yeah, now you're home free. Home free. Jonah, did you put their feet in there? Okay. Yeah, he's gonna lift the ramp up, then you can shut the trailer. Just that— maybe can shut the trailer. Thank you, Ben. Don't go too far with it because we're gonna put it on the tractor. Good deal. I apologize. No drama. Nice. Made it to the field, no drama. Let's continue the streak. How about that, Ben? Sounds good. So let's pull this up, Jonah, right here. Or Ben, since they're doing the grounding rod. Let's open this, Ben. Let's go ahead and open that. What we don't want to do is push them into the electric fence like we— you and I did last time, right? Then yeah, that was— we pressured them too hard. Yeah, look at this. This is where they belong. Yep. Just herd them with this.

I'll keep up in there.

No, don't touch them with it. We don't want them to learn to touch it and it not work. There you go. Just tap them. There you go, Ben. No, it won't. This fence is good. Come on, off the road. Let's go. There we go. Hey, Lily, you stay up there and don't let them go up into the yard. It's going good so far. I think they might have seen our Shaw. Come on, Lily, keep them up on the side. This is working really good coming behind them with the net. Yeah, keep on going. This is a really big move for turkeys. Okay, we're there. There. If you're new here or don't know what's going on, we had a rat take down 100 chicks. What the boys came to, an absolute massacre. And then we had my mentor Joel Salatin here, and we got hit. Apparently rats are a thing, rats are a thing. And we had him advise us on this, and one of his two suggestions is to fortify a— if it's going to be in one place, a static brooder to fortify it. So the thing about rats is that they can, they can go through places that you can't imagine, and they can get through places you can't imagine. When we finally, you know, got enough money together to build our real brooder, yeah, that's why we built it concrete floor concrete lip up this high. Okay, so it is impregnable. If a rat goes through— if a rat goes through 6 inches of concrete, I'm, I'm probably going to move out. I would say the 4 keys to a bulletproof brooder are— let's think about the roof. Well, first of all, it's covered in half-inch wire mesh. We've got rafters so that we can hang things. We can hang feeders and waters from there. In a pinch, you could store things up there. We don't want to store things up there because we want to have a sunroof and we don't want to block any of that natural light. The sides— think about that. We have wooded sides, but they have cracks, so we're going to put half-inch— again, half-inch wire mesh on the sides. The third thing is the floor. This is a dirt floor. Joel Salatin said, well, you could do a concrete floor. Well, concrete is so permanent. He said, well, you could do a tin floor, and that's what we're going to start with— a solid floor so that they can't dig in, but so that you can easily harvest the material. We're going to put down deep bedding in there, and then we want to be able to harvest that at the end of the season and not dig into our dirt. The last thing to think about is doors. We're We didn't want just a janky, wobbly, unsteady door where gaps would form. So we put in a full outside-rated door. We made it completely glass so that again natural light can get in there. We can leave the stall door open. Light will get into that glass. We can see in there without having to open it. That's key. Door, side, roof, and floor We've thought of everything. This rat is very active, but it's not going to be active in there. Look at that, there's my hand. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. 10 rat babies, man. So what happened? What's the story, Randolph? Well, I lifted up that floor and, uh, she— well, I was going to get the gun and artillery, she moved everyone and babies to the other side of the room. So I had to take all the— Yeah, you came and told us about it. Yeah, I was gonna do something about the babies. You went back down there, they're 12 feet away. Yeah, and you saw the mama with them? Yeah. You got her in one shot? No. Okay, we got her with a.22. Yeah. Got inside, got ready. We need to check this before we do chores. 156 at the top. Eric's gonna stir it. Eric's a longtime friend, just got in the Homestead Game. I said, have you ever done a pig butchering? He said, whatever I do with you is new. That's right. Ben, did we get a good scrape? Good scald? Scald. Sorry. So far so good. How's it feel, Jason? I think it's fairly easy. Like you're dancing? Yeah, it does. Am I going to— okay, you'll know when you hit the breastbone. So what's the hanging weight, Eric? Well, it's hard to read it upside down. 245. Almost 246. They put one half in either side. We probably could I could have put 2 in 1, but it's gonna make it a little manageable when it's just me tomorrow. And we're probably going to take the front quarter off, and this back half will probably— it'll probably hang. Get your hand on the carcass. And there it is. He's cut through just the bone and then he's cutting the rest with his knife. Knives are for meat. So they say. Two tubs full of skim. Week by week I'm kicking this reactive arthritis. Yeah, certainly couldn't have done this a week and a half ago. And before you know it, the fall fair was in town and I could actually walk. Yes, I was in a lot of pain and had to take a lot of breaks, but I could walk. And it was a, it was a point of, oh yes, it was a point of reference. I am getting better. It's been months, but I couldn't have done this a couple of months ago without a walker or a Kubota. Look who's here. You want to ride in this one? Okay, seat's a little wet. Are you scared, Miss Brown? You brave? Okay. You scared, Lily? No. How was it, Mr. Brown?

Good, but I think we're going to go backwards.

Oh, you think so? California surfing. How was Who's doing it again? And we celebrated and had a good time at the fair. And I think that fair was the representation of us going from survival to stability, if not a hair of success. And if that wasn't enough and a sign of success, not long after the fair, Homesteaders of America, 5,000 people. We weren't sure I was going to be able to go stand up there and talk in front in front of people, stand there and meet with people and shake hands. Sure, I had to sit down in between people, but we made it. We did it. And 2 talks on stage talking and having a good time. Alright, we found our tent. We got a line meeting these wonderful people. Anybody excited to be here? I told them to pretend they're not in a very long line to the bathroom. Oh my word. I got a secret for you. Right behind this building, a lot of grass, a lot of privacy. Fertilize the grass. I'm about to go on. Look at all this. Okay, bunch of world changers right there. HOA, Homesteaders of America, if I didn't mention that, ended up marking a time that we transitioned from, uh, stability— because we were stable, we were getting chores done, we were doing some projects— to success. From there on, pretty much, I was able to not just maintain and get the chores done and keep it up and know that we were going to farm we could make improvements and do projects again. All right, we're gonna water them first so they're good and hydrated for the stressful move. You gotta love that plastic. Yeah. Keeps the weeds at bay, keeps that— those bugs happy. Boom! We did it! And did you guys notice something? I feel like I'm back to my old self. On today's episode of Burn It Up Cooking Show, pig head. I cooked this in the gas cabin. Because I'm sure we're also cooking chickens for all the normal people. Hopefully it'll fit. Look at that, kaput, upri, defero. It turned out nice, huh? Yep, it's beautiful. That's what I'm talking about. Yeah, heck yeah. Yeah, it's hot.

Yum! That's delicious.

That's why we scald and scrape a pig right there. Wow. And then, you know, we can just open it up. So all this in here, I'll take this. This is all good stuff. See that long string of meat? Yes. Know what I'm saying? Boom! Oh! Oh my word, this changes everything. Look, that was a little wobbly, wasn't it? Because the skids need to be longer. So what if, what if this was a thing? What if this was also a mineral or water? What if this also had the water? And then, because it's also hard to move the water behind the, you know, you got to put keep the water in with them, and sometimes, sometimes they get out. So what if this was a thing that, that had the mineral feeder and the water on it, and it got pulled behind the Chickshaw, and it stabilized this as a sled? It came more of a sled instead of a square. Holy moly. No, no, he's gonna jump. He's gonna jump. Wow, they got it. Okay, we'll go get the livestock trailer. That was some gymnastics. Yeah, Jacob, you aren't training us. You're, you're on the pig duty. Yeah, it's fun. Slightly, uh, heavier clients than what I'm used to. Yeah, we're gonna wrestle pigs today. That's the training. Do you think we can knock this out in an hour and, uh, 3 hours? Oh yeah, acre and a half. Stuff like this where the, where the tractor tractors have come in and jacked it up. This will not level out, okay, on its own. But eventually we'll have the cows running through here, then the sheep, and then the mower. So just think, hey, I'm gonna have to mow this. Let's get it smooth, smooth enough to mow. This is going super well. You guys knocked that out fast. Let's go on down. Let me put the seed down, Josiah, and then Jackson, you can follow me with the hay. I'll drive slowly down through there and you guys will pitchfork the hay out. That sound good? Let's do it. Now, if you're gonna be in a trailer while it's moving, it always works better with a camera. Busy bees. Oh my word, it's 4 o'clock and these people are Hanging in there. Some kind of people right here. We ended the year with the second annual Rhodes family Christmas tradition with the Burl Holler Parade. Burl Holler Parade coming right up. The lineup: the Stag Mower, Josiah, Sally's side-by-side with Mama and Henry. Oh, I like the— I like the wreath. Henry's gonna be the hit. Look at this wreath decoration. You're gonna have to get inside that though. You're gonna be holding the music. We got the trailer. We got the hayride. You guys get down in there. And you're gonna do the bike ride. And we got Cubby. You can lead the way because you're probably the slowest. Hopefully this year, unlike last year, there'll actually be an audience because it's warmer. Much warmer. Anybody out there? I'm just going to wave in case. I don't see anybody. Another cluster of houses, but I don't see anybody. There was a car! There was a car! Woohoo! We saw somebody! Basically, I do this for me. I'm the only— I think I'm the only one laughing. We've seen a few people. A biker passed us, a car passed us, and honked. And now going into 2022, I hope to make it our best year ever. Definitely, we're in that successful stage again where we are making progress and innovations on the farm, and I look forward to what comes in 2022 with water systems and perfecting our systems and, uh, just growing this community and reaching more with Abundance Plus and creating tons more content. I look forward to, across the board, in family, farm, and business, inching even further than success. There's more than success, and that is significance. You guys, hang on, this is gonna be a wild ride, 2022.