In this day‑in‑the‑life vlog, the narrator (Speaker A) walks viewers through a hectic morning on a homestead in the temperate rainforest of western North Carolina. The family prepares to move and later cull two breeding animals – Stud, an eight‑year‑old bull, and Nacho, a ram – while managing the stress of the herd, dealing with a steep 35‑degree slope, and confronting genetic issues (Nacho’s offspring repeatedly born with deformed legs). The video interleaves practical farm chores (herding, cutting firewood, building a fire, handling diesel fuel) with candid reflections on the emotional weight of naming and killing animals that the family loves. The narrator also demonstrates target practice with a .410 shotgun, mentally rehearsing a humane kill, and discusses how to introduce children to the realities of butchering, emphasizing respect, normalizing the process, and using it as a teaching moment. Throughout, the tone shifts between frantic, instructional, and contemplative, underscoring the balance between self‑sufficiency, animal welfare, and the psychological cost of raising meat for one’s own table.
Chapters
Personal challenge for this year. First things first. La la la la la, let me be free. Definitely not the sexy thing to do, but got to keep the house in order before we keep the farm in order. Next up, find the kiddo's shoes. Only one. Wait, where's your sock? See if his sock is in there. Did it fall back? All right. Go up here and open the gate. Yes, I think we should. Which way you want to take them? Uh, I don't think we'll be able— we'll be able to take them up. Okay, because I think as soon as we let them out, they're gonna run. He doesn't think they'll come up and across to here. So you think they'll come through here, huh? You know they'll, uh, they're gonna go down and to the cows, right? They're probably gonna go down anyway though, and then we'll just herd them up. Okay, on this sit day We're getting Stud and Nacho and friends. I hope this is not on. We are calling Stud and Nacho for that matter. Stud is our breeding bull and Nacho is our breeding ram. Do you think they're going to come from up there? Let's move this over. Lily will need you when they come down. Well, Gideon's right here. Lily, you, you want to stop them from going to the house? For Stud Muffin, he's getting old. He's like 8. We're gonna bring them down the road and then we got to keep them from going down to the cows. The second thing is stud is A1, A2, means he's gonna throw 50/50 chance A1, A2 heifer, which is a harder milk to digest. Third reason, we are out of beef. I was gonna do each of them a buddy, but now that they're here together, should we just do them? Last thing you want is an animal be alone too long. They get Very stressed. We could herd one other steer over here. Steer, we got a wither and a ram. Just keep them right there, Jonah. It's gonna be a hard day. We've known you 6 years, stud. We just want to cull him before he's no longer faithful, before he becomes infertile. We're not killing them today. Tomorrow we want to move them down because moving can be a little stressful for them, so we want to get any stress out of the way. And good, good night. Could you imagine hauling this guy off this mountain. This is a 35-degree slope, y'all. He's probably 1,200 pounds. Let me tell you how the herding went. At first it started off really slow and calm and cool. Come on, I might try to take them down the pathway. And then Stud just took off and went crazy. Now he's running. What the heck? We started off real slow and then he just jetted. No, no, Why don't you start tearing up our bank? He had to trip on the water hose and disconnected it. Shoot! What is going on? Let's go! He broke through the fence again. Shoot! He's got caught up in this. The string came away. Let's see if he'll stay on this pathway. And then he took off running down the access trail. Jonah behind me with the mower. It's our best herding machine. I was happy about the access trail because that meant we could keep him up and away from the cows. If he gets down to the cows, it's very hard to get them up and away from the cows to anywhere else. It's working. Open our net up the other way. We didn't think we were going to be able to do it this way, so we got to reverse it. He sees the hay. Hey, hey, sheep! Shoot, Nacho just missed the turn. And from there, he pretty much moseyed on in. But Nacho and his buddy missed the memo. Stud's going in. Yeah, catch Nacho before he comes down the trail. Really pressure Nacho. But thankfully Nacho is a pretty good follower of Stud Muffin and saw him, and we were able to get him in too rather easy. Oh, okay, wait, hey, okay, that's for Nacho. See that? It was much worse. Nacho got so crippled. Okay, he's still getting up. It's not getting worse, is it? He's got normal poop. He didn't even breed all our, our lambs on time, so So it's taken him 2, maybe 3 cycles to breed everybody. I cannot believe you guys are talking about this. The problem's in the bedroom between a man and a woman. Now stud is right here. That's where we'll be processing them. What's wrong? Oh, uh, the other deal with Nacho is Every year for the last 3 years, the last 3 years he's thrown, there's been a crippled baby in every bunch. This baby, the deformed baby this year, um, has 2 front legs that are very short. Wow. So I think actually Nacho and these ladies may be too closely related. Gotta push this one down. Yeah, unless you like it's kind of hip here on the corner. And welcome to another day in the life of a a homesteading family growing food to maximize our health. Are we really going to walk all that down there? No, I do not like driving in our pastures, but this is the case where we need to drive in our pastures. Okay, it's not gasoline, it's diesel, so it's not quite as flammable. It's pretty good. Let's feed it sticks. You know, if you're gonna grow some of the most nutrient-dense food in the world, homegrown food, you're gonna have to kill somebody you love from time to time. It's okay that we love them, and it's okay that we name them. That's the uttermost respect, to name them. That at some point We need to feel the weight of that sacrifice, and for us, we feel it almost every time. Are we gonna try this now? I'm just gonna try turning around and going down the road, and then you can take over at the exit. How old are you? Um, 9. Look who's out in the choir. You guys going with us? Yeah. All right. If we're gonna eat off the land, we're gonna have to harvest from the land. We're also gonna have to work the land. Oh, did it go out? Boys, where do you want me to start sawing? Started last time. So today that means— well, they've knocked down all the trees I think we're gonna knock down. Now I gotta part them and we gotta sort them. This will be our pasture for— we need to grow more dairy and beef. Got 10 minutes to lunch. Jonah, can you go, uh, stoke the brush pile? I got a hair carried away and didn't quit on time. Probably gonna be late to lunch. Warming up fast here in the temperate rainforest of western North Carolina. You gotta work hard to keep a fire going. It's about to go out. Hopefully this will give it some air and get it going. Watch out, Gideon! We're a little too late. We'll leave it, maybe it'll catch. We're late for lunch. Jonah, we got a flame! Okay, we gotta come right back after lunch. Look! That worked. Come on, boys, let's go to lunch. There's your other boot. That smells delicious. Come on. What's going on, young man? Tired. Y'all were in the machines. It's tiring, like driving. We're killing some breakfast. What is it, one enough? Gotta make more. I'm so hungry. Thank you for my after-meal exercise. I'm not walking today. Yeah, sure. I'm gonna help them with the sheetrock. Oh yeah, you probably never see it on this camera, but I can see orange. The fire has lit. It's lit. It's burning so good. Josiah came to check on it and he thought our pathway was on fire and he thought the fire was out of control. He came and told me we called the 911. And then I came out here and saw it was not out of control, but they're on their way. They were totally cool, totally understood. They're gone. Well, that was embarrassing. Yeah, they were totally Finally getting a chance just to practice a little bit on the old guy. Possible that he would be laying down like this when we come down tomorrow morning. And you might be wondering, well, what are you gonna do? This is half your breeding stock, Justin, for sheep and cows. Well, we've already got a ram and an A2A2 bull lined up. They happen to both be in Virginia, so we're gonna pick them up all at once. Just doing dry runs, so I'm not caught completely off guard tomorrow. Don't want to go too low and it gets in his nasal cavity. I wonder if he'll eat alfalfa while sitting. Oh, he's not gonna eat it while sitting, but there it is, buddy. I think I got it. Even if he has to eat to kill Nacho, actually catch him, pin him down, slit his throat. Here's the thing, If I shoot and I hit that brain just right, he's gonna drop. He would have never known it was coming. He's gonna die happy, laying down or eating alfalfa, and that's what I want. It's gonna be hard enough to kill this guy. If I'm gonna cry, it's actually gonna be because I miss him. If I miss and it just goes down into the nasal cavity, which I have before, then the animal is stressed, and it's a terrible way to I've been learning a lot about neuroplasticity and self-talk. I think I'm envisioning like missing more than I am hitting it, just talking about it and being afraid of it. I need to envision him dropping as soon as I pull that trigger. A little bit of target practice. My weapon of choice, the.410 shotgun. With a slug. This— that's a big game slug. Let's pretend that's my target. When he says see you later, there's no way. Let's hit the O. I missed the O. I'm not gonna miss tomorrow. To the A. I made sure I kept my eyes open that time. Got just below it. Let's go for the R. I shouldn't be missing like this, so I think I'm looking through my sight wrong. High again. Getting closer. Go for that 5. One more shot. Nailed it. This is a barn meal if there ever was one. Y'all ready for, uh, stud muffin and nacho tomorrow? Are you gonna be sad? You want to see stud muffin go? You want to know how to get your kids used to butchering? Just— he's seen it all. And he's only 3. Don't make it a weird thing. It's very natural. I find that kids find it natural. You wanna say happy day? Happy day. Happy day.
