the Thing that's NOT my Thing

Today we're doing the thing that's not our thing. You ready to go mountain biking? Yeah. Piska? Father and son adventures once a month. Here you go, hold these. You see, homesteading is our thing. It's our— obviously a big passion in our life. We love it. We have to have it. But I think to prevent burnout, we have to have— is what Peter McKinnon would say— we have to have a thing that's not our thing. So the boys and I are gonna go enjoy some adventure in the woods.

Over 2 different boots and my boots right there.

Oh, and look guys, the nesting pads worked. Look how clean those eggs are. I'm gonna miss you today. I wish you were old enough yet. You know, I'll have to start a whole nother session. Yeah, when you and Henry are ready. We're gonna ride all 29 mountain bike trails in Pisgah over the next year or two. There's 29 of them. We go once a month. One or two trails a time. Now that's exciting. What are y'all gonna do? God forbid you go 3 hours without eating. This not enough snacks for you boys? You got to go into the Beast? I thought we were quitting Whole Foods. I wasn't saying that. Austin, what do you think about us quitting Whole Foods?

You know, I thought Whole Foods was like the glorious place of it all.

I did too, man. I mean, it's the best of the best, but now—

where are we supposed to shop?

It's no longer good enough for us anymore.

Just gotta go shop at the Rose House.

Yeah. See all this stuff? It's lost 15— it's only got 15% of its nutrients.

That's crazy.

Even organic.

That's crazy.

Might not have the GMOs or the glyphosates, but—

It's that Apeel stuff, right?

Yeah, and it's got the Apeel on it. My God, that was the straw that broke the camel's back. We can still Boycott Whole Foods. You can, uh, you could order these in bulk, but that's not the point. We're trying to get away from any kind of processed things. So why am I, why am I doing this for you boys? I can be so crazy. I can only ask them to be so crazy. It's popular. Another mountain biker here. That's a good sign. Sometimes the least core are the most prepared though. And we're off. Does anybody have a, um, mile measurer on their bike? A what? Oh, okay, start it. Tell us when it's been about a mile. All right, that'll be our turn. I asked the biker though, he said he didn't think we would miss it. I struck up a conversation with a biker down there and I thought, you know what, we could probably piggyback on him. Wouldn't have to think about where to turn, where we're going. I've never been here before. Took a boat though. The sun's here. They said it's gonna be more fun to forge our own way. Let's do it. Jonah's starting ambitious, isn't he, Josiah? Amateur. This is gonna be his first time mountain biking single trail. Okay, I think this is our turn. Turn right on Hilltop Trail at 1.2 miles. To begin fun single track. That 1.2 right there, Austin, he was right. Now we go to that again. I had to get down from here. We gotta continue on 479. But there's two of them.

Whoops.

This one or that one? You are here. You guys are right. I think we keep going down this hilltop trail.

So it's gonna be the hilltop, right?

Because you're going to the top. Yeah, this one we're just going—

we're not— we're avoiding it if we go back to the park.

Yeah, you're right. All right, let's go up the hilltop. What? What, you guys don't think so? That's probably where— hey, we get to go down more, and he, he probably knows what he's doing. Okay, who thinks we should have went down? Just, I think, but everybody else thinks we should go up. Yeah, so all right, let's see what's up then. We're on a trail that is not listed on the book, but it seems like we should go the ridge and find a trail down more than take this trail all the way down to the road. I'm starting to think Josiah was right. That was the exact mile marker it said to turn left. The map up there though made it look like it's taking us straight back down to the road. So maybe now we're just finding our own way. Pretty sure we were supposed to go Josiah's way.

What?

Hey, well, that was the mile— that was the right miles. Say we go back and go down Josiah's Trail 1.5 miles. It brings you to Ledford Gap. There are a few picnic tables here. Bear left on FS-497 East. So that was right. We should have— you were right, Josiah. You were right, Josiah. You were right, Josiah. I know we could go another way, but it'd be fun to just stick to the trail and we could say we did it. It's not bad though, is it? Can't speak.

Am I supposed to answer that?

Uh-oh, Austin needs a snack. I don't know if I've ever reached the end of Austin. We might have got him, guys. Oh, the altitude. You can't keep up with these hillbillies. Just under 1.5 miles on this road brings you to Ledford Gap. There are a few picnic tables here. Bear left to stay on 479 East. Wow, beautiful. I'm sorry guys, it was 5.5 miles of double track. I think we got a half a mile single trail and it's uphill, so follow the orange blaze. Hey Austin, you want to jump? Don't fall off. Oh, uh-oh. Hey, we found a jump! Who's going to do it first? This one? Yeah, see who can go the highest, furthest. I'll film. Whoa! Oh, a nice wheelie! Oh, there it is! Woo! There it is! We found a fun one. It looks steep So there's a jump right there. You guys could clear— yeah, well, be careful. They can clear this table and land in this pit. Jonah, how was your first real mountain biking experience? It was not so fun in the beginning, but the end was very fun. Why wasn't it fun in the beginning?

It was all uphill.

You like climbed a mountain? What goes up has to come down, my man. Austin, first real mountain biking experience? That was awesome. That was a lot of fun. You hooked? I'm hooked. You ready for trail number 2? I'm ready. Yeah. What about you, Josie? Yeah, I'm ready. That's pretty good jump section at the end to make it all worth it.

Yeah, that crazy one, that could not be there and I'd be okay.

Well, you can go slow over it.

I did.

Nobody says you have to go that— go devil over it.

Yeah, I guess like I did the first time. Sonic speed.

Here, get y'all's week's worth of groceries right here. How far we go?

6.8 miles, 724-foot elevation gain, average of 7.8 miles per hour.

Dang, good job first time, guys! But how fast did it go? This was stopping and filming.

An average of 7.8.

Miles per hour. Rice Pinnacle Trail number 1 did not disappoint. This is why it's some of the best mountain biking on the East Coast. An easy trail is a lot of fun. Everybody loved the whoops. Now we're at Hard Times. There's gonna be several trails off of this one. We're gonna give our shot for the first day here. All right, Jonah, it's right and then left across the bridge. You're gonna see it. Yeah, big rock face. That's probably a full-on waterfall normally. They blew it out for this old road. Why would they blow this out? Blow it out for gravel. They blew it out for gravel. Oh, we're stuck, guys. Dead end. Just kidding. You were gonna climb the gate, throw your bike over. Arboretum. Y'all ready to go fast? It's a mile downhill here, guys. It's all we got. Come on, I'm not even pedaling. Come on, get going! I'm wondering, I think we go left right here, then a little more, a mile, a mile to the arboretum proper before finally passing through another fenced area. From here it's about a mile back to the trailhead. End of trail 2. Is the old man got you guys? Are we up for another one? That wasn't the plan. We were just gonna do 2, but if we go home now, we'll be home like at 1 o'clock. Come on, we got all day. Third trail of the day, complete bonus. By the end of this, this will be at like 20 miles before all said and done. Go ahead, see if you can get up this without falling. Good job, Josie! Keep going, keep going, keep going! Hard, hard, hard! Oh, can Austin do it? Oh, come on, you got it, you got it! Keep the weight in your back tire. Come on, keep going! Oh, oh, Ricky's showing us how— oh, you're gonna try it again? Good for you! There you go, get some speed, that's the trick. You get up that, you win the champ today. Hey, at least it's single track, right, Jonah? Hey, where are they, Jonah? But I'm the only one that can keep up with you. I'm glad this old man's keeping up. 45 years old, keeping up with these whippersnappers. Yeah, continue around Pine Tree Loop. We can do this loop and then we'll come out right here and go back. Austin, you hang out, man. Look at this.

Yeehaw!

Yes, more hills! They're all worn out by now. They're getting ill. Hey, let's jump in that lake at the end. You want to? Uh-oh, trouble in paradise. Y'all mad at me? No. Huh? Yes. Did we do too much? Yes, way too much. We should have gave it up, huh? One too many trails. You had fun first two trails? You gonna come next time? If we don't do 3. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm new to this. This one's fun. It's all single track, but it's hard. Where's Austin? I'm pretty tired. Think I'll go home now. Austin's getting cramps. Easy sailing from here, Austin. You all right? Yeah. Still cramping?

Yeah, every time I go uphill I have to stop.

Oh my gosh, you have to walk? I think we pushed it too hard with the third trail. What do you think? Obviously. Just got back. The third one put everybody over the edge. Did we do too much? Way too much. Did we do too much?

I mean, it was fun.

All right, I'm sorry. We should have quit at the third one and went to Pot Hole Creek. Sorry. Did we do too much? I don't even have to ask. He's limping. All right, so next time, 12 miles is our max. How many miles did we do? I'm gonna say 21. 21. 13. Okay, plus 6.8, so So it's just under 20 miles. There's 29 trails. We knocked out 3. We only go once a month. Yeah, like 2 more miles. Oh, that's right. So yeah, we went over 20 miles. This is an old man's sport, huh? We're just warming up. You ready for the next one? I'm gonna do 4.

I feel okay.

Got an hour and 20 minutes. Let's go do that last one, that first one we did. It's the favorite, huh? We're back. You want me to blow up that balloon? You gotta give me a hug first. Oh, gotta make you give me a hug, huh? We are back. Rebecca was gonna do a podcast. Austin's wife. Austin's been editing the vlogs while Dan's been editing Abundance Plus content. They started at 1. They're supposed to start at 1. It's 3:15. They said—

Ashley said, how are we ever gonna fill 2 hours up?

That's no problem with the beautiful one. See, Ashley's pregnant and she wants to ask questions. Related to just health, natural health during pregnancy. Gotta do it right. Yeah. So how, how far along is she?

We're in the third trimester, due December.

Man, we couldn't bomb the show. We were hoping to bomb the show.

No, we've been done. We, we were done. Like, were you gonna smash it against the window?

Poor Matt, he had to just sit through 2 hours I know, pregnancy time.

I know. I was like, did you know what it was about? He's like, well, it's not really my— So did you have fun?

Oh yeah, we had a blast. These youngins are all mad at me.

Why?

Did too much?

We're all exhausted and he's just pushing through. We were done on the second trail and he's like, all right, let's do one more, guys. There's another 6 miles.

Yeah, we did 20 miles.

On the third trail, I ended up having to walk most of of it because no, I was on my bike, my legs just completely seized up.

Oh my goodness.

And like I couldn't move and I crashed my bike.

You crashed? I told you not to do that.

And you have a baby on the way.

He's gonna be perfectly safe.

Well, and we're just gonna cram. He didn't tell me he smoked cigarettes. That was the talk.

It was good, it was good. It's 2 hours. I hope I didn't— I was like, I was like terrified that I was gonna scare her. Well, she— we talked a lot, labor a lot.

Did she scare you at all? Nope.

She said that I did.

But see, like, well, you should hear what they did when they didn't have any money and they wanted to go have some fun. What? They went and camped. Basically had nothing. This is Ashley. They went camping at Christmas.

Like, you know, people can scare you in birth. That's what I'm talking about. Like saying horrible things, but I just wanted her to be informed about like what could happen.

It's yelling, bleeding, dilating. Oh, the dilating.

She might be smelly. Luckily Austin has no smell. Like, he has no— like, when you, when you give birth, you— your hormones are like— you have to detox them out of your body. One morning you get her, she might be smelly, sweaty, and like, you'll scrub your pits in the shower. It does not matter. Also, she asked me one question was about what should— how do you support her in the hospital? So I told her she really needed to tell you, but then also you need to look in your— she needs to look in your book about what's that book I gave you.

Yeah, be prepared. Yeah, be prepared. Apologize to Matt. Hey bud, how's it going? I heard you are educated now. Oh man, yeah, I learned all kinds of things. Poor thing. Yeah, you notice I wasn't anywhere in there. I wasn't even on the farm. We're bringing out the big guns because we got to take a family photo this afternoon. We're going to go ahead and get photos with Rebecca, her sister, and Rebecca's mom. Rebecca's mom, affectionately called Grandma, for those that don't know. She does have ALS, so we are doing this while we can. You know, she's very— she's still in great shape physically, uh, so we're just gonna capture the moment and we'll have it forever in a photo. You look so very nice. Look at these humps. You guys are looking nice. God forbid they wear a nice shirt. It's a gamble with Henry, baby. I know.

You kind of like looking at—

you break out the big guns. I know, I did the organic Starburst. Hey, he caught his second wind here. All of a sudden go play soccer.

He doesn't eat chocolate all of a sudden.

Cousin soccer match, all dressed up. Oh, face a mean goalie.