In this July 2020 vlog, Victor (Speaker A) walks viewers through a day on his family farm, beginning with the harvest of Arun’s garden and the challenge of feeding the chickens with bolted crops. He deals with a mischievous rooster that has escaped its pen, debating whether to keep it for breeding while clipping its wings. Throughout the segment, Victor repeatedly honors his late father, nicknamed “Boots,” by dedicating a batch of sweet potatoes to his memory and reflecting on his dad’s determination despite a broken back. The vlog shifts into the “Burn It Up Cooking Show,” where Victor improvises a smoked pork rib recipe, detailing thawing, seasoning, marinating, and smoking steps while consulting “Mr. Google Pants” for tips. Later, he manages farm logistics: a delayed feed delivery, a temperamental tractor, and a frustrating pig‑containment issue that required multiple net solutions. Interspersed are family moments—children’s absences, a brief mention of a weekend retreat, and the emotional drive to keep going, echoing the title’s message of never giving up.
Chapters
I'm getting ready for the big harvest of this garden. This is Arun's garden, so I'm gonna get rid— or feed the chickens the things that Oh, we're not gonna harvest this thing. Bolted, meaning it's shot up and gone to seed. One wheelbarrow for the chickens— wheelbarrow, gorilla cart. One more gorilla cart for the chickens tomorrow. Swiss chard, kale, mucho cabbages, and an entire row of beets for us. This guy has been getting up on the banister, and I figured I'll I don't know what I'm gonna do. These wings aren't clipped, but they sort of aren't— he's sort of got good wings, so maybe that's why he's able to jump up there. He's missing half of them. You know, kind of cute. He was getting up there crowing until I caught him walking through Mom's planters to get to the other railing. Yeah, not cute. Not cute, dude. Not cute. I went inside and got my crew. My co-captain right here. Hey, Mr. Brown, are you too big for this? No, he's gonna be 6 in October. Here's how I know. Mr. Brown, what do you call this thing? The ogurt. The ogurt?
Yeah, because I can't say it right.
I figure if you can't say ergo, you're probably not too old for this. You got her. I cannot believe what I'm seeing. Are you serious? He's got out with clipped wings.
Puppy jumping onto the stall and jumping over.
Yeah, but no, and that's, that's— you're probably right, but everybody else is not doing that, you know what I mean? We gotta have people to behave. This one too, this one too needs to be marked. I'll know the rooster, but I won't know this guy. I just saw him. He jumped right up. He doesn't need anything to stand on. Oh shoot, I already lost the white one. He's just super athletic. He jumped right up there from over here. I hate to get rid of our only rooster, but just in case we need to breed. But do we really even want to breed that stock? That's the afternoon meal for the pigs, but I'm gonna have to get some help catching it. Question of the day: how are Boots' sweet potatoes doing? They're jamming. If you don't know who Boots is, Boots is my late father who just last fall broke his back, probably because of old age. After a visit in the emergency ER hospital, I visited him at home. He says to me, If I make it through this, I'm gonna plant sweet potatoes in the spring. He's an ox, and it happened since he first started getting radiation and they put him off that table. That's when it happened. He's been broken back for 8 weeks. He's still hoping to plant some sweet potatoes next spring. So if you think you can't do something, just plant it. Just go for it. Just plant dang sweet potatoes.
But he didn't because he had died.
Yes, he didn't because he died. But the point is, the dude had broke his back and he wanted to plant sweet potatoes. He hadn't had a garden in 30, 40— okay, maybe when I was 10 we had a garden, so 30-ish years. So these sweet potatoes are for Boots. That's my dad's nickname. That's what you guys know him as. And I'm happy to say they're absolutely jamming. And Pop said he would be piping this show up to heaven, so Pop These are for you, buddy. I hope, I hope you enjoy these, and I know you're proud. One more thing, one more little project this morning. Morning. You guys notice Rebecca's kind of missing from the vlog? Has been. Well, her and Lily kind of had a, I don't know, weekend retreat kind of thing, so they've been MIA. I think Gideon summed it up last night. We were going to bed, he said, I miss Mama. That's it, wash station. That's our goal tomorrow. Did a little bit of prep. Now I just need to find somebody to help me catch that rooster. Hey boys, looks like they're inside. Oh my word, y'all found the Legos! Yes! Look at this station though, guys, that's incredible. Can I get two of you to come help catch a rooster?
Uh, maybe.
Uh, John, you ready to go? Ready to go. Can I call the rooster? Because he's getting up on your back. I even clipped his wing. I know. What happens if we put him out in the field? Stop it, Teddy. Oh, oh, with the pasture posse? Uh-huh. I mean, we could try it, but I'm pretty sure he gets out of that. We could try that. My big hesitation is that, um, my big hesitation is just that what happens if we need a rooster? I know, I thought about that too. Do we actually want to breed that rooster though? But I mean, I guess he's better than no rooster.
Yeah.
That's our last rooster. All right, well, we'll try, we'll try putting in with the pasture posse. We'll do that tonight on today's Burn It Up Cooking Show. Smoked pork ribs from the farm. I have no idea what I'm doing, actually, so I guess that's why I call it Burn It Up Cooking Show. No claim to expertise here, you're just on the journey with me. We're gonna try to smoke some ribs today. First, we're gonna thaw them out because we forgot to put them out last night. So to do that quickly, we put them in water. I know that much. Wow, that was quick. All right, so when you don't know how to cook something on Burn It Up Cooking Show, you ask Mr. Google Pants.
Papa, you said you would ask Mr. Google Pants why is the sky blue.
Member? Oh, that's right. We'll look up that up next. All right, that one is all about like using apple juice, messing with it 3 or 4 times. Let's see what else we got here. Smoking ribs on the grill for beginners. Let's do that. I'm going to talk to Mr. Google Pants because they told me about a membrane that I need to remove and I need to let it sit in some, uh, seasonings. Paper towel, the dull side of a knife. This is to grab a hold, paper towel to make it a little easier to grip, but I'm finding I can grip it without it and cut into it backwards like that if you need to. The back of the knife.
I knew it was getting hot.
There it is. Yeah, so now it's going to be a more thorough, even cook without that blocking it. Or— and it's that chewy thing when you're eating ribs. Yeah, that's no more. You know, you could do all fancy rubs and whatnot, but we're just gonna do butter and salt. All right, I've salted it, I've buttered it, now time to fridge it. So it says 5 hours, but our smoker is cooking fast things faster than usual. I'm gonna put in this fridge— I don't know, let's cook it 4 hours. So put it in at 1, leave it in the fridge marinating for a couple of hours. It's not shutting. Okay, here, just, uh, here's some apples. Put those out, please. Thank you. Sideways. Now let's see if it'll shut. I also call this the Burn It Up Cooking Show because it's reality. Like, kids are about, fridges don't shut, you don't know how to do everything. Yeah. All right, been editing, just remembered I need to put— it's 1 o'clock, let's put the ribs in. Put a little water between between the flame and the meat. You gotta just keep going. It's like 2:30. Oh yeah, they're not burning. This is good. We might actually speed them up. Okay guys, I just came out to check. It had been maybe an hour-ish. Man, I'm just cooking things too fast in this thing. It's like 183 over here. Warm as All right, I've got it covered in the oven on keep warm. All right, done with the vlog, checked on the meat. Let's get out and do some afternoon chores. I was about to get some chicken feed and I said, well, isn't, isn't our feed delivery coming like today? And then they called, they will be here in 20 minutes. Tried the tractor yesterday, it started, but you just Never. No, we've got 20 minutes to troubleshoot. This doesn't work, let it warm up for 20 minutes. If it does, all right, it's done. And the The pork, or the ribs look awesome. It's kind of hard to mess up ribs.
These are the best ribs I've ever had.
Nice.
They are pretty good.
Oh good.
They are really good.
Everybody likes them? Everybody likes them. It smelled like the fair out there cooking. Oh, that's good, right? I mean, I think they smoke a lot of stuff at the fair. Yeah. We're all back together and it is ribs. Uh oh. Josiah, do you know where his food is?
Yeah.
It's right there. Oh man, I was just starting the nighttime routine. It's like 8 o'clock, 10 till 8, and I just realized I got distracted with receiving the feed. I forgot to take food to the pigs. You guys are still here. You haven't escaped in days. Is this all it took? This all it took? A hot lower net, hot lower strand? Guys, this was super frustrating getting these guys to stay in. First a regular net, we then tried all different kinds of things, finally resolved this net, the hot wire on the bottom, and it's worked. It may not work tomorrow, they may escape. God forbid do what my buddy Dan Oman's pigs did to his garden at the Grass-Fed Homestead. Yeah, they've got to— this is serious, we got to keep these pigs in here. They're not nearly harvestable age. If they were maybe a month away from harvest, sure, that may be a viable option. But for now, we didn't give up. Got that boot spirit running deep inside of me, I guess. I didn't give up. I won't give up. If they give up, get— come out again, I've already got two more plans. I've got plan E and F.
