They Wanted to Put Me in Surgery

Lily, what got in you? Making, making a breakfast, uh, pancakes for everybody.

Oh, I like pancakes.

We've been going hard lately and we need to play catch up today. You want the Band-Aid replaced on this? The cut is completely gone, but we're not fighting about it. Where? You're gonna have to point at it because it's all healed. I don't see it. Okay, there you go. There you go. The magic of the Band-Aid. We got broth to deal with. Lamb broth. It just smells a little different to me. Rebecca says it's okay. She has a hypersense of smell. Are you coming? I wish you would. Time to do chores. You want to come with me? Yeah, and the boys will be up there. I don't want to take him, but he really needs to. Brock's gonna have to wait. We need to go train Harriet. Come on, live in the moment. Summon my Ruth Ann Zimmerman. She said I've got FOMO. If I'm always feeling like— and I didn't think I was a FOMO kind of guy— I'm always feeling like what I'm doing right now is not the most important thing, then what I have is FOMO, because I'm always thinking that something's more important, profitable, or meaningful, or whatever. Okay, what are we doing? Don't hit that with that file. Okay, your boots are not out here, they must be down there. Cat, I do want to catch the boys while they're out there. You have plenty of food. I don't know why you're moving it. Meowing. Plenty of food. Why are they meowing? Henry, let's go. Work with me as we de-stress. I think one thing is to— it's okay to have catch-up days, chiller days. We'll see if today can be one of those days. That's the goal. Okay, there's— can you wear those boots?

No, please.

I don't mind, but you mind, and I don't see your boots out here. Come on, we'll see if they're the other way. Do you want to bring those just in case? Let's bring those in case. Oh no, I thought maybe I didn't soak those, but I don't think I gave them enough water. What do I do, guys? Do I catch Jonah and Josiah while they're out there to do Harriet and then feed the chickens? That's okay. Here's your boots. Okay, so I'm having FOMO because I'm, I'm fearing But I should be up there with the boys, with the calf, instead of right here with Henry. Let's let these warm up. I'm gonna go get you some socks. She said after that— just realize you got FOMO. Say, this is where I need to be right now. Say it out loud. Okay, this is where I need to be right now, getting socks for him. The cow can wait. The second thing is providing nutrients for your family. So yeah, that would be the, the cow thing. And then the third thing is the business, the providing. This is going to take an act of faith because what she just explained is seeking first the kingdom of God and then trusting that everything else will be right. I lack faith. Nice two socks. No, seriously, I lack faith. Not in the sense of I'm being a bad boy and sliding. I mean, I lack faith. So it is hard to trust that if I seek and go after what is right, that all the daily provisions and everything else will be provided, especially as the provider. We're lucky. Found some socks. Let's tell Mom to order some socks.

Do you want to do my last project on my list?

Sure. Little texting, little texting with the beautiful one. There's always that. I always have a plan, I always get going, and then the beautiful one or somebody else in the family interrupts. And that needs to be okay. Gideon, come assist. Let's go, go train Harriet. And we still have to do the chickens.

I'll just bring down the set aside.

It actually does make sense to do the chickens after because then we can do the soak their feet and skin.

I have this continual stomach pain, but my hands are—

okay, well, we— I'm gonna have to draw the line at some point. We've been getting ready for 20 minutes. I don't think you have gloves and you picked out those pants. Let's just go knock this out and then we'll be back.

No, I want—

let's just knock it out. Here, come on. I know. Come here, come here. Just get on my back. Here, come on. You'll be warm. Come on, come on. Let's go. Oh no. Ah, I got this. Wow, that's a terrible place for a cut. I tore off my quarter of my Dumb. Can y'all see that, buddy? That gets bumped. Oh, I gotta de-stress. You know, we do all these other things for our health. I guess for me it's trust that that's true. Is that true? The boys just got back. I feel like I missed out. They're gonna need a vision. They need vision. Let's go see what their vision is. But anyway, I got I invited in Ruth Ann because she's a friend. She's so wise, she has such great perspective. Oh, I should say this. I'll say this in a second. Let's check on the boys. But it has something to do with being 90 years old. Okay. Yeah, I smell it. Yeah, it just— that's that smell. Lambs not smell different to you guys? That's just how they smell. Are you sure? I don't think I've ever smelled that before. I don't know, I've never smelled boar taint, but I would imagine that's what it smells like. Well, we'll see, we'll see. Because I'm about to eat that meat. I mean, why am I smelling that? It's packaged. Come here, Jonah. Okay, what's your vision? Nothing. Okay, nothing to do. All right, can you help me then when you're done? That's how you want to feed the chickens for me? I can't leave you guys here to fight with each other and terrorize your mother. Ruth Ann's wish and what she thinks about is What does she want when she's 90 years old? She's not gonna look back on the business accomplishments or anything like that. She's gonna want people to visit her. And that means she would have invested in relationship pre-90. If you guys want more of Ruth Ann, I actually traveled to Iowa a few months ago and we made a movie on her and it's coming out this weekend. You get a free sample. We're gonna put up the first 10 minutes. All you got to do is sign up with your email to see that. See if you're gonna like it. It's a 40-minute documentary. Documentary, her incredible story, her incredible family.

Hey boys!

Hey boys! Are you tricking them? Bring in the, uh, bring the pan pail back and get their pans out. Oh, and by the way, that free viewing is only this weekend, Friday to Sunday. What's Aunt Winnie got right here? Yeah, did you not throw those over the ravine? She's hauling all the sheep hides out. Hey, is the leash back there? We're halfway there. Okay, sit down. We have to find the leash and make it— not the leash, the collar. And we gotta hole punch it so we can make it tighter. Where are you going with that?

Fixing it.

It's off. Okay, let's find the leash— the collar. We should probably wash these. This is the most important thing I could be doing right now. Jonah! Jonah, Josiah, where's the collar? Yeah, it's on Sally. They say if you're bothered about something, you need to either let it go or make change. So Henry's delays this morning, to me, perhaps they could have been fixed by just getting his stuff ready last night. I want to milk with the boys getting Henry's stuff ready the night before. That's a nice little tripod for this thing. All right, who would go off with the hole punch? What are y'all using the hole punch for? Get in! Have you seen the hole punch? The leather punch? All right, here it is. There it is, right there. The snake did this. Okay, alfalfa pan, hole punch, and collar. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! No, we don't do that. No ma'am, no ma'am, no ma'am. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Don't do that yet. Get in. Watch my camera so it don't fall down. I want to get up here and do this when the boys are here because they're going to be milking, and then she needs to be brought into that because everybody needs to be getting milked at the same time. Although, would that hurt? I guess it wouldn't hurt if it came out here and milked her later. All right, let's get her collar on. That's the goal today. Look at her already moving, me coming. This is not good. Oh, the other reason to do it when the boys come is because they've moved into fresh grass, and so she's been munching off on fresh grass, so she's getting sort of full. If we get her— if we get her when the boys get her, she wouldn't have gotten that yet. That's just another reason I need to be with them.

I want to like get the rope under and then just strap it above her neck so you don't have to reach under.

All right, let's get her back in and we'll drive down there. I think she's stopping at the Cheney's so we can catch her. Okay, I think we flagged her down. Okay. I'm gonna break the rules. I'm about to break my rules. I'm gonna drive right through the pasture in the wet. Oh my gosh, hope Joel Salatin's not watching this. Supposed to treat your pastures like cornfields, but when I'm 90, I want the beautiful one right there with me. Hold my hand. Pasture would long recover by then. Hey, bye-bye. Thanks for stopping. I love you. I love you too. Yes, we're going back anyway. We left in haste and left all kinds of stuff. What's this? Okay, we need a pole. They're not in here today, they're in here tomorrow. Forgot our pan too. Oh wait, you think you're doing it again?

Yeah, she got over the fence.

Oh, she did?

Yes, that's the only—

okay, we can't be training her to do that. Isn't this pretty? Okay, I gotta go check on something. Water was leaking over here yesterday. I just want to see if my fix fixed it. For now, we're on the well pump, so if it's broken, our well pump is just going to keep going. We do need— maybe that needs to be one of the boys' visions, to go get the water running off the top of the mountain. We stayed together. Look at this, look at this silo pasture we created. Beautiful. Look at the leaves. It's just beautiful. Where are you going, Gideon?

I'm going to the top of the access road.

All right, enjoy yourself. Hey, turn the, uh, fence back on, will ya? Yeah, nice. Is this y'all's vision today? Yeah. What is it? Moving it over. Okay, moving the butchering stuff over here so we drain better, and the storage shed over there. Go work on my vision. Whoa, is it really 10 till 10? Okay, I've got a— my friend Adam's coming over at 11. I think I'm gonna try a kefir smoothie on it. Kefir, GAPS-friendly, farm-friendly. I've been making kefir, y'all. I tasted it last night though. It was really sour. I think it's supposed to be sour. But I think I could catch it early too and it not be as sour. Got a lot to learn, and I'm learning something new. Step 1 in washing the cloths: shake off the dirt. Let's get these chickens fed. Let's get back inside doing some broth. Get ready for our kefir party with my friend. I like this. Isn't all of our cloths— set a timer to wash the cloths in 30 minutes. Beauty saw this on her way out, a farm project I was working on. Oh, here's the car. Yay, honey. Here's the car. Farm project I was working on 4 months ago. Bring this to me. That's been put off because of my shoulder. Do you really do this with your— how do you do this without cutting your— this is the brush. It's the brush. We need to do that when we go to Harriet. 10 minutes a day and we'll knock that brush out. We've lost it. It's machine. I don't know, maybe I can find the romance in the scythe. But we're nook and cranny farming, so we can't let our pasture where we cleared— it's wanting to take over and it's too steep to mow. We're in a cash flow crunch right now trying to finish the cabin, so The name of the game is find a way to do it for free. Use it up, wear it out, make it do. In this case, make it do or do it out. We're ready for the chickens. Henry cart, let's go! These chickens had so much feed left over in that, I just poured that out. I don't think they like picking through that trough. This makes it a little more accessible. We're mixing our own feed. I got a recipe from Grok. There's too much, uh, alfalfa. Between the alfalfa meal and the kelp too, probably. I don't know what else is green in there. It's too much. Look how much they're leaving. So I'll put the protein snacks in this just a little bit, and we'll have them eating that. The good news is they haven't slowed down on eggs, have they? Get— Henry, can you get there? Uh, Gideon, whichever one you are, can you get this, uh, nest box up? I did that once in this vlog. I went through all the names before I finally nailed it. Somebody in the comments said, he doesn't know the name of his children. No, you clearly don't have multiple children. I've called my children Teddy before. Of course I know the name of my children. Teddy was our pet dog. Is there any left in it? They're not going to be able to do these whole grains without grit. Oh yeah, there's grit. Look how much water though. Yeah, feeding whole grains especially, they're going to need that grit in their gizzard working it to break it down. Oh, turn the fence back on. When you go move this, today or tomorrow? Okay, always put off till tomorrow. Hey, will you grab that adjustable wrench? That's where I thought my hole punch was this morning, just laying on the grass somewhere. Is that timer for 1 hour to change the towels? Man, I remember so much now. Just set the timer. I'm excited. I'm 47 years old. And there's still so much improvement I can make in my life. I'll be 47 tomorrow. Birthday's tomorrow. Okay, what's the problem?

I want you to wipe my butt.

Yeah, that's true. All right, I was gonna go sightsee— will you go sightseeing?

Yeah.

How long you think it'll be? You know what, I don't know if I can churn butter in that time, but I can probably do this lamb. I wish this didn't smell weird. It's gonna be weird eating it. Trays of bones. Let's get it all done. This is a great way to get a mix. Yeah, what is that? I don't know. Set a timer for an hour and a half on lamb bones. All right, well, we got that done. The deal was you were gonna go with me to sites. You still gonna do it? Yeah. Okay, let's go. We've got 20 minutes till Adam's get here. Can we get up there and see what we can do? Let's get up there, do a 10-minute session, and just see what's going to be possible. I know I'm not going to be able to dedicate 3-4 hours, nor would my body hold up to that. Come on, don't get distracted. What's your vision, bro?

I'm doing it.

What is the vision?

I'm doing the witch thing.

Oh boy, where are the machines? Let me go get the sides. I'll bring my toy. Look at these guys, they're at the stage where I say, all right, we do farm projects in the morning. Tell me your vision, go for it. And this is their vision. Good job, guys. We're gonna put a little table here. So proud of you guys. You could just do a board right across the shelf from shelf to shelf. We have a table. Okay. And I was thinking, I know you hate this idea so much, I was gonna put the tin around it. Whatever, I give up. You're relentless. Can I not have the side-by-side? One second, we're just getting this down real quick. Hey, can y'all fix that? Can y'all fix that while you're at it? We've used this shed. I've already fixed it. Oh good. We've used this thing so many times. I don't have my Leatherman. If I did, I don't have the pliers on them. Do you guys know where my Leatherman is while we're on the subject? What? I know where all of them is. They're going to be occupied with that, using Selma's ladder. Let's go get a four-wheeler. You want to stay with the boys? Okay, then let's go. Okay, then you stay here.

I'll be back.

Just stay here with them. I thought Lily had Sally.

No.

What are you doing with her?

I'm about to go ask something.

What?

Um, where's the drill so I can get some, um, hang thingies?

All right. Kaden's trying so hard to grow up to be in that stage where he picks his own projects. You know, it's never clean cut. It's gonna be— I'm gonna give him projects, he's gonna pick some projects, and then eventually he'll get more and more of directing his own projects, and then he'll be bossing me around some, and then eventually they'll be bossing me around pretty much completely. Now there are some projects like this one that it truly is exactly where I want to be. All right, let's see how my shoulder holds up. I started this project probably 4 months ago and had to quit because I dislocated my shoulder. Just get started. I'm not kidding. And here comes Gideon. You can tell on the boys. All right, ready? Ah, I'm curious now. This, this ends loose. Oh my, blister on my hand. Geez. Shoulder's holding up nicely. It's been 10 minutes. I just did probably 1,000 square feet. Hey, I did this swath right here. It actually went a little better than I thought. Harriet's out. Why? He was riding his bike down the hill. Let's see how he could Maybe forget that. Hopefully this will be here tomorrow. I'm gonna put the sharpening stone on top of the boiler. Hopefully nobody will find that. Adam, how's it going? All right, man. No, you don't see that every day. Chickshaw mini-me down the road. Look at this honey gal. We always want to keep the honey and maple syrup for our kids. Always remember a Sweet. I'm going to let you take that. Sweet life. Boys are probably wrapping up. Knowing them, they like day jobs, something that they can get done in a day. Did you guys get it done today? No. What? No, he's upset about that. Oh, you're going to go? Yes. Good deal, thanks. That helps a lot. Wow, you got one bay done. Yeah. How hard was that? It's actually really nice now. It looks so nice. This looks like a professional farm. Good job, buddy. Still got the middle bay. The last two bays— well, the last two bays are pretty good too. We could put that chicken tractor over in the bash shed. Uh, totaled. Is it? We have a nice one. Why would we keep it? Because we need two chicken tractors. All we got to do is get a roof on it. Exciting. It's falling apart. If you want to try to salvage it, you can. Yeah, if you'll put it in the bash shed for me. Doing this for Jonah. Since he's going to get Lily. I'm proud of those guys. How's the honey guy?

He's great, he's great.

We talked about— we talked about it. Oh, you did? What'd he say?

Um, he said he'd like to come out and see the place.

Okay. But then there's also a honey people or closer to us. Okay. And let's check in this Thursday. Today's the Sabbath and we're done. Mulch planter boxes at the cabin. Nelly, you're gonna finish cleaning up today? No, I said you were gonna vacuum or something.

No, I didn't. I said I was gonna clean up.

Uh, special day, special moment. My last day of PT, so I'm gonna have to graduate whether I'm done or not. Insurance is done with the coverage of it. I've maxed them out, the amount I can do. Plus, we see the potential surgeon in 6 days. There, there's no way they're going to see need for surgery, and if they do, I'm going to say no thanks because I'm pro— I've made progress and I'm gonna get there. It's just taking longer. I can continue to do stretches on my own. This has been my life. 1, 2 times a week. Going in town, chauffeured by Josiah, and some work done on the phone. We'll see how it goes. I got some gifts for my therapists. And we're back from PT. Austin, roll that footage. Thank you, Gideon, for getting that footage for me. Last PT session, that was. I go in 6 days. Let's see what we got. What? What? What?

Boom!

And just in that PT session— roll it again, Austin— I went from 5 pounds last week to 15 pounds over my head, y'all. Boom! Just persistence, that's what it is. They wanted to put me in surgery. I said no. I said no. That's the solution to a lot of things. Isn't it? Just hard, persistent work. Just soaked that little blip. It was starting to puss. Don't want that to get infected, so I soaked that Epsom salt for 20 minutes. She put a charcoal poultice on this thing. Lily has made lamb burgers. This is fresh as it gets. Processed it Yesterday. I want you guys to taste the lamb and see if it's funny. Funny smell to me, but definitely need to put salt on them. Mom's about to make me a torch. Well, how was the lamb, Beck? It was good. Could have been seared a little better. It could have been cooked a little bit. I need to try to find where I can do office hours, or I can help Lily I still need to help Lily at the meat cooking. I'm gonna stay in bed. It's my birthday, you know. If I would have went 40 days water fast, I would be off my refeeding tomorrow. I went 28 days and I've had a really long refeeding. Yeah, nighttime red light vibes. What kind of smoothie you making, girl?

I'm making a chocolate.

Fill yourself up, buddy. Fill that tummy up for Filling it up for the bed. Guess what? Tomorrow's my birthday. What'd you get me, Henry? What'd you get me, Lily?

Uh, well, I still have to make it.

What'd you get me, Jos Gideon?

I'm gonna talk to Mama tonight.

Obedience. Obedience coming, incoming tomorrow. See you then. Happy day.