They’re Giving Me a TRACTOR!

Yesterday the electrician bore underneath the road. No, okay, just let the belts out. Okay, nice.

I know that chicken's staying in.

All right, I'll lift up on this so you can shut that door. There you go. Did you put water and feed in there? There's feed, there's water. Okay, all right, we got the chicks in the coop. We put the chicks in night before last. Last night Jonah and I had to come out All the chicks were right there. They didn't go up. We caught them and put them in, so we're going to coop them up in the coop for a day and see if that helps us. But when you do that, you got to give them food and water. So they have their food and water in there, and then they'll be— they're just fine. There's one, Lily, if you want to catch it. There's two actually. They were hiding probably around this feeder. There you go, you got it cornered. It won't hurt you. Just— you missed it. There it is still. It's on the other side, Lily. There we go. Let's corner it down here. So there it is. Let's drag it up. It keeps going under the coop. Can you get it out from underneath the coop? I'm gonna have to put you guys down.

Got it.

Open this crate for me. Do me a favor, check on them this afternoon. Make sure they still have water and food, okay? All right. Heard all the chirping of the chicks, got me distracted. Back to the electrician project. It's gonna say problem. You could say either one of those. The line will go under the road And it comes out here. The boring company was here yesterday. But what about getting a line all the way to the barn and then to our house? Somehow they're gonna have to get from here underneath all the way to our house. How? Then on the other side of the street, from here all the way to the old barn. How? And to do it today or tomorrow, Thursday or Friday, because Sunday we're having our first community event. I should say like non-homestead community event. We've had a couple of homestead communities. I don't think they've ran, um, what they need to from the old barn to the shed. Shoot, I was going to cover that today. I want to get this unsightly ditch covered. We want to get dirt up to the concrete here on this side. We want to get this trash out here, get dirt up to the concrete on this side. Then we're gonna put these nice planters there filled with flowers and juniper. Jonas hung our photos. Look good. Cow right there. It's a little crooked. Flags are up. Looking good. I just love it. So we got a nice, nice farm photos there. Some pigs there, some sheep down there. That's nice. Well, I was hoping to get this project over with. Not gonna happen today. Jonah has done all the little animals except maybe— did he do the sea monsters? Maybe. Maybe. Okay, let's do this, Lily. I'm gonna try something, I don't know, a little something I've tried before in the past. Uh, maybe I'll be a little bit better about it again. Maybe we're just gonna do like this for the rest of my life. We'll see. One reason I was hoping to do that dirt project is I was actually going to make it a little bit harder on myself. I was going to use the tractor bucket to get most of the dirt in. But then to fill the tractor to the max, I was actually going to use a hand shovel. Getting these, uh, blood results. Also talking to Dr. Ken Berry, fellow YouTuber, met him at Homesteaders of America. It's not something to get concerned over now. Yeah, sure, we are going to get some, some more tests that will give us a better idea of what could be going on. I cert— no, hands down, no doubt, I have some serious inflammation. Are you gonna help me dig, Lily? Okay, well then there's a shovel for me. Let's get one for you. Whether it's something to be nervous about or not, it was kind of a wake-up call to me because usually it's Rebecca that's sick and having these serious meetings, but this time it was me. And it's kind of like, I'm 42, I'm not getting any younger. What all can I do that's not— well, that's natural and that's not invasive, and just to be in overall better health? Okay, we could maybe use a rake. This is kind of a short rake. Do you want this one? Oh sure. Okay, and then we have another rake. If I eat like the rest of the family, which is not unhealthy, you know, it's a little more starches. It's grain-free, but more starches that grain every once in a while. Honey or maple syrup, I swell. I mean, my body can't handle it. Um, it's unfortunate. I start gaining weight, and if I didn't check it, it would just— it would get out of control. If you're gonna help, we need your shovel. Grab the compost sifter. You getting your shovel, Mr. Brown? You didn't put it back?

Yeah, I put it back. Now it's not here.

Grab another shovel. I was listening to a Tim Ferriss podcast with Jerry Seinfeld, and he mentioned the, uh, just talking about success, and he mentioned the 12-Hour Body book, old school book apparently. And Jerry's like 65 now and looks like he's in the shape of his life. And so I'm like, oh, check out this book. I got the book and it's like, okay, intense weight training, bike, uh, stationary bike, But the idea is this high intensity. Do I have time for that? Do I have time to add another self-care thing? I'm already cold plunging, Epsom salt bathing, saunaing. I mean, am I going to be self-caring all day? Well, maybe if I can kill two birds with one stone, like push two kids in a wheelbarrow up this hill. Maybe I'm killing three birds with one stone, having fun with the chiddlers and getting work done on the farm. And I'm getting my heartbeat up. Yeah, that's for sure. That rooster's gonna get my heartbeat up. Get me it. Come on, really? You're walking through all the planters. Get off. You're done. I was talking to Ken about exercise ideas. He's like, wrestle a pig. Well, maybe we could chase the chickens. Maybe we could do a slow jog after the chickens till they finally give in. Or a hard sprint. Let the high-intensity farm training begin. We are now in Earth's gym. Instead of trying to make the work easier, not worrying about that, maybe even making it harder. Guys, break the wood, wood chips inside. That's first step. So maybe y'all are working right here, break all the wood chips to the side right here. Okay, I would have maybe started in a corner and we could have kind of worked one way, but this is one way to do it, isn't it? We'll just start right there in the middle. Hey, don't rake— don't— you've, you've cleared this. Don't rake wood chips into it. Rake those out the other way. I don't think he has any idea what we're doing. Okay, yeah, rake this stuff out of this one area right here. Let's put it in there, sift it through. Oh yeah. Whoa. We got us a big load of compost. Chicken's a new kind of area to explore.

He did all the chores, man.

I'm so proud of you guys.

Nelly, Nelly got him with said muffin. I mean, Polly got him with said muffin again.

I should have put a ramp up this. Yeah, Johnny, will you screw that in later again? Yeah, maybe find me a ramp. Yeah, that is made to be removed, but I don't want to remove it every time. Okay, I worked up a tiny sweat. I wish it was a little more. This next part I think is going to be the golden ticket. This is also a workout, setting this camera up, running to set the camera up, running to get back to the wheelbarrow. What a view! I can feel my heart beating in my head. We have done it. I am sweating on my head, on my back. That is supposedly— and doing that in the morning, supposedly you burn fat all day. Here's a weak spot in our pasture. Doesn't look like it out here because all this tall grass, but actually grass— when, when the soil is poor, grass goes to seed faster. I don't know, it's just its defense mechanism. Recreate, recreate, more seeds, more chances to have a, have a somebody behind me to continue the species. So we've got rocks and bare soil here. Let's dump our wheelbarrow right there, Jonah, and spread it out. Lily proclaimed, we're helping everything! We're helping the chickens, We're helping the cows, we're helping our bodies. This, this, guys, will forever be greener, even for your grandchildren, because of the workout we did today. I'm telling you, Earth Gym beats any old gold gym or workout place because you get so much for— we got to spend time together as a family, we helped the pastures, and we had our exercise in. I know this is begging the question. This is one teardrop in the work of my farm to cover my entire farm. This is— talk about 1% every day, talk about 0.001% change. But what would happen if we did nothing? I mean, one little drop every day for the rest of my life could overflow that 55-gallon barrel, and then my kids we'll have a barrel full of blessings instead of nothing. The problem is over at the people barn, they've turned off the electricity to our Mac Daddy Energizer. That could be why Polly keeps busting that fence.

No, a subwoofer tried to mate her from across the fence.

But okay, that's not good. We have to fix this situation.

I already turned it on.

On? Is that working now?

Yes.

Okay, so you took a solar Energizer out there? Okay, well, let's test it. I told Rebecca I might have gotten the side-by-side 15, but we were using a cart and wheelbarrow for all this. So nothing wrong with the side-by-side. I mean, we're going way out there, something we wouldn't have been able to do. Moving mobile milking unit can't do it without a side-by-side, but we don't have to do absolutely everything. It's better on the pastures to not compact it. Yeah, I think our grass is actually getting too tall. So let's make sure we mow behind them. And Lily, it'll be a while before we get to that other half of the field this time of the year. Let's mow that half of the field and they'll have time to recover before we get there. So you have tall grass over here about like this seeded. Oh, they would just crush it in here. They would just love it. Ice cream grass. So this is ice cream grass. What would that make this? Boiled vegetable grass. Paulie and Stud— I think she's in heat. Stud Muffin's after her. We don't want him hurting her trying to mate her. We have two options. We could put them with the pigs in the pole barn, and it would just be her with pigs, and she could eat the hay, and we put a waterer in there. But the pigs will probably wallow in that, get that all messy. I just thought of that. What about putting them in with the luchadors? Her? Yeah, because she can have green grass every day. Do I like it? Yeah, I like it. You guys like that idea?

Yes.

Okay, the only thing about it is sometimes we haven't been moving the luchadors twice. We always move them once, but with, with Polly in there— you guys listening? Yeah, we need to move them twice. There's plenty of grass, it's spring. I think that's doable. Oh, I got the Polly! There's minerals. Oh, here. Oh, you got Polly? Yeah. All right, go put her down with the luchadors. Look who they are. Nice little parking job off the side of the road. Well, this is a beautiful sight, the chickens over here. So nice. Yeah, look, we got a situation. Stud's over there next to Polly. I think this would be okay if we had our regular Energizer, our Mac Daddy I Love the Grid Energizer, but the electricians have it off for some reason. We've got a little solar Energizerizer on it somewhere, but this many nets, there's no way it's It's hitting hard. Let's maybe get Polly down anyway, just for a few days at least, while she's maybe in heat. Polly got in here too. Look, she got to her mama, so we don't— there's no need milking Flossy. I meant to say Maple. Little Maple got in, and I'm sure she's nursed, so there'll be no milk. Phyllis, we can team up on you. The boys are saying they're gonna take Polly down while we milk, because I mean We only got to milk one cow. Erin and I can handle that. I was gonna film it. Do you think you guys can film it? Probably. So it's gonna be super interesting. Are you gonna be able to catch her?

Yeah, she's so in love, she won't even see us.

Oh, she's in love too, huh?

Yeah.

Yeah, 6 months they can come in heat. She's about 7.

Do you see her eyes though?

Yeah, look, she wants him. That's why she was bellowing yesterday. Yeah, they're like a giraffe. Aroon's getting them on. Yeah, she's gonna let you catch her easy. Grab her collar first.

She'll drag me with it though.

Well, I'll help you. Just grab her collar. All right, I got her collar. Oh yeah, yeah, watch out for the horns. She won't hurt you on purpose. Maybe on accident. There they are. Sometimes the horns are good grips.

Sometimes? All the time.

Okay, y'all going that way with her?

Come on, get it, Josiah.

Quick, Josiah, you did a good job putting the calf up. Uh, Grandma is cream separating. We have about 5 gallons this, this, this week. And then I'm making some yogurt. We're gonna work on getting this up to 105. We've mixed in our starter, which is just yogurt. Third a cup of yogurt for every half a gallon of milk. We're almost there, 97. Mom's gonna go to the chiropractor. We've been going every day this week, haven't we? Yeah, this is not like us. Normally we stay home for weeks. Now I'm going to use the dehydrator, not to dehydrate it, but just to keep it at 105. We cover it with this towel. It's dark. 8 hours. Grandma's pouring the milk into the cream separator. We're gonna do this one more, and we go 8 hours and then leave it. Like, this will be done this evening. I accidentally left it one time and just let it sit overnight, and I've been getting the creamiest finest, smoothest yogurt I've ever had. It's been delish. An animal-based guy, this is like a dessert, having a cold yogurt. It's a different texture than meat. Put a little bit of fruit in it and that's, that's like a dessert for me. Look at you guys, what do you guys got going? Lily got her farm toys, farm animals. This is a barn that you've built out of scrap wood. That's the funnest. Okay, give me a tour, Lily.

And then here's this, um, cow pen. Here's the horses.

Nice.

And then here's the sheep pen with the donkey.

You gotta like it.

And then here's the dog, pig, and then here's the dog.

Oh, you got a duck? And then there's the pigs. What are the pigs doing out here?

Tilling.

Ah, I like it. It does look like they've tilled it up there. That's cool. Good job. Randolph's nearing the end of the people barn. We salvaged some of that old wood and we got us a good door on there, custom fit, looks good. He's also put us a shelf in here to get organized. Hey, did you get our Energizer going? Yeah, yeah, we got that part back up. Okay, thank you. The next thing is she wants a shelf in here for like a coffee maker. I think just to like make use of this kind of now dead space. I kind of maybe wonder if we should just keep it a shelf one, and then we could like do a light here or something, because sometimes we're gonna film in here and that's going to be a backdrop. Rebecca got back. Let's just ask her about that shelf. Y'all are back. We are. Little Henry, how's he doing?

He is good.

He was upset to be in the car seat. He didn't want to be away from Mama. Yeah, hard when you can't have you sitting back there with me. Josiah, you didn't drive Mom. Come on now, you're not gonna be a gentleman and drive your mom? He would if he could. Rebecca, in here, the shelf. Yeah, I was thinking enough to leave like an area for like a salt lamp or something for background to filming, but what do you have in mind in there?

I was in here. Yeah, well, we gotta move this couch. That's the part. Oh, this is why I didn't want the couch here.

Jonah wanted the couch.

Yeah, but the couch is so good there.

But why don't we just shift it over there?

Mom made a good point. If we want— if we're gonna have a, like, a coffee thing there or something, you want to get this couch out of the way. Yeah, that looks good, Jonah. We might push it down a little more, give it a little more walking room. What do you think? Oh no, it's good there because you want it to be in the back. For when we watch a movie, the mamas can— nursing and pregnant mamas can be back here. The kids are taking some hot dogs on the— for lunch on the porch. I'm heating up Rebecca's leftover Indian. I'm eating nothing. Uh, third day of OMAD, one meal a day. It's just cooler to call it OMAD. Excuse me, we have the fan on. The kids burned it up when they did their hot dogs. Good for them. Burn It Up Cooking Show Kid Edition. I had a guy email me today who's a vet. Just put this bit Let's put this back. He emailed me today. He's a vet. He said he's been doing OMAD for like 60 days and he's already lost— like, he was heavier and he lost like over 50 pounds. That's crazy. I've already lost a couple. It's just been 3, 3 days. Yes, cooking this Indian is tempting, but we also have this Indian chicken left over. And so what I say to myself is I can eat that, eat that at supper all I want and mix it with whatever supper is, which is going to be Greek lamb. And I'm telling you, food has never tasted so good. That's another good thing about this. So when a mostly meat diet was getting kind of boring— it's not boring when you haven't eaten in 23 hours. There's not much food that is boring If you haven't eaten in 23 hours. Rebecca, I know you're nursing, you might have a minute. This is very hot, but maybe you want it when it's hot. If I'm losing weight, that means my inflammation is down. So that, that's kind of— isn't that a good marker for it, Rebecca? So it's doing something. Hey, happy boy! He's about to teeth— teethe any day already.

He's, uh, starting to drool a lot.

Yeah, that's fine.

What's going on in there?

This is another convenient thing, Rebecca. You get to eat and I get to hold the baby. I'm about to take Mama to get some plants. We've got some plants to get out for the, uh, for the people barn, and it's just easier if I go and she can tend to Henry in the back. Yeah, they've laid some eggs out here. I figured— I've talked with Jonah about these chicks. I mean, we're gonna have to open it up at some point to let the mamas in for this evening, so he's thinking let's just open it up now and maybe coop them up till— Jonah, do you think that'll work? Cooping them up till 2? Yeah, has shown them that's where home is and they'll come back. Okay, let's put that back in there with the food and let it be optional, and then maybe that'll draw them back. So maybe we're showing them, hey, food and water is in there and they'll be more likely to come back. Oh yeah, look, they were thirsty. Can you set it up somewhere nice so it doesn't get knocked over?

Yeah.

I've got Henry. Baby Henry, you see the chickens? Beck, we're about to go to your happy place. I know, right? I figured I'd want to go with you, see your smiling face. We are here at Linda's. The plant shop is there, but we got a nurse. Rebecca's got a nurse. You're like, let's get some vitamin D. And the view though. Well, is he not nursing? No. What, do you want to do this sunbathing after? Oh gosh, stay with me, guys. All right, come back, come back. Everybody okay? We could sit out here, do some bathing after. We'll nurse him real good.

Do you want to carry him or do you want to put him in the stroller?

Well, how long are you going to be?

I don't know.

It's a plant store. She's gonna be a long time. I'm not.

Let's look at the time and see how good time.

I'll carry them if it's not gonna take forever. What's 2:35? An hour.

Okay, it's not gonna take an hour. Okay.

All right, there are witnesses. 2:30, 2:35. Man, I got a Suburban load of plants and whatnot here in like 20 minutes. I can Pots, everything.

I know what I'm getting.

Now we're shopping for the plant in front of the people barn. It's hard, there's a lot of good plants. Uh, I think we're getting our sun though, Beck. Since we are outside a lot. Come here, buddy. It's all right, it's all right. We fit it all in, Beck. Let's see that smile.

I know, this is just what we need.

We are back home. Here's what's going to happen. These flowers are going to go in this little one. I hope they'll fit. That's kind of small. I think we'll be able to jam it in there. And then this juniper-ish tree— it's not a juniper tree, but it's like it— we'll go in this, this big pot. Those will put dirt right here, and we'll go to either side of our entrance right here for the people barn. Randolph's hanging our light. He's gotten done with our shelf over here. It looks good. Counter size. Mom finished her duty in the kitchen. Uh, she's checking the vlog. Oh, I should tell you that I talked to my agent. I was like, can we tell you guys yet? Because this is like happening next week probably. This is like happening early next week. I got it. I mean, I hesitate to tell you because we haven't signed the contract yet, but like, I was on the phone with the insurance agent and I actually haven't approved the insurance cost, but I'm pretty sure it's going to be very reasonable for the value that we're going to get from this deal. Give me one second to get this lamb, make sure this is frying good. And you're working with like a big company and big stuff. It kind of— I'll show you a picture of what it is. It just doesn't— it takes a long time. This is something we've been working on months. Not like we work full-time on it, no way. It's just a few phone calls, reviewing contracts, revising them. And should I show you guys? Like, I can't believe this. Like, thanks to my agent for lining this up. This is crazy. I can't believe I'm showing you this. This means it's actually gonna happen, like our Cummins generator happened. Boom! Know what that is? Well, if I were to buy a tractor, it would be a Kubota, but I don't have to. They're that cool. They, you know, to get some awareness, they're giving us one. I got to pick it out. This is the— this is like Justin's choice right here, okay? Because you know our tractor, Lucky, Lucky. We'll keep it for nostalgia, but we named it Lucky for a reason. We don't know when for sure it will start. And they didn't just stop with the tractor. I mean, there's all kinds of implements coming. Like, we're gonna be— we're gonna be able to unload our feed. Like, they're giving me fork attachments so we can unload 2,000 pounds of feed, no problem. And this The diesel utility vehicle. The diesel. I like diesel because we run diesel in our generator and our tractor, and we have diesel on farm. One less reason— one more reason not to leave the homestead. Thank you, Kubota. So I asked my agent, can we like start sharing this even though we don't have the contract? Because then you guys aren't in shock when I have this amazing video. It's gonna be like I'll name it something like, Kubota gave us this tractor and this is what we're gonna do with it. And it'll be kind of like that Kubota tractor is going to be coming down this road. So Lord willing and the creek don't rise, next week you may have noticed the boys have got Kubota shirts on. Yeah, so thanks to Kubota. I mean, they sent us their shirts. Good. 54, 53. I said I would do anything, right? Close 55 degrees for 3 minutes every day. Polly, she's not so happy about being in with the luchadors. You guys remember this? Kind folks at Homesteaders of America sent us this tree in honor of my late dad Boots. It's doing well. It's been protected. Mulch is holding up. That maple tree is growing well. Jona, did you get me the sheet? Luchadores? Yeah, thanks. Well, she's getting— the goose is getting broody on those chicken eggs. Well, most of them didn't go in. Did one go in, Jona?

Yes, one.

I'll be happy if one went in. Are you serious? One?

It's gonna take like 60 days to get them all.

Yeah, at this rate, this can be totally expected. I have to gather the chicks for a few days, train them, and if it keeps on going on like this We might have to do something drastic like coop them up for a few days. Don't want them getting under that coop. All right, we got them in there. That's a wrap.