this Backfired

Woke up late this morning. We were so tired from the night before getting that pony. It was like midnight before we got into bed. I woke you up last night to see the pony, but you said you were coming. It's funny, I went to sleep on New Year's Eve. New Year's Day, not intentionally, stayed up till midnight. I for one was excited to see the pony in daylight. I know Lily was. They didn't deliver that new pony till about 11:30. You're ready to get out here, I'm sure. He seems very calm. While I did my morning training, Lily went down and checked on the pony.

Hey everybody, today I'm going to show you my morning routine with 2 ponies. So what I'm doing right now is getting this grain soaked. Whole scoop of feed for Shadow. I'm gonna add a little bit of stress relief. Now with other feed Soaks. I'm gonna carry this. He's a little bit excited for breakfast. Meanwhile, I am going to get the pasture stuff ready for the ponies because I'm gonna turn them out to their turnout and start on his little turnout right there so that him and Peaches can sniff through the fence. And here is Star or Peachy or Shadow, whatever we're gonna name. And they're just sniffing through the fence.

Hey, I see they found the pony cart. We are going to check on the new pony with the master herself. How's he doing this morning?

He's a little bit shy, but that's normal for a new horse.

How are they getting along?

Pretty good. I mean, there has been a little bit of nipping, which is normal for boy horses.

Are you calmer now that you have a buddy? Just to see how he does when you saddle him up. See if he's calmer. So what are you gonna name this guy?

Star.

Star! Got a nice coat. So what's the plan for today with him? What are we gonna do with him?

I was thinking maybe I'll walk him around.

Mm-hmm.

And then I would, um, well, I would put him with Peaches at like 10 o'clock when it was like sunny. Well, I first take off his horse blanket.

Okay.

And then I'll take him for a walk at like the afternoon, and then I'll bring him up and And then I'll tack up Peaches and take Peaches for a ride.

You think you can put a seat on that wagon they got us? And 2 new wheels. Well, maybe that's the project today.

Well, the wheels are full of water and it froze.

Ah, and we need a harness for it. And then a 9 o'clock meeting with my co-author for Homestead Build. Hey, my man. Hey, Justin. How's it going? First task with Chris: find a measuring tape. Chris was happening to be driving through. He's not from here. But we had to take advantage of this opportunity. I have all these amazing homestead builds that I've designed over, over a decade. We came to the point of perfection. Well, so I thought. And then I got Chris involved, who's an engineer, carpenter, co-author of Polyface Designs, and he's done a great job at just tidying up the loose ends of these designs, making them better, smoother, easier to build. So today we're actually looking at many of the projects that's coming in book 2. The big animal stuff. Chris, what do you think? Okay, we've talked about this before. I think we've perfected the milk sled though. Chris is thinking we can go a little shorter on this, stabilize it. He had a brilliant idea about this mineral feeder. How about we drag it behind? Getting close to perfection here. One of my gripes is you can't really hang a feed pan. Rafters are too close together and you can't just squeeze a feed pan in there. Until next time. Pig port impression of the pig port, Chris. I like it. I'm using it as a compost corner. Pigs making compost. Chris, you know what he saw at first? Pig tractor. Put it there, let the pigs work it, put some mulch on it, move it on, go to the next garden spot. After that meeting, sun was up. Lily is busting at me to get, get out of that. She wants to introduce the pony to— watch it, watch it, Airsoft Boy— the pony to Peaches How's it gonna go? First, we're gonna introduce these horses together.

Yes, they've been next to a paddock together, so I think it'll be okay.

What's this?

It's a license plate for Blaze. PJ's has one, but he doesn't.

Blaze! First it was Shadow, then it was Star.

Well, I thought he had Blaze. I thought he had Star on his side.

Yeah, that's right. Okay, they're doing just fine. It actually went really good. Couldn't have gone any better. It actually went too good. You'll see why later in the story. That's kind of anticlimactic, wasn't it? Peach just seems overall more calm. Then probably the highlight of the day— wasn't that amazing, Rebecca? Farm fresh food, the whole family. Oh yeah, how did that happen? Cooking.

So fun.

Normally we just have one cook, but everybody jumped in and it was so sweet. And we homegrown it together, we home cooked it. All hands on deck for Best show lunch. It's that little purple cabbage to our green cabbage. Yeah, cut out the heart. Henry, I need you to cut up some— cut all that up. Okay, it's a family affair getting ready for our guests. I just love it, I just love it. This is nice. About to eat. Look at this plate. I want to see you take a bite of that bacon, y'all. Do you guys eat pork? Because you'd be screwed if you didn't eat pork.

Amazing. You can't eat anything really.

We use lard in the—

we use bacon grease in the Potatoes. This is what it's all about right here. This is why we were out there in the 20 degrees with our hands freezing making measurements of those. Chris said— did you hear him say, 'This is what it's all about'? Yeah. And think about that plate, Rebecca. That is what it's all about. But I would dare to say it's just part of it. The process takes up the majority of it, you know, getting the food there, cooking. You got to enjoy the process of growing the food, but then you got to enjoy the process of cooking. I hate cooking. Do you like Do you like cooking?

Yeah, I like cooking.

You hate cooking in this kitchen.

I don't like this kitchen.

She wants her big kitchen back. That made it different when everybody did it together. That wasn't so toilsome. In the afternoon, Chris had to measure some things and I had some phone calls. Rebecca met with his lovely fiancée, Erin.

Yes.

And I came in at one point and they were talking babies. And births, and I was like, I gotta go get my thing. And then Chris was coming up the hill. Chris was coming up the hill right there, and I said— he said he's done. And I said, Chris, you might not want to go in there. They're talking about birth and babies. And he's like, I think I'll go with you. Where are you going? Wherever you're going. We're going to check on the horse. Lily's riding Peaches. What's going on? I'm walking until I get Boy said he's giving you a hard time riding him.

Yeah.

Oh man, I thought he was gonna calm down after we got a buddy for him. A strange thing happened as Lily started to ride Peaches. It did not go so well. Bad is maybe really strong, but it— yeah, it kind of went bad, but not bad bad. All right, let's try again. I think you wore him out enough to get on now, so we'll just show him we're not done. Yeah, look. All right, why don't you get down, Lily, until we talk to Leslie? That didn't make him better, made him worse. Gonna call it for today? Yeah. Okay, you just went in when your buddy's already gone. Hey Chris, I gotta go, got a live show. You're gonna have to go drag Aaron out of there. They're talking babies, so it might be a minute. Births and babies, there's an order to things. After all that, Rebecca's going to the grocery store. I decided to go with her. I mean, grocery store is mundane. Unless you take a buddy. It's kind of like, Rebecca, it's our weekly date.

It's a date.

I'm gonna miss that when we quit the grocery store.

I won't miss it.

Weekly grocery store haul. Hopefully gonna be less and less of that, my dar.

We have 5 kids that keep eating, so I don't know. We're gonna grow it.

We're gonna grow it. We're gonna shop the grocery store. We're gonna shop seasonal. These are things we could have and will have on our farm next year. Spaghetti squash. Had spaghetti squash in lieu of noodles last week. It was actually really good.

I wanted to eat it.

Bananas. I guess it's a cheat. We ain't growing those in North Carolina ever.

Well, Henry doesn't understand.

I don't think this is gonna replace the spaghetti noodles anytime soon, is it?

I just buy it so that when we want it—

Yeah, I get it. Special. 2024 though, the kids are going spaghetti squash with us. Yeah, I'm so excited about 2024 and growing what we eat and eating what we grow. I decided I'm going to become a coffee I'm like a chocolate snob. If it ain't 85% or more, it ain't chocolate. Gotta be organic. Let's make sure it doesn't have anything silly in it like soy. Total Eclipse, 92%. Oh, 85%. 100%. $336 later. After the grocery store, we get in the car and Rebecca checks her phone. She gasps.

I just got the email from the doctor and it was a false positive.

Wait, so our other blood test came back—

The GS DNA came back normal.

Oh my gosh. I know.

I'm so happy.

I don't have another dang thing.

I could literally cry. I am so happy. I was so happy.

Now I'm just dealing with the co-infections, the Bartonella. Yeah. Bartonella co-infections of Lyme.

Even if it was positive, right? It still doesn't change the fact that whatever you're doing is really doing well with it because like, sure, you have problems, but You're, you're doing really well with it.

It's a team effort putting the groceries away. Lily, we talked to Miss Leslie a little bit. She thinks it's just a kid on Christmas with his new buddy. He'll calm down, but we'll see tomorrow. We'll have her look at her tomorrow. Okay, yeah, show them your little hack here. Okay, so you've already cooked up and fried her pork chops.

Fry the pork chops and you get them nice and brown on the outside, and then you take a container of sour cream. I like to take the pan off because it just is less intense, but then you just stir in all the drippings that happened in the pork chops and you make a gravy, and it is the best gravy in the world.

We're just regular porketarians tonight. I'm gonna clean up some pork chop bones. Oh, I forgot about the gravy. How's it—

it's so good.

Everything you dreamt?

Everything and more.

Where's your collars?

I already ate them.

Oh nice.

Yeah, I ate my vegetable first.

Veggie bell.

And then my meat and then my starch.

You're so proper. Happy day tomorrow, seeing what Miss Leslie thinks about that pony. I know. See if we can't get Peaches calmed down. Get Peaches shooed. This is becoming like a horse channel. It is winter, there's not a whole lot of horses.

Well, it's what our child is interested in.