This Can’t Wait

I hate this. We are one week away from butchering sea monsters, and this cannot wait. For the first time ever, we're gonna have two sea monsters out in the field at the same time. Let's buy us some time in here. Wow, come on! No, no, there's no question these guys have to get out of here. No way they're gonna last another week.

Come on!

Usually we butcher the first batch of sea monsters and we time it so that the chicks come out that same day, but somehow we got— I don't know, it's not timed right. It's a week off.

Good morning, the sun is up. I got caught inside. One thing about this is that you want to be outside, but also we have responsibilities inside. It is hard, it's hard to manage that because If I don't get the laundry going, I can't be switching it like, you know, when I come in, and it's— you've just got to keep it going. So there's just some things that you got to do inside before you come outside. I did not beat the sun. I was hoping to beat the sun, but alas, I did not, and that is okay. I want to talk about rhythms in homesteading. It's hard because every season has its own rhythm, but then like right now, our rhythm is we've got to get outside because it's so hot right now. But that's only for like this week and then it's gonna go back to different, you know what I mean? So always tweaking and thinking and all of that about how. It's a lot. It's a lot. It's not bad. It's just a lot and that's okay. So today I'm gonna have to put my shoes on because I'm gonna go down into the little greenhouse and get some stuff. I thought, well, let's try a dress today and see if that helps it not be so hot. I have a feeling it's not gonna help. I don't think anything can help. I think it's just very hot. Um, people in hotter places are probably like, you think that's hot? Well, I'm gonna grab my primers that are right here. I think today is supposed to be warm, like less It's hot. I think it's supposed to be better. Man, that garden's looking good out there. This garden's looking good. Trying hard not to feel behind, but we do, so it's June. We do have until October before our first frost. So we still do have quite a bit of time. All of July, all of August, all of September. Still do have quite a bit of time. It just feels like we don't. Wow, to think about that, think about it like that.

Tell me they have to go out.

Yes.

That's gross.

It is disgusting.

They have to go out.

Yes, they have to go out. That's embarrassing. You know, sometimes guys, things don't line up and I miscalculated. I thought I was doing 3 weeks in between, but I really only did 2. So it's been a bit of a struggle. Well, I see some of my stuff is wilted in here. That's no bueno.

Oh my word, it's like 20 minutes till the sun hits here. Come on, come on. Always almost there. Come on, you've been up since 5:30. We gotta move these guys over. There's 3 days inside of that net they've been in. 3 days. Then we move it over. So that's the first thing that we got to do before we even think about getting the other guys out. I feel like these guys are running out of food overnight. I think that's okay because they're looking pretty big and they need to go another week. Uh, one thing we can do to lure them over is we'll go ahead and feed them over here, and they're hungry, so they'll want to move. Thankfully, we did not let them let out of water. We have 3 waters 2 5-gallons and a 3-gallon. Rest of the net. All right, we got those guys moved. 3 days in here and 3 more days. I think that's it. So 2 more net moves. That behind me, we're ready to set up a new system. Oh, why didn't we time that right? You don't have to set up a new system when you time that right. They'll have their water that they have in the brooder, plus we'll give them this one. One king feeder might be okay for a week. This is part of the problem. We don't have this many supplies for two systems. We're gonna have Jonah vent the greenhouse. Josiah, once he gets this off, you curl it up. Remember how we curl it up?

So we've got the greenhouse vented now. It should have been vented a while ago. We actually need to do a completely new greenhouse. This greenhouse, um, the person who made the plans lives in Alaska, and while that probably works great in Alaska, in the South it doesn't really work. I added these vents. It needs more. What I want to do is have straight sides go up and then just like a flat roof that's angled, and then just like open the sides basically completely. I am probably just gonna go to the store and buy some flowers because I want flowers in my life and not having flowers makes me sad. So I was able to save some. I watered a bunch. I have some of these too. Those are okay. And I have some of the sunflowers and I still have a little bit of calendula. And I saved these and I really watered them well. And I'm going to see— I don't think any of these are coming back. That's really sad. Um, I don't think any of those are coming back. This is what happens when— I know, I just, I can't explain the feeling of this year. It's like it was like so cold for so long. It was like it was 55 degrees the day after Memorial Day, and then it's like 95 degrees. So So it just kind of like, it went from like feeling like we had a lot of time to like, oh, you don't have any time. So I don't know, I'm just feeling overwhelmed with it all. Um, I'm gonna come up to the garden and I'm gonna plant. So I've got these, that dill, I'm gonna plant that. I'm gonna get that planted and then I need to get this lettuce out of here too.

Where do I put this other one? If I at least put it next to this, we can run two fences off of one energizing system. We could go right here. Yeah, we bet it's best practice to give them shelter, at least from aerial protection, aerial predators. He does have a point. If we kept the weeds, they'd have shade. Well, they'd have hiding too, wouldn't they? But they're especially vulnerable when they're little like that. The other choice is over here, but we're gonna quickly run out of space down through there. When these guys go in a week, they can come into it. We decided to go on this side of them. We do need to string trim that. Chickens don't like big tall grass. Hey, that looks better, Beck. Does it feel better in there?

I mean, a little bit, but I don't think it's gonna bring plants back.

I feel badly. I think I forgot to water those plants yesterday because we didn't have those flaps up. It gets really hot in there. I think yesterday was the hottest day of our year. Big mistake. I kind of think they'll come back, but she doesn't think they'll come back. Where's the key? Oh, where's the key, boys? Key's gone. It's gonna finish filling in around the pole barn today and getting the last of the rubble out of the pasture from the hurricane. It's a big day. It just so happens the side-by-side keys work for the mower. We decided the mower would be easier than the string trimmer.

Big hose, ran it over, broke it.

We're gonna have to pick it back. Plot mode. Let's, let's start this net, guys, down there and build it this way. That way we can connect to this and we'll start as far back as we can there, leaving enough, a lot of room to keep going this way.

While I was watering these things, so these are these little cucumbers that I bought. Saw some really big ones over here. Like, is that not the cutest cucumber ever? Henry likes them. I think they're called Quirks, and I got, there's seeds at Johnny Seeds. Gonna try my hand at pickling them. We'll see. We shall see. There's my cucumber score along with this over here. I've given everything a really good water. I will say, I don't know what time it is, but it doesn't feel too hot out here, which is nice. Um, it doesn't feel overwhelming, you know. I had meant for something different to happen here, but that's okay. That's what happened. I think we're good. I think we're good out here. Now I need to do the lettuce. I'm gonna see if this lettuce is bitter. I'm gonna take a test, a taste test of it and see. All right, let's try this lettuce. This lettuce is good. It might have had a slight bitter— I think the romaine is better. Darn it.

Oh my word, where'd the tire go? The tire is off the rim. So glad I made the sheep shaw and the meat shaw the same thing. Multi-purpose everything. The only difference what's happening here is this mineral feeder. For those who want to convert this meat shaw into the sheep shaw, you just add a couple of 2x4s, a frame around some mineral feeders, and you have a sheep shaw. That's good because you only use this meat shaw 5 weeks out of the year if you're only doing one batch. It could serve as a pig shaw, turkey shaw. You could run turkeys under this. We've had layer hens under this in a pinch. That got me serious. Okay, let's get— we got to fix the water line, but we have some water here. It drained because I didn't put the nipple downhill and it was just leaking out. They should have some. Let's go get them. Let's go get the sea monsters. All right, get it down.

Whatever I said about it being not as hot today, I lied. It's hot. All right, bud. That little squash. You want to do what? That little squash that's ready. The little what that's ready? Oh, the little squash that's ready. Get it. Oh, I got some little cucumbers. It's a big one. Chin up. Tiny. Why, they are tiny compared to what the other cucumbers are. You like the little— you like the little cucumbers? So these are the big bells. Yeah, this one is— this one is wider. This one is like the awful one. Yep. I'm gonna get the lettuce over there. I've pulled any lettuce that was there, and I've got the lettuce here. And then I'll get these, um, green onions in as well. So yeah, we are rocking and rolling.

Best day ever for these guys. Two cuts. I put on two Band-Aids and gloves because we've had to cancel our Fourth of July party the last two years in a row.

It's terrible. It's every year it's been a bigger and bigger deal, and then I have planted them in here. So you can see they're getting shade right now, but they're getting some sun. But then once the sun moves up, this will be shaded, which is perfect. Um, so obviously they need to get some sun for growth but we don't want too much sun because— and heat also. The heat will also cause it to bolt. So it's not so much the sun, it's the direct heat. Um, so yeah, so we're doing that. I am— oh, I'm just walking here, just walking this way. I'm gonna kill this squash bug that's right here. He like knows I'm here. He's hiding. He's literally hiding. So there we go. I'm gonna get some grass clippings to put around the, um, the thing, whatever you call it, the lattice. I'm gonna put this around here, and then I'm gonna water again. Just to kind of help it.

Spotter, get in, help her over. There you go, be a good gentleman. That's how you repay him for helping you. That is a happy day for them. And these guys are lucky, they're on grass. We tied our two fences together. We only need one Energizer. Got the two-man. I am dripping sweat. Rebecca and I are not saunaing anymore because we figured we'd get our sauna session in the morning. All right, let's turn this water on. Let's find this hole and fix it. I accidentally ran over the hose with the mower. That's all we lack, filling these waters up. There it is. That was easy. All right, turn it off. We cut the bad spot off, we put a half-inch barb in there, hose clamps, and we're good. That's good because these hoses are not cheap. They're Garden Right hoses, lead-free, stainless steel tips, kink-free.

I came inside to just check and see what's happening in Raleigh today. It's like they might be trying to do something to slip it in somewhere, which is very frustrating because 84% of North Carolinians don't want this. We're just going to go and email the whole house and let them know we don't want this. It's super frustrating. I, I'm assuming other people feel the same way, that there's just so much to do. Like, for instance, I need to run to the store to get a couple of things that, like, Azure doesn't sell, that you can't get anywhere else. I need to do that. Um, I wanted to go to the farmer's market and check that out and kind of just see what they have. I need to finish the garden. Um, I need to fold and put laundry away. I probably need to get my— I need to call call and get an appointment for my dryer because it seems like it's taking just a little too long to dry everything. I need to go by the tag office. Like, there's just so many things. I need to make sauerkraut with the cabbage.

I need—

oh, I need to do this. I need to turn on the water in the high tunnel because one row didn't— got turned off, and I need to— that's the row that needs to be watered the most. So anyways, um, there's just a lot to be done and and it can be overwhelming. I just wanted to say that. I see you if you're overwhelmed.

On to the next problem. Luna's not been getting in her trailer. She's got to go to the training tomorrow, so we thought we'd train her today. Somebody at Lily's horse show taught us how to do it. You're gonna go in with authority and not look back, because I guess when you look back, you're telling the horse to stop. You're gonna go in, okay? See if she goes in without me having to use the lunge whip. Okay, 2 more times. I'm really nervous about this. I hope I wasn't coming to this. I'm not a horse guy. All right, we'll try it.

Put it behind her.

Don't look at her.

Oh, but you're not supposed to go behind her, you're supposed to go in front. A sideways.

We did it, Lily! Just had to snap her once with this and then could herd her in with it. I like it. We did it. Just let her sit in there for 5 minutes. We let her out and see, she's associating this trailer with going away from Blaze, going to a new place. Let's just let her associate it with, hey, that wasn't so bad. She was such a good girl. I think I just have to herd her with this thing. I'm cowboy. Man, that's a rush. I'm used to handling chickens, it's old news. It's new handling a horse, and we did it. I wasn't sure I could.

I'm just gonna stick them in real quick and water them, water them good, and then be done. Well, I need to check those flowers and then I'll be done. Oops, put the dirt on things. I'm gonna be watching the representatives— House of Representatives at 11 to see what they're doing on this pesticide immunity stuff. And then hopefully I'm gonna be getting some things done that I need to get done in the house. We're gonna have like a spaghetti, so this will be good. A good, uh, accompaniment to it. Oh, maybe some of the zinnias— maybe some of the zinnias came back. This one looks like it's gonna make it. Is that one gonna make it? A couple of them I really wanted to plant, but man, it has gotten just too scorching.

We got pork from the land. Super bum though, we're gonna have spaghetti and we just ran out of tomato sauce. We almost made it a year. We scrounged up some old boughten stuff. We're what, 3 weeks away from having our own tomato sauce again? What we do have is zucchini. We've sliced them and put them on these drying racks and baked them and they've dried out. In lieu of tomato sauce, although we did find a half a jar.

I did ricotta cheese and egg, one egg. The problem is, is I needed more ricotta.

Yeah, I did.

This is all I had.

So we're making this. We didn't have arrowroot to make pão de queijo bread, so we're just doing without. We're doing zucchini. We're making lasagna, which is lower carb anyway. That's good, and it's from the farm. Oh my word, you're putting mozzarella on it too. And Parmesan's coming.

Yeah. Wow.

Mom made a Caesar salad. The lasagna looks great. Ooh, everybody likes it. Everybody's on the low-carb lunch.

Caesar salad's a family favorite.

Mmm. You like it? Ah, that's it. Looks like we're gonna need to maybe get the waters up, guys, because— and filled up because there's a storm coming this evening. Happy day.