TOO HOT! My 10 Acre Plan for Water in Every Pasture

Rebecca, I'm so amazed. Your peas just grow overnight. Yeah, and look, look at your lettuce. Your lettuce is ready.

I know.

And your cucumber's doing good, about to shade it just in time.

And my zucchini's looking good.

It's recovered. It kind of struggled at first.

Well, no. So what's happened is there's another zucchini right next to it, I think, that's taking over.

Are they sweet? They're good.

I tried to eat this shell. I don't like it.

I do like the peas. I wonder if this would work. We could try a bungee, and this might work. All these probably just for trial. Oh wait, we have another one of these.

Wow.

Oh shoot, there's a chicken out. Will you guys go please catch that chicken? I'll start opening this up for us. The boys got the chicken up. We got— we're getting nets up. Look though, they did it! They did it! It's a combination. It's June, fly larva is finally— flies are finally active, I guess, through the night and stuff. Look, look how they spread this. Let's spread this. We cut their ration. Boom! Explosion! Thank you, chickens. They've eaten the fly larva off of the cows and spread that nutrients, spread the fertilizer. This is a cow pie. This is an old cow pot. The cows don't eat it first round, and it's super concentrated. See how much greener it is there? If it's spread out, it's going to be a bigger, greener area. But I don't see it— well, see, the chickens haven't come out here. That's why I'm thinking we need more chickens. These chickens have passed the test. They've proven to stay in a sheep net. Sheep were just here yesterday. The cows the day before. I think we're ready. We want to find a better way to pull this thing. We can actually walk these guys, walk from here, you know, down past our house and into the next pasture. It's downhill. It's not always that way. And we've gotten in the habit of picking up their net after they're done. They're still in the coop in the morning before it's hot to get some of those chores done. And we've just come back with Sally in the afternoon to pick up the nets. But what if we could pick up the nets, put them in Sally, and move the coop all at the same time? I am happy that this is working because it's like a 30-minute process to move these nets. Might as well put another species through it, right? And now also on the land, cows, sheep, and chickens all on one spot. Of land. No more land required. I had a long-term thought. What if the handles, like on the turkey shaw, came straight out and they were lower, and then you had a board going across that you could amount the hitch to? You could also have the handle, but you'd also have a board, and so you could have the choice. Did that get it up enough? It would only get it up 4 inches. Yeah, let's try it. Well, can we just do it? So there we have these tied on there. Maybe we could do a better way if that's gonna work, but like, is it gonna work? Because that makes it what, 3, 4 inches from the ground? Let's load the nets. We can load the water this way too. Look at the worms this is already attracting. This is just wonderful. It's kind of cleared right there. I mean, that's, that's obviously the easiest. This looks kind of jerry, so I don't know if I'm completely happy with it. Hey, you saving our giant pumpkin in our Trying. Our instant chicken garden.

So.

You got some bugs?

Well, I came over here and I was like, oh, that plant looks like it's struggling.

Oh wow.

Eating, so 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

Yeah, that'll do it.

7, 8, um, 9. So I got 9 off of this. Maybe even more. Well, first they started overturning leaves and there's so, there was probably 30 eggs, so I just took them off and I smashed them between my legs.

All right, we got mom with us now. All worked well until we went downhill and we're dragging. This would be harder with 24 birds. This sheep's already up— I mean, this fence is already up. This is where the sheep were yesterday. So see how it's working together? These guys Well, I'm surprised this one's staying in. I don't think most of our ICs would stay in. Those are Icelandic chickens. We need fatter hens like that. That's why we got some fat chicks being raised up for this very purpose. You got some fresh eggs? I know, I'm sorry, you passed out and had to do nighttime chores. I forgot the eggs. Lily's gonna feed them. Go put it on their cow patties. Yep, yep, good job, good job. That encourages them to scratch the cow patties. All right, looks, looks like it's a fun day. Looks like I'm excited about this. We're gonna move the sea monsters over. That was super easy, pleasant even. Gideon got you some flowers, and we have a casualty. We'll see if the pigs won't eat that. We're not alarmed or panicked, that just happens with 100 Cornish Cross chickens. They die sometimes. At least it wasn't a predator. Lily, this might be a record. That's— well, I don't guess it's almost half. Oh no, you know, yeah, this could have been filled up a little bit more to make 2 gallons. That's not quite a half a gallon, so it's probably 2 gallons strong. That's pretty good though. All right, we just had breakfast. It's Sunday sea day, guys. Happy Sunday sea day. Today we're going to try to make our lives a little bit easier by starting to work on a water supply line out to our, our lanes. And that way we can connect water to the sheep and we can do water to the sea monsters. First we got to find where this goes in. It goes in into a culvert, a little tiny culvert. Culvert's a strong word for a 4-inch pipe and then comes back out here. So we kind of need to open up both ends of that so we can get our hose out and our water line in. Work all day till I'm totally beat, get back home and fall right to sleep. All right, we've dug down in. I don't think you can see it right here, but this has been pulled up and it's ripped into the, the 4-inch pipe there. I think they did that. The excavator guys did that when they were here. So I think the pipe actually probably starts back here somewhere. And I've since learned to do a PVC, uh, because it's more collapse-proof. What'd you got? He says we got a PVC.

That is— that's perfect.

Wow. Let's see if it would go all the way across. Did we have a longer one?

No.

All right.

Okay. Uh-oh, it's not quite long enough. I mean, like, we want it to be long though. I don't— yeah, sure, but I think we should really be over there. Yeah, and really way over there because, uh, trucks are gonna come here to drop off wood and stuff.

No, I would like it— I would like for it to start like at the base of this.

Yeah, so I'm not sure if that's a noon 80-degree job. I think maybe we should measure and make plans and see what else we're gonna need. How about that?

I like that idea. And figuring out like how long of a pipe we need.

Yeah. All right, measuring tape in hand. First measurement, how long of a PVC pipe do we need? 18? Put it down on the ground. How are we going to haul an 18-foot piece?

We can also buy smaller pieces and connect them together.

Yeah, with Yeah, it's— this is not like this is plumbing water. Yeah, we're just running things through it. So let's start at the source and see what we got. We're at 90 feet, so I was worried that we were going to have to make a connection right in there. We're at 90 feet right there, so, so that'd be about 100, say 100 feet to the gate. Okay, 500 feet to the very end of this thing, so that means 4 patches, 4, uh, shutoffs. All right, we're now in the north field. I don't think it could be any hotter. When's it gonna rain, Becky?

It was supposed to rain last week and it really didn't. We had sprinkles here and there.

Well, we're gonna, um, we're gonna measure.

This summer is gonna be wacky with the weather, so Whatever.

Well, we slowed down the cows because grass is slowing down. We're gonna put in a water line, that's gonna help. So we're gonna, uh, go from here all the way to the end of our pasture back. We were already kind of almost over here when we were way down there in our other pasture, so now we're going to work it back. We're going to bring water to right here, and then we already have a water line for the pigs we can connect to to get on up to the pigs. But if we get right here, we're making a life a lot easier. Oh yeah. All right, 784 feet, Rebecca, from right here to there. But we still got to go down and over to the water line. All right, 800— oh, 900 feet, and we're almost there. Hopefully we have some spare— well, we will, we'll have some spare hose when we pull the old hose up. We're at 907 feet. 907 to come off of this over to our lane and up our lane and out. 907, that's our biggest one for sure. Grandma just came down the hill. She said she's got some of that PVC. You got some of that PVC? 3-inch?

Yep, we have some 3-inch. And, uh, yeah, you got a piece of galvanized pipe.

You got 18 feet? No. How many feet?

Uh, 8.

You got a way to connect it to this?

Uh, probably not.

Oh, are you going?

Almost 400 feet. Let's just say 400 feet. We'll have some extra. Jonah, we got it looking good out here. Cows and sheep, chickens just went through, mowed behind them. Nice, even, looking good. Even string trim the banks, my man. Good job. All right, it's so hot. We've done our measurements. Maybe, maybe Big Daddy's gonna go to the store later for some supplies, some— what, the actual water line. Now that we know exactly what we need, that's good. I'm thinking this is dinky dong. This is a temporary dinky dong situation since we built this shed. Let's— how about let's bury a line under this, Jonah? Electric line, come up to a T-post and have a nice electric gate right here. We're dealing with this every day, every time we come in to milk.

I have a better idea. Yeah, let's have a real gate like this right there because we can attach it to the shed.

Okay, that's a good idea. That's a good idea that we should have a, a real gate right here. But I don't, you know, that's not going to happen today, so no, we could do this until then. It'll be a temp fix, much better than, than this.

Uh, Papa, we— I thought we would just run the wire straight from here all the way to here, then you could have your gate.

Oh yeah, that's true. If you were going to do a solid gate right here, you would want to have a— you don't have that line buried all the way. We have a gate over here and that looks pretty long. We should measure that. Jonah has a good point. We don't want to bury our line and end right here if eventually we're going to want to go all the way across. So how big of a gate did we need right here? 14 feet? 15? Let's measure what this red gate is. Oh wow, 14.

That's perfect.

Well, this may be suicide given as hot as it is, or I can look at it like it's a sauna. It's a sauna at Earth's Gym. I'm about to trench this hole with a mattock in the sun, probably 25-ish feet. All right, I just completed the Matic workout at the gym. Matic and sauna at the same time. Man, you guys have the idea. Why am I not doing that? I think I'll do that later. Jonah figured out how to get these up, how these work. You just unscrew them and these go through our post. So let's measure. Now measure from the bottom. Up to— let's see, measure the bottom up to here. No, from here to there, and then we'll add, say, 4 inches. So 8 and a half. Yeah, 8 and a half. Okay, actually we want to come pretty flush to the ground over here because it's a slope. It's sloping that way. So yeah, maybe just come off this bottom where the bottom of the metal is. So 8 and a half is about where we're going to put our the middle of our next pole or a hole. Okay, how can we mark that?

Here.

I managed to mark it a bit with my pen. I'm wondering, we need to have a hole— a drill— a hole saw, but we need to get to that metal first. I'm wondering if this— well, this actually cut metal, Jonah. Here, hold this. Ready? Ready?

Yep.

Nope, not really.

Let's just get the tool that does it.

What is the tool that does it?

The grinder. Okay, your phone might be a little big.

All right, that thing didn't work. We're gonna try a grinder. Try a grinder. A grinder will work. Let's get burying the electrical line. And I can't believe that line— did we have any more line? Because That was just perfect. I actually— I thought it was out right about here, but then we made it. We made it to right here with some spare, with some slackage. Okay, you got all your safety gear on? All right, we're gonna cut. Just don't— try not to cut too much into the wood. Just cut a square right there. Okay, okay, it's just tin. It shouldn't be hard to cut. Okay.

Like butter.

Wow, that's kind of easy. Wow.

Oh, there's a second—

another one. Shoot. You don't think our hole saw will drill through metal? All right, we're gonna just have to try it. There's metal in there, about an inch and a half more metal. There's no way we're gonna get at it with the saw. There you got your paddle bit. Now, now you want to do it straight in, straight in, straight in like this.

You're going to have to do—

that's hard.

Is it not doing it?

I don't think it's doing it. It's almost through it. I got the wood.

You did it!

Its battery's too low.

Oh, we're going in good.

I got maybe inch, inch and a half in there and battery ran dead. I think all those batteries are dead, so we'll just bury this line. And see where we get. Now that's what I'm talking about. That's the the future of our farm. Slick. Now this is just a temporary fix. I kind of like this for— it's pretty nice for a temporary fix, isn't it? Until we get our, uh, big sturdy gate on there. That's gonna do it. And it's hitting hard, and it's going— it's powering that way because we have the chickens, and it's powering the sheep and the cows out that way. One mega I Love the Grid Energizer. Hey, you already getting a smoothie? Hey, did she make one for us?

Yeah, you guys are inside.

Oh, sweet. Lily's been inside making smoothies. That's gonna be a perfect treat on this hot day. Oh, look at that, 2 big smoothies for us. How was your smoothie?

It was delicious.

Good. Thank you, Lily. That's gonna hit the spot.

It is.

I got you a temp wire fence up that is smashing. She just burped on public television. International television. All right, we're refreshed from the smoothie. Look, Josiah's eating some peas. That's good, nice little snack. Gideon, what you doing, bro? You need some focus, you need a vision. All right, let's move the animals. This might be the very easiest move on our farm. The animals are right there, they just go one spot over. There's no going down lanes. Let's do it.

Nice.

How do you open up the gate? Oh, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep. Even moose comes to that. All right, we got all the animals moved. You gonna do it this time? We got it upright.

Feel it.

It feels—

it's not very warm. It's not very cold.

It's not very cold.

Oh, it is.

Holy smokes.

I'll go back and get another one.

It's, it's not even going to be below 60, honey.

And it's warm.

It's like 68, 67.

Hang on.

Yes. How's it better, Becky Day?

Still pretty cold.

How is it? Is it better today? What did you put it at?

55.

Let's double check it. She's She's panicked.

Oh my, so slow.

Yeah, so okay, okay, it's at 51. You're at 51, solid 50.

Okay.

Okay, I'm just about to eat. And she's ordered it. Irrigation King, we got our connections. How long that gonna be? Hopefully this week.

Oh, it was like 2 days last time.

Okay, well, we'll get working on this connection. That's to connect our water lines. I'm excited. This is gonna be a huge game changer. I can't wait to do this. What do we got?

Um, okay, you—

I say you like green beans, huh? This is a sign of a hard-working Farmer girl right there. Red sunburn.

I found it now, cuz I was about to order for next week. I couldn't find it where I thought it was, but it was somewhere else.

Good.

And I had you look, and I had her order me some long sleeve.

No, I should Patagonia me a long sleeve.

Yeah.