In this farm‑vlog, the host (Speaker A) guides viewers through a packed morning of farm chores on a mixed‑livestock operation. The day begins with troubleshooting a battery, setting up a long chain, and installing an electrified fence and water trough using a solar energizer and barn power. Rebecca discusses cucumber pruning to rescue a struggling plant. The crew then moves to the milking routine, separating cows to wean a calf, adjusting alfalfa rations, and managing herd movement between pastures, including handling a stubborn cow named Flossie. Around 10:30 a delivery truck arrives; George from Reedy Fork Farm unloads two 1,000‑lb chicken‑feed totes, which the team lifts with a bucket and forks. After the feed is stored, the host highlights a farm‑to‑table lunch composed of 99 % home‑grown ingredients (kohlrabi soup, sausage, salad, tomatoes, yogurt dressing) with the remaining 1 % being spices and salt. The vlog concludes with turning compost piles, observing chickens and a goose helping break down hay, and discussing future bedding improvements like wood chips. Throughout, the narrative blends practical instructions, animal husbandry insights, and personal reflections on farm life.
Chapters
Did you plug it up last night? Not charging it. Oh boy. I mean, it started, so I'm pretty sure it's good for another just 2 hours. Jonah, will you pick up our stuff right there? I'm gonna go check to see about the chain. And it's long, that's what we need. I thought it was long. No hook. Oh, this one's got hooks. I took the chain up to the Alfalfa somehow.
You won't be able to do that, I don't think.
Oh, okay, perfect. We're going to move that and just put it right there.
Keep going. You can just back out, Papa. Yeah, it's 8:40.
Mr. Brown's missing all this action, still asleep. Beauty's hidden in here somewhere. You like being under this trellis, don't you?
I do. I'm trying to, uh, save it. Yeah, we got, we got issues with the cukes, so I'm trying to— I looked up how to prune a cucumber. Yeah, well, I'm hoping that I can save it. It's one I couldn't, I had to pull it.
Okay. Good. These cucumbers look really nice.
Yeah, I mean, I'm— it's still producing, and way out in the field is producing too.
So, okay, 20 minutes to milking time. We've got to move one set of cows. Yep, one set. We got to separate cows to wean Nellie off of Flossie. So we're gonna get the main herd in here. Oh, they're gonna love it. They're gonna love it. Ice cream grass, about 6 inches high. You want to get our water trough going right there? Hey, do you have the automatic waterer over here? We hook that up. We have it down in the tool cabinet. We have a little hose, Jonah, so that this longer one can be dedicated to going up there. Get you a little This might even have it, but that's not going to work unless— yeah, no, that's not going to work. These don't work unless you keep the styrofoam piece in there, but who wants their cows to drink water that's running over styrofoam? To electrify this, we've been just bringing an energizer, a solar energizer, over here. We might have to do that, but I was hoping to hook it to the barn. Oh good, we need this wire. This will take us to the barn. There is a line here that does go to the barn, and we can run this fence, which is the heaviest load, off of electricity, which is much more powerful for the, the money. All right, got my lane prepared here. And by the way, this, this little strand coming from the barn is going to empower this entire lane, and then we can run our systems off of this lane and including this yard where we're going today. Let's trace this back. Hopefully that it's not missing or down somewhere. Jonah's going to get the scythe. Okay, well, we hit a dead end right here. Barn's over there. We need to make it to right here. It's 9 o'clock, but that's the theme of the week— so much to do and so little time. So we had some extra line right here. I think that'll get us across. What kind of wire do you use? Just whatever you can get. That's the kind of wire I use. You guys aren't gonna believe how close we are right here. Actually, you probably are gonna believe it. And I'm out of wire. No, I got wire! Look, are you kidding me? Putting a little piece of wire here. There we go, look at that. Made it. Okay, thanks, buddy. Did you already sharpen it?
Yep.
Okay, thank you. Got our line scythe. I just realized I can't be fooling around going past 9 much because the truck's coming at 10:30. Jonah just hung up a few lines and we're connected to the barn. Boom! There's a heavy load on it given it's only 9, but it'll keep it. That's hot. All right, 9:11, milking time. I think we can easily get done by 10:30. Good morning, good morning, sleepyhead. Hard life, huh? I'm tired. Sleep till 9, stretch a little. Yeah, sleepyheads. Forgot to open up your door. Which one is it, Jonah? I think it's that one. Open that door right there. Thank you. All right, we just milked Flossie. Thank you for that gallon and a half, Flossie. We're gonna have to wean Phyllis, which means you're it. That means we're gonna be getting just a gallon and a half a day for a little while. So the plan is Separate you and your calf today. No more nursing, and we're gonna milk you for a week and then be done. Cut your alfalfa ration in half, okay? Well, Miss Phyllis has slowed down anyway. Probably got about a gallon now. To juggle some cows. Uh, we gotta get Bear in here because we gotta get Bear and Nelly out in that back pasture. We gotta get the— it's good timing— these guys to that pasture so they'll be pretty far, they won't see each other. Hopefully they won't try to connect. I need to get you out because Flossie's probably gonna try to come up in here. She loves the stanchion so much, she'll probably try to kick you out. Good girl. She's not thrilled about this. So I don't normally go back in there. Come on. I'm afraid if I go behind her, she'll just bust through here. There you go. Good girl. Now let's get Stud and Bear into that holding area. If you get Stud, they all follow. Working good so far. Come on. Uh, we need to get Bear here. We need to get Bear in here, so we need to get I don't know if we need to get Flossy in the stanchion. Come on, this is the one we want. Oh, okay, there goes Flossy. That's fine because she's gonna get in the stanchion. Come on. It's weird, I know, but I have to get him past these stalls in order to get him in these stalls. And I'm getting Bear up so I can get everybody else out but him and Nellie. Okay, we're gonna open this and y'all can hurt him. Go ahead, buddy. Okay, okay, there we go. We got best yet. You got the lanes up? Well, nobody's rushing up there. Come on, boss. All right, here we go. We got everybody. Now you guys are gonna thank me. Now you're gonna see what I was trying to do. It's so good they blocked up the door eating right away. I think I hear the truck. Hey, hey, the truck's here! Hey George, how are you? How's it going?
Nice to see you.
Yeah, you too.
Everything going well?
Yes sir.
Yep, nice and hot up here today.
Okay, good. Yeah. Now, do you have dairy cows? Yeah, how many?
We have about 100. Okay, cows that we milk.
Yep. Okay, that's nothing about—
we're an Organic Valley dairy farm. Okay, so that's what got us into all this stuff.
Everybody, this is George from Reedy Fork Farm. Charlotte?
Uh, Greensboro.
Okay, Elon. Oh, okay, okay, cool.
Elon is our actual address, just east of Greensboro.
Okay, nice. So what do you have for us? That's a lot of feed, George. Got you.
Some Chick Starter.
Yeah, okay.
Yeah, we make our round to Asheville second Thursday of every month.
Okay, so how you want to do this, George?
It's, it's whatever you want. I'll roll it to the back and then you bring the tractor and we'll unload it.
Then we'll do that. Oh yeah, a lot of feed. Okay, which one's ours?
Yours are the two on the, on the right here.
Okay, good. 1,000-pound totes, 1,000 pounds in each one of them. Okay. The plan is to get the forks under there. Hopefully 1,000 pounds, we can still lift it with this old bucket. Well, we got down the hill all right. All is going good so far. All right, George, thank you very much. We appreciate it. Help getting it off. It looks great. All right, we'll give it a try.
We'll see you next time.
Okay, see you next time. I'm getting the two loners out. I don't know if it's gonna work. We might have to put them back in the pasture they were because it's got woven wire perimeter. These two might bust out of this fence, especially since they're bellowing for each other. The funny thing is that's Bear bellowing and not Nell. Go graze, guys! Go graze. Well, Nellie already busted through. I was afraid of that. She's gonna bust through it, but she can't bust through it if she's in here because it's a woven wire perimeter. Hopefully we'll get you straight through. Okay, good catch. John, I need you to get Bear over here. Come on. No, what are you doing? What are you scared of? Get ready to open it, Jonah. We don't want him to cut left here. Okay, boy, they are not happy, trotting around. I'm imagining this is going to take 2 or 3 days for them to calm down, and then maybe about a week and she'll dry up.
Yeah.
What do you think?
Yeah.
All right, let's call it. 99% of this lunch is from our farm, thanks to Anna. We could not get what we get done, done without Anna. These amazing meals. Look at this, cream of kohlrabi. Sausage and salad. Even the carrots, the cucumbers, the tomato, the sauce, Darcy's dressing, the yogurt-based dressing from our farm. Rebecca, what's the 1% not from our farm?
Spices and salt.
Spices and salt. And maybe if we put sunflower seeds on there or whatever these are.
Yeah, those are not from the farm.
Okay. Wow, that's a scene. It's beautiful. Just rained, the clouds clearing, a beautiful woman tying up beautiful tomatoes. Ministering to your tomatoes again, honey? Is that the end of it?
Yeah, cool. I think— oh wait, shoot, there's a whole thing over here.
Okay. All right, I'm gonna go turn this compost pile. Beauty turned one this morning. I'm gonna turn the other right now. I guess you might join me in a little bit. That hay is being slow to break down, but we're gonna give it a little help, give it a little turn. Kids and mom got another pile going too. It's halfway full. All right, let's turn this. Made some observations while we were out here. This hay gets so matted. I threw some matted hays out here. We're gonna see what the chickens do with them. But if you see what they've done, they've scratched off the top of this pile and it's come out here into this type of material. Just look how they're beginning to shred this. And this is even warm and this is breaking down. And eventually it's going to take longer than if we're turning it, but let the chickens turn it, manure on it. Scratch it. Look, there's manure off in here. This is going to compost. So I'm thinking— oh yeah, look what's happened here. This is older. This is from that pile. This is older. You have rough compost right now. It's 4 weeks. So it's the friendliest goose. Look, Mom, they're already all up on it. Loving it.
I look forward to when we have wood chips again. Yeah, for the bedding instead of hay. I don't really like that.
It just doesn't hold the moisture well, or it doesn't—
like, yeah, wood chips hold moisture so much better.
Okay, we got calves out in the pasture. They did not break through to get to the mamas. We actually added Flossie— or no, Bessie— to the mix for the calf separation, to keep her separated from Flossie so we can get Flossie's milk in the morning. Yep, she can still be on the grass. She's with friends. It's good.
