Trying Something Different

You gonna follow suit? I already did the cold bath this morning.

It's only 62, but it's 50 degrees outside. I thought it was supposed to get to 30-something.

It's the mass. The mass of the water needs to be 55, but 62, I still came out shivering.

Should I do it?

Sure, yeah.

I was just maybe gonna stay out here.

It gets you ready for tomorrow when it's actually colder. She's doing it. Explain this. I haven't eaten. This is my third day without eating. I fasted 3 days, once a month? Bowel movement solid. I guess I'm a Herculean bowel mover. Comment, anybody out there? Come on, get in, it's time to go. I'll take y'all's milk for yogurt. You know, cold plunging is part of our daily recipe for health. It's important to know why you homestead. We homestead for health because you cannot buy this quality of food that we need not just for energy but for medicine in the store. Good morning, Peaches! So where does Peaches come into play, especially since 2024 we're gonna grow— what should be our goal? 90% of our own food. We're strong in the meat department, weak in the veggie department, but that's changing. Right out from Peaches, he needs a little bit of a turnout. This was gonna be a— this was a garden spot, but we're sacrificing for love. Love for Lily. She's gonna have a turnout for Peaches. We've got the retainer wall in. We need to bring in field dirt and wood chips and set up a fence. They're calling me on the radio. Jonah's calling me. Give me one second. Hey Gideon, I said to come out. That's your choice, okay? You're— you can listen to me or not, all right? A few moments later. Had to go get Gideon. Check in with Randolph in a second. Maybe he finished that wall for HVAC. Any babies? No, they're good. A little more babies? Just the two babies over there. And today it's time— good Lord, look at Dixie! Yes, how many she got in there? Probably two. Goodness. I am no parenting expert for sure. This one, number 4, has definitely been our most, uh, challenging. Challenging can be good. What I'm reminded to try today, if we think of parenting as in shepherding— there's your shoes. You think you can put them on with Frost? I think Henry's better at finding his shoes than Mr. Brown keeping up with them. I'm I'm reminded of a philosophy I forget from time to time. There's Western shepherding and then there's Eastern shepherding. In Western shepherding, we drive animals, so we herd. In Eastern ancient shepherding, we lead animals. Now I realize that Mr. Brown is not an animal, but let's try leading him. So consequences are you stay with me. You're crying out for attention. Let's check on Mr. Randolph. Let's get through this yogurt first. Now I gotta be careful to not make being with me a punishment. So, needs to be full of nourishment, right? Hugs, talking, getting you to help, right? Not a stern, come with me. Where you going? Oh good, you shut the door. All right, thank you. Boy, you're helpful. Oh, did you wanna pour these?

Sure.

You like pouring these? I could pour these much faster, but he actually does like it. And it makes you feel responsible, right? Gives you something positive to do. Go easy. You did good, Gideon. Come grab one of these. Basically, I'm flipping what we're used to in parenting on its head. This is like the opposite. When the kid acts up, bring them close, hug them, firm them. Papa? Yeah?

You're gonna put them in here?

No, let's do yogurt. Bring them while it's still warm. What we're gonna have to be careful of is our attitude. I read in The Emotional Code that emotions are our choice. They're in our control. So I'm going to choose today to not get angry. Redirect that feeling. You're going to acknowledge that feeling and try to understand why it's there, because all emotions are there to be helpful. All of them. But we redirect it to— well, if you've got thankfulness and joy in your heart, it's hard to be angry. And we got to not take things personally. They are on field dirt. Oh wow, they've already gotten a lot done. See the discrepancy here? They put in a retainer wall and now they're leveling it up with just field dirt. We don't need good soil here, it's just going to be a run. I forgot to tell you what we're going to do in lieu of that garden. We have this area outside the pole barn. I'm thinking if we just keep our animals on the deep bedding— look at the manure deposit— one, two, we don't have to scrape this concrete, and three We can turn our compost pile or whatever, but we have this compost here. Why not just make beds out of it and grow our sprawling squashes during the summer? Squashes, pumpkins, watermelons. Just imagine how much we can grow here. This is probably a 1,200 square foot plot, south-facing. You're gonna see the babies.

You can hold it, Henry.

Look, look at those pink eyes. Good health. There you go. I've lost Gideon. That's gonna be the challenge, taking the time to keep him on me. Gideon, come with me. Here, come on, hold my hand. We got that holding hand train. Oh, Randolph is getting close to being done with that wall. You're not done. Almost. He's getting the HVAC covered just in time for the electrician next week. The electrician can finish, meaning Then we can get the insulation. What is that, round off 14.5 feet? 15? Yeah, about 14. You had to get 16-footers. Oh, it's gonna be so roomy compared to how it was, isn't it? See this top plate? Old top plate. Once we expose— it's not, it's not thick enough. We also exposed their old rafters. Neither one of those were gonna go up to code, so we said why not just raise the roof while we're at it? Voilà, the loft areas. Complete and utter bonus. Gideon, you sleep in my library?

Yeah.

Thanks, man. I appreciate it. How do you add square footage without adding any square footage? You go up vertical. Are those dry wood chips? Do you mind this work?

Yes.

You do mind it? Teaching you responsibility though. I want to make sure she understood my question. Do you like this work? No. Okay. Yeah, she understood. All right, well, why do you do it?

It has to be taken care of. You know what else will do it?

Yeah. And this is good, this is good dry wood chips. That's, that's key to keeping him healthy and warm.

I'm looking forward to getting our pony, but it will be hard to clean too.

Yeah, yeah. I don't know what we were thinking, but basic husbandry— Peaches needs a partner, but then you'll have two stalls to muck.

Well, miniature ponies don't poop as much as big horses.

I tell her to put them out in the field, you won't have to do this. Hey, it's your choice. It's your responsibility.

The cows are in the pole barn anyway.

Look at this. You just built this? Yeah, this morning. Yeah. What is it? It's a horse saddle stand. Where did you get the inspiration? One of Lily's toys. Gideon, you with me, bro? Okay, go to the truck. I need you go to the truck and get my camera bag. We got to get this to drain. My first thought is this is going to collapse some, this new dirt. So I want you to drive over it and compact it as you smooth it out, and we'll see what it looks like. Right now it looks like water would collect right here in the middle, so we're going to have to slope it. You'll have to get your bucket and just scrape it, make sure this end stays higher. What do you think? But first, let's drive over it to me because it's going to compact. Hey, they— sheep just had a baby. Who had it?

It was the same one.

Oh look, good mom licking it. First time mom. They're turning out all right. What kind of sheep are they? We don't care, just as long as they give birth to babies by themselves. It's standing. Mom's got her about cleaned up. Oh look, look at that. How does it know what to do? Look at that, it's looking for the nursing, but Mama wants to clean it up first. We are starting wood chip process. We got it sloped so water will hopefully drain that way. This is looking good. It's important that as they are working on our house remodel, we're getting the outside to represent it as well. Wow, Gideon's got to cook.

You want to help me, honey?

Look who's doing good. Okay, so I kept him with me till the horse lesson and then just realized guess he wasn't there. Jenna drove us to horse lessons. I just realized— where's Gideon? Some shepherd I am. Lost the sheep.

I thought you were gonna pick me up.

Oh, you gotta stay with me, bro. I know, that's the point. Sheep hear my voice and follow me. I haven't eaten 3 days and I'm ready. How'd I do on this fast?

You did actually really well.

That time got easier. It's nice. I don't know, third or 3-day fast.

3-day fast. Well, how many hours is that? 72?

Yeah. So what's the added benefit of 72 hours? What happened? What happened to my body?

Went into autophagy, hopefully.

Which means?

Which means that your cells like clean themselves. They get rid of the, the bad cells, the cells that maybe have some issues. Stem cells were released.

What?

I can't remember what hour.

I don't have to pay for stem cell injections. Correct. Exactly. It's the way we found to cut these. Otherwise they get too juicy. You got to cut them in rings.

Well, no, they mush.

And bake them.

They mush like—

Oh, and it's not stringy. He's into it. Yeah, go ahead. Get your love tank filled up this morning. Heating them up at the 400. They had already been cooked. Spread them out. They're super dry, which is what we want. Wow, Beck. Is it because I haven't eaten in 3 days? I get Lily's surprise.

That's really cool. Can't see anything. What are you doing? Oh, did you make that for me?

Yes, I did. Thank you.

Do you know what it is?

A saddle stand.

Well, it could be that or you could ride it like a horse. Just kidding.

Just kidding. It's a saddle stand. Isn't that nice of brother?

Yes, thank you, Jonas.

Yeah, you should give him a big hug. Big hug. Now that's a happy day. Oh, so satisfied after that 3-day fast. So happy. Happy day, everyone.