In this informal, multi‑speaker video, Victor Justin Rhodes leads a lively farm‑yard discussion that weaves together three main threads. First, he updates the team on the rapid launch of his co‑authored book with Joel Salatin, reporting 930 copies sold within hours, outlining a limited‑time signing and webinar promotion, and negotiating with Salatin about signing capacity and a Monday‑night webinar. Second, Rhodes shares his personal near‑carnivore diet, referencing a 1940 butchering guide that ranks liver and meat as the most nutrient‑dense foods, and uses the conversation to promote his dietary stance. Third, the core of the video is the planning and execution of a winter high‑tunnel (hoop house) for chickens, detailing lumber choices (cedar vs oak 1×6, 2×4 framing), door dimensions, water‑er cover for an Everflow waterer, schedule coordination with Randolph (who will pick up lumber and help with doors and walls), and the goal of getting chickens inside the structure within the week. The dialogue is peppered with casual banter, encouragement, and on‑the‑fly problem solving, illustrating the collaborative, hands‑on nature of homestead work while simultaneously marketing a book and advocating a meat‑centric diet.
Chapters
You can do it. Come on, you got this. Oh, you did it! You did it! Jonah's, uh, 12, now going on 13. Gonna do the perimeter with the mower, and then we can put our nets up where he mows, and it won't— it won't ground them out. Look, we didn't have to call him. Look who's back!
Back for more.
Your knees are feeling better?
Yeah.
Up and down these ladders, it's all right?
I reckon, yeah, it's gonna be as good as it gets, I guess.
Okay.
At my age. Yeah.
For breakfast, I'm going to— well, it's brunch. How about like, let's go pork crazy. There's ground pork, Bacon chunks. I've salted it. Lily's mixing that in with a wooden spoon. Uh, I'm a meat-based— I'm meat-based, my diet. I've been mostly carnivore. I have introed some onion just every once in a while, and it hasn't had to seem— doesn't seem to affect me. Being that I'm crazy about chocolate, I've introduced some of that. And I seem to be doing just fine. Yeah, but for the most part, I'm very happy eating nearly carnivore, just very satisfied. I'm also gonna put some little bit of garlic in there. My assistant Heather just called. I wasn't able to check this morning. We've sold like 500 books overnight.
Yeah, it's crazy.
That's nuts. Like, we in total Because we did some pre-sale. 917 books, Rebecca. The sale doesn't even end until Sunday. Joel was going to sign 1,000. I think, I, I think, I think we're gonna sell more than 1,000, Rebecca. I think we need to call Joel.
Yes.
And I think we need to say, hey Joel, we got a problem.
We've only sold 2.
You got any ideas?
That was Jonah's idea. That's not bad.
Jonah's funny. He's afraid.
That's not bad because he won't know what to do.
He's put it hands to market this. He's trusting me. He's wrote the book, I'm the marketer. That's funny. That— I was just gonna say, hey, we got a problem. I think that'll get his heartbeat going up enough. Yeah. And then say, we've sold 917 copies and the sale doesn't end till Sunday. How many you willing to sign? What do you think?
Yeah.
Okay.
I think you need to call Wendy.
She's not being rude or anything while I talk to her, texting while I talk and film her. Hey, you're supposed to— you're supposed to hide it. You're supposed to put that down when I'm, uh, filming you.
You're funny.
This is real life. This is— this is a real reality TV show. Look at that. I did such a good job, she wants one. You're gonna have a butter sandwich.
I'm basically— I'm apparently want some butter.
That's good, man. Snowball wants the butter.
Snowball wants butter.
Hey, we all want to see you waddle.
Trying not to, mister.
She looked at me mean, buddy. I'm gonna be in trouble when the camera rolls, so I'm not gonna turn this off. I'm not gonna turn this off for a little bit. Oh, okay, she put down the knife. That's a good sign, guys. Let's see it. All right, go to your place. Oh, oh, oh, oh, she waddled a little bit. That's good. Proud of that. Proud of that homestead mama right there. Nice combo. Onion.
I wish that I had some fermented pickles, but that's all right.
Yeah. Hey guys, I survived the cut. I cut the camera, I did not get beat up. Okay, in a minute we're gonna call Salatin, but first I've been reading this book, The Art of Butchering. This is from 1940. I found this in my dad's stuff, or he gave it to me, I think, before he died. One thing I want to point out here being somebody from animal-based diet. Like, this was printed long before that was cool or taboo or anything. Food values, protein. There's these charts, food values and protein, iron and copper, phosphorus, and vitamins. Vitamins, guys. And guess, guess what's on top of the list? These are— well, liver tops it all on every single list, and then it's meat products on every single list. Halfway down. Eggs, milk, cheese is at the bottom of that list, and then it becomes some sort of vegetable or stuff. This is absolutely amazing. Meat, it's got to be one of the most nutrient-dense foods in the world. So why is it so crazy to think, well, that's all I eat? It's the best. The best. What do you think, Beck?
What do you mean?
I should text you.
You're funny. I'm texting Lorraine about something important.
Did you get a piece of bacon in it? Mm-hmm. It's not bad. Let's call Joel. Oh wow, 930. We've sold like 15 since we're eating breakfast. This is crazy. You guys are crazy for this. Okay, that'd be perfect.
Okay. Bye-bye.
Okay, he's home. He just needs to call me back. Should make sure this mic is on.
Okay, the mic's on. Call from Saladin Joe LT.
Okay, that's him. That's him, guys.
Call from Saladin Joe LT.
Hey Joe.
Hi Justin, how are you?
Good, how are you?
Good, have you recuperated from your midnight ride to Fall River?
Yes sir, it was a little crazy, but that was quite the deal, but it was— it could have gone perfect. I don't mean to bother you, but we have a problem.
Uh-huh?
You know, with the book, I launched it last night, and altogether we've sold 930 books.
Okay.
So, well, the problem is we've ran— will you sign more than 1,000 books?
Absolutely. Okay.
Oh, one more thing. Webinar. You think you could get on a webinar, say Monday night?
Next Monday?
Yeah, 6 to 8 maybe. So if I send you a link to jump on, do you have a camera on your computer and stuff? Yeah, uh-huh. Okay, so you've done that before, I imagine, from your home.
I've done lots of those.
Okay, okay. All right, well that's good. So really the only problem is we're selling too many. Too fast.
Well, it'll only be a problem if you run over 4,000.
Okay, well, here's to trying. Hey, how long has it taken you to write 800?
Chris and I signed 800 over the weekend, and looking at the— it looks like I can do about Um, 200. Yeah, I could do about 200 an hour.
Wow.
That's assuming somebody's feeding them to me.
Yeah.
Um, can't do that many if I've got to take them out of the box and, you know, and do all the physical handling.
Yeah.
If I'm just sitting there at a table— and, and I also discovered that about an hour and a half.
Yeah.
All I can do in one stint, and my— I just started getting sore.
Yeah.
So So anyway, that's fine. I mean, it takes some time, but anyway, if that helps them sell, that's the easiest value-adding gig I've had in a long time.
Right? And people appreciate it. That's really something. It's really special for them, so that's neat that you were willing to do that. I was like, I don't know if he's gonna do this. $1,000's a lot.
Yeah, yeah, no, no, that's good.
You're a good sport.
I'll tell you what, Justin. It's a special book.
It is.
I mean, I feel like I didn't do anything here. You know, I mean, Chris did that. Yeah. And Jennifer to do all those graphics.
Yeah.
They did the heavy lifting. And I just feel like it's out in the universe. It's going to be a really special book for a long time.
So long. Such a classic.
Cool. Okay.
Yep.
Yep. I'll keep signing. You keep selling.
Okay. We'll see you Monday.
All right.
Okay. Bye-bye. Yes, he can do more. He's gonna, he's gonna keep on signing. Uh, now we're doing this promotion through Sunday. As you heard, he's going to get a webinar with us Monday. So you've got the sticker bonus and the webinar bonus and the signing bonus through Sunday at midnight. And then Monday night, we're going to jump on a webinar with him, 2 hours. Talk about all kinds of things, Q&A, but we're going to also go over some of the structures. I'm going to give you the direct link down below, or you can go to polyfacedesigns.com. Grab your copy while those bonuses last, while Joel's hands last. Get in there, folks are excited. You're getting way more than your money's worth. I can totally stand behind this book. It's absolutely incredible. Back in our struggling days when we started with Joel, I wished it was there. Can I sit next to you for a minute? I want to look through this on the, um, our winter housing. Bless her heart. Very excited. Um, I think for me to be able to get this done this week, I'm gonna need to see Randolph's schedule of his availability. I think I would recruit Randolph for maybe, uh, the wooden door type parts. But also maybe the, the walls to keep the chickens and maybe pigs one day. So we want it to be able to be ready for pigs. This thing, this waterer cover, it's going to be game changer for my Everflow waterer. I can't get Randolph to do that. That's specific to me. That Everflow waterer, it's going to need to be custom, but that's going to change everything. If the chickens can't get in there and track in there and get wood chips in there, it won't clog up our filter as fast. We'll have water continually flowing even if it's frozen and keeping the filters super good. I bet we won't have to clean out that filter all winter. So let's— yeah, but anyway, my goal is to get the chickens in the hoop house this week. How's it going, Randall? Oh, going pretty good. You just eat lunch? Yeah, good deal.
I'm ready to go again now.
Good. So what's your schedule this week?
Well, I'm gonna try to get this thing finished. Okay, maybe the next couple days. Okay, then I got a bunch of floors to do.
Oh, do you? All right, Randolph is not available. Let's just see what all is entailed. Might be a little tricky and it might be a little pressing to get it done, but could I— look, this is what I want to do. But on this side, in 3 of these— 3, I want 24 inches, 6, 12, uh, 4 of them. I mean, that's what's cool about those plans is we've got the base, and if we want to go higher up, we can. Our hoop house— it's not really a hoop house, this is a high tunnel— is different. So we have longer, flatter walls on the side, but we can just We're just gonna adjust to that, no problem. So much to do, so little time. First I've got to edit. We'll see where— see what— how much time we've got after that. I've been editing. Just called the lumber yard, uh, looking at this. These are all 1x6s. My lumber yard has it. Joel likes to use oak because he has a sawmill and he can get oak. I like to use cedar because it's, uh, I don't— naturally rot resistant, non-pressure treated. Um, I think these doors— yeah, that's a little ambitious. I'm gonna just rig up something for this week until we get— because I want to make sure these— this gets all done proper. I think a good goal would be to get this done and get those chickens in there because I'm pretty sure we can get all that stuff one this week, and it doesn't take a whole lot of skill. Back in here, Randolph— we— hey, the lumber, they have our lumber. Randolph has agreed to pick it up in the morning. He's got the equipment to do so. I'm just seeing what we need in here. We probably Need to attach 2x4 frame to this to be able to do a wooden door here. Just putting bases in right there, seeing how close we are. We could cover this with our cattle panel.
This—
we don't even need a door right now because here's the storm door. That's chicken-proof. 1, 2, 3. I think we could frame this out. Don't know about putting in doors, uh, 1x6 doors yet. Maybe I should get some of those just to be hopeful that maybe we could. Hey, are you guys hungry? It's a good sign you're out and about in the sunshine. Let me get your food. You know what, you guys need to go out My friend Jason from So the Land can come on Wednesday. He's also a carpenter. Thinking we shoot to like knock it out, but maybe I can get the— everything here. So that means it's kind of like order and wait, and we could put these pigs out tomorrow. I mean, they're out, but let's get them to the forest where they're gonna go go. You're fine. I like you guys. I like you guys. Guys, it looks like they're mega on the mend. We're happy about that. The sunshine has helped a great deal. Good job, guys.
