Vlogs Are Back (For Now)

We're out here cuddling. We're out here cuddling. I'm on top of it this morning. I have already stretched. Let's see what we got. Let's see what we got. Okay, we're gonna eventually want to do a get up. I got chicken broth going, lamb bit soup going for breakfast. I got my lamb broth bones. I got all the meat bits off of it. Gonna do the bones. Alone for 24 hours. I mean, it came at dark, put my feet in the ground. Now you ready to get your eyes in the light? Come on, eat your eggs. You cannot waste these eggs, guys. The chickens have slowed down. I forgot to check their eggs yesterday. Definitely need more than 3 from 60 chickens. The pasture possums. The ones in the yard, they're just coming in to lay and they're doing pretty good, but still it's not enough. We need over a dozen eggs a day. Another day in the life of the permaculture homesteader health nut.

Okay, all right, I'll do it.

We're gonna live in the moment. I'm aware that I don't, and that's where we start. This video camera, believe it or not— I know for some people it would actually be the opposite— but it helps me live in the moment because it helps me be aware that of the interestingness in my life. Okay, you can go downstairs. Uh, did the chick— we forgot to get eggs yesterday, bro. Can you start remembering and doing that in the afternoon, evening? That can be your thing.

I don't know why.

Where are my shoes? We have got to— we're gonna mix some chicken feed and we're gonna do— hey, can you find a leather punch? We're gonna do day 4 training Harriet, our pregnant heifer Harriet. Mixing up these, these vlogs a little bit. It's only so subtle, you probably haven't even noticed. Well, one, I've gone back to more frequency. I think I just needed a rest, you know. I was fasting, I didn't feel like I was doing much. It just wasn't that much, it wasn't that exciting. But one thing that released me is I want to make special movies. Like, I have a movie on fasting, I want to do one on gaps, I want to, uh, what's That's another one. I'm doing one on this chicken feed mix, but I want to capture these everyday moments, maybe even more so have it more be about Justin Rhodes. That's the name of the channel. The all-encompassing stuff, the, the fact that I'm a son, I'm a, I'm a father, I'm a husband, and I'm a health nut, I'm an entrepreneur. I'm more than just a homesteader. So I'm gonna include more of that stuff, and I know you guys are too, so you'll appreciate it. All right, boys, shall we go? Let's live in the moment. We're actually not gonna be, uh, training Harriet or feeding and ministering to the chickens. We're going to be making a vlog about that. We're going to be training and bonding as a family. Looky here, it's actually here. You want to carry this, Henry? What a privilege. What a privilege to go and work with you guys every Good morning. Such a privilege. Oh, I love it. I love it. I'm gonna enjoy every— I'm gonna enjoy every moment. And when I start thinking about all the other stuff I've got to do, I'm gonna say stop it. To ignore the mess, just ignore the maze. Stop it. Just enjoy the moment. What are we gonna do, Harriet first? Yeah, let's do Harriet first while the boys are out there. I am dying to know if the chickens picked up their egg production. Are you done with that? Yeah. Can I have it? All right, let's go, boys. Hey boys, you got to get them a hay bale. It's not going to be enough. Also separate the cream from yesterday, okay? And you want me to tell you how to make sour cream, or you want me to do it? All right, I'll turn it back on too. Is that where I turn it back on? All right, thanks guys. I actually had to say I'll make these special movies and put them on a different channel, and that sort of gave me permission and freedom to just start vlogging and normal vlogging this week, you know, going back to normal vlogs, come what may with how they perform. And what— every vlog is not going to be a banger, but these specials, that would be the aim, that they would be bangers or close to my heart, that they, they would be pop— that they would be popular, interesting. And then I thought, they'll still be in the same style I don't even know if I need another channel for that. So lots of vlogs plus some specials every now and then. Henry, come get me the leather punch. The goal today is to continue to rub and pet her, and her collar is too loose, so we need to hole punch it and make it tighter. And if that all goes well, it is off tomorrow. We'll get her hooked up to the side-by-side, which will be a huge step. Thank you, buddy. So I'm gonna vlog probably even tomorrow if there's anything interesting going on, which normally I don't vlog on Fridays, but what the heck. The only day I'm not is the Sabbath. We've found great blessing in taking that day off. Just peed off the side by side. All right, let's go get the alfalfa. This is fun. After my 28-day fast, I felt a deeper connection to these animals, maybe a deeper appreciation. You know, I was thinking I might not be able to do beef, but beef's fine. My whole life would have had to change. This is the most nutrient-dense food on, on the farm. We have 2 family milk cows, 100% grass-fed, Vanilla and Honey. Their calves are for sale, by the way. I'll leave the link in the description. They're A2, A2, 100% grass-fed, no dewormers, no vaccines, no antibiotics ever. We have our yogurt, we have our cream, we have our sour cream, we have our mozzarella. Wow, we have a lot of our butter. Probably over half of our butter. Harriet will have all our butter and hopefully our Gouda cheese. Unless you make Gouda cheese with skim milk, then we have enough. But mozzarella, and then we'll have Gouda, and that'll be our Monterey, that'll be our cheddar, so to speak. And that'll be it.

What about it?

Oh, that's a locust. What's wrong? Nothing. What are we doing? Well, you go look at the board. What are you doing? Uh, I'm gonna go mix chicken feed. We got all those mixed grains. I gotta take it all and mix it together into one tote. Okay, I'm gonna start sprouting their feed. You wanna do that with me or you wanna go on your own? I still gotta feed them too. Rebecca just texted me wanting to get the sidewalk done over at the cabin. Gentlemen, don't delay, don't delay, tackle that honey to-do list. Uh, she also told me to get the boys out of the house. Apparently they're bickering. Guard the peace, boys, do not fight. Can you do everything you can? Sure. Do you want to have the beef stroganoff for lunch or for supper? I don't care. The other one will be burgers. Oh, that might not go good. Stroganoff and then burgers. I guess it's okay. Can you put this up for me? No, this is what we'll do. We won't do burgers, we'll do the pork.

Uh, excavator and pick up the stones.

Yeah, yeah, you took it, right? Yeah. Oh good, good job, bud. Let's get this grit prioritized. You can do that when we go out there now. Move chickens tomorrow. I love this. That sour cream is me. We're gonna do Zach's special meal on Friday, okay? You know what to do.

Yeah, I had to set up the chicken, cut it up.

Um, oh, that's good.

Salad and make the dressing.

We got that situated. Boys are on the cabin. That's on the top of Mom's list, so that's going to be on the top of our list. You getting Henry a snack?

Yep.

Okay, I'll get you some buttermilk. Falling into the inside trap. Come inside and there are 3 things to do in there. Why'd they leave that out? It must be skin. Gotta teach Lily what to expect from a man. She wants buttermilk. I stop what I'm doing, I get her buttermilk. Here you go, girl. Okay, are you going with your sire? Oh my, you're supposed to peel it first. Okay, can I cut it up normal? Can I Can I just cut it?

No, I got it.

No, the apple cutter. Lily, this is my salad toppings.

On what cheese do I shred?

Cheddar. You have it. Now go with Josiah, make sure he sees you. Go in front of the machine. Okay, there, go. Can you pick this up?

Yeah.

Thank you. Can we go?

I'm going.

Okay, boys are starting on this cabin project. I don't want to miss it. I got this harebrained idea. Maybe it's not so harebrained, I don't know, until maybe I try Would some of y'all be interested in coming and staying at our guest cabin and getting a farm experience with your family? I know when I was just starting out in the learning to homestead, it was hard for me to get away by myself because I had responsibilities with my young family, so it was hard to go to courses and whatnot. But what if we did a family-friendly immersion experience and you guys could just learn, just be blitzed and immersed in a couple of days and you're learning right alongside your family. If that's something you're interested in, Austin, let's get it. Let's get an interest sheet going where they— we give you— you guys give your email and some information and maybe we'll chat. Maybe we'll try it. Maybe you guys will be my guinea pigs. Okay, go ahead, get in the skid steer. Step 1, rip up the old sidewalk. It's gonna trip somebody up. Look at this view though, guys. Our high tunnel, our house. This is nice. Let's leave them, feed these chickens, come back and check on them. Back in the house to get my phone, and I got roped into calling in the stone. We'll feed these chickens eventually. Glad I have the auto feeders out. Hey, can I get a yard and a half of crushed gravel delivered out to Fletcher? Stone is coming. She's ordering all the furniture and things like that. Did I mention this is going to be all non-toxic, all clean cookware? And unlike other— like, if you go to get an Airbnb, it's sparse for cookware. We're gonna actually have Cookware. Is that the inspector? It is. Yes. Okay, although I'm a little bit nervous. I thought the insulation was going to call in the insulation inspection. They didn't. I never called it in. It's, it's covered, but we got lots of pictures. Let's see what we can do. Good news, passed and caught up on all inspections. He's been great to work with. He's been here all along. He's He saw it and said we're good. We do have to put railings up from here over. You go over 2 feet, you got to have a railing. Or we could add dirt. It's very little right there. It's all the way over here. Oh really? We're only talking about a few inches. That's not that much dirt.

It's not.

Now, do you want to do railings just to be extra safe?

I know, that was kind of my thought.

Even at 2 feet? Like this one and that one seemed more Somebody could get hurt if they fell off this.

Markoff getting the chicken scrap. I got him.

You did? What pans did you use?

I found one in the chicken thing and then I used the bottom of water.

Oh, okay. Where'd you get the grit?

From that bin.

You can pile soil right here because we're gonna put it back to plant grass on it. Step 2, dig it down 5 inches. Handy having these machines, isn't it? We've been having to hire landscapers landscaper. Stone Place just called. Things are just rolling right along today. He'll be here directly. Is it already lesson time?

Did you do the salad? And I'm gonna prep the chicken. I cut up the veggies, shredded the cheese, washed the lettuce, cut up the lettuce, made the salad dressing. And after my lesson, I'm gonna cut up the meat, dry it off, and make the breading.

Okay, take us there, chauffeur. That's your posse. You need more than 3 eggs, dude. Come on. Fat old lady hens. Well, that's another thing, we need to cull these guys. They're gonna drop an egg. You didn't get nothing? We need a dozen eggs. That's it. Look at all these. All right, okay, that's something. Oh, somebody— she is, she is.

We have too many egg eaters, Papa.

She's got yolk all over her, huh? Yeah, that is an old lady. All right, that could be our problem. All right, get the other one. Get in. Okay, see, they need that too, bro. Okay, so these look like people have been eating eggs. How many we get? 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Okay, okay. All right, if I'm gonna heat the water up for her, I'm kind of tempted to kill them all today. But could we catch them? She's one that's ready to be harvested. She's had her— is it hot? Is it? It is a little hot. The ones with the bands on the right, you're not gonna be able to catch them. Friday is Sabbath prep, we don't want to do that. Oh wow. Oh, and that's the broody one. Let's definitely kill her. Okay, we're feeding fat old lady hens that aren't laying many eggs, so that'll help us cut down on feed. But I don't know if you're gonna be able to catch them. But if I'm gonna heat up the water and run the plucker for one, I might as well do them all, huh? Well, we might not be doing this. Our fuse is blown. Okay, that's the fence. Okay, I think that's off. Whoa, whoa, what the heck was that? Okay, well, that's— let's do that. Yeah. Turn it on. It worked. Just blew. This is kind of loose. I just wonder if it's ill-wired in there. We need that scalder, get up to 150 degrees, loosen up the feathers. Definitely need the plucker beside it to pluck the feathers, or this goes from a morning job to an all-day-and-a-half job. Okay, don't get any more. I gotta make sure we're doing this. Little Phillips are stripping with my Leatherman. I'm sure try a real Phillips here. What are we gonna do? I can't get these off. Timeout. Josiah's telling me they already laid the walk stones down. Well, we have to put down gravel first, and we have to make sure they dug this out correctly first. It's not quite to the point where I can just leave and it get done right. That's not bad. This is gonna look really nice. Unfortunately, we got to get all these up here. That's not 5 inches. I'm getting stressed. That's 25 feet. Is that far enough down the gravel?

I mean, if we put gravel all the way up to it, yeah.

Besides pulling this up, I'm gonna touch up a lot around the log. These boys are about 2 inches shy in depth. I feel like that's gonna have to be the first priority, even over the fat hens. This is the garden of peace. Even though it probably takes 2 hours for that water to heat up, it really needs to get going. But Mark is coming for— do some work on the side-by-side. Possible I put him on that first. This would be— for a landscaper to do this, this would be several thousand dollars. Okay, I think maybe it is deep enough, but y'all don't, don't make it, um, dramatic. There you go. Wait, rake, rake from that side to that side. Rebecca, this is where we have to come in heavy, the fine-tuning. Wait, wait, you're raking it the wrong way. It needs to come from this side. Over there. Let's try this. Maybe the oil has had time to set in. Try with a bigger bit. I didn't see anything obviously wrong. The switch was a little unplugged. Would that do it? Okay, ready? I don't know if it's off or on right now. Ready? Wait. It's beyond me me. Thankfully Mark is coming. I'll ask him. Go let those chickens out, bud. All right, we'll have to do this on Sunday. Been one thing if that would have started right up, or I would have been able to fix it, but problems were compounded. And this is our garden of peace anyway. Let's give it our all. We are getting into it now. Look at this, Mom. Ain't this better? Yeah, there is something so right about Fixing up the stuff on our farm, isn't it? What you up to? Are these cutting boards?

No, these are—

are your sleeves getting in it?

Is it?

I mean, what's the plan for the gravel? I'm gonna use this like a wheelbarrow. Okay. All right. And you know, when we're done done, we're gonna scrape this up again and plant grass again. Already I feel so much better. I put the fat hens out. It's not an emergency emergency. So what, she might eat a few more eggs. It's not worth my insanity. Finding peace with the garden of peace. And gentlemen, if we make the wife happy— you've heard the saying, uh, if, if Mom ain't happy, nobody's happy. We can feel fulfilled in a successful, accomplished day if we get that honey to-do list done. Don't you love he helps and he don't even know what we're doing? He don't even know the vision. He just faithfully blindly follows. Job's done down there, over there, until we get a tamper. Apparently the boys broke the tamper a long time ago. I'll get a tamper when I go to town to get those rocks. Really, this doesn't have to be done until I think our first guest comes November 7th. But I've learned don't put that— did you guys get hay to the cows? Oh no, can you do that? Annie's coming to lunch, I think. I think she just wanted to come to lunch. Now this is— or to chat. This is after me asking her if she can help us with their Families with Teens Meetup. Okay, if you guys are within 2 hours and you have at least one teen in your family, come to the Teens Meetup. I'm gonna leave a link down in the description. You gotta be within 2 hours and you gotta have at least one teen in your family. Look at this gelatinous broth. We're making a gut-friendly lunch for everybody today. Onions get in. Where are the onions? Can you get me an onion out of there? This is why I absolutely love soup. Got some random green beans here, let's put those in. Left the pork out last night, ruined it. We just had a terrible— a member of the community here, the, you know, a local person in our community. He's about my age, he's a little younger, a couple years. His teenage daughter died in a head-on collision. Just like that, you lost a teenager. Nothing you can say or do for them. It's just terrible. And then Mr. Meeks died. He was only 67. There's no more bones in this. Here's a bone. Here's another one. Have you sure they got that clean? We can put some of that in this soup right now. I'm making a chicken soup. Dipstick, one of my beef bone marrow bones in there. And this is more— well, that's Cuban pork. Okay, this is more— well, shoot, fleshy chicken that the kids and mom will not be weirded out by. Okay, see this, this, that chunk of meat was on the carcass. So if you've got something, for sure, debone. Mom don't want it Eat a bone. We'll turn her off to this for sure. All right, I made you a soup, chef. Chef's choice. Y'all leave the bone for me, okay? I never thought I'd be this person, but I'm that person. I'm a soup guy. It's just too farm friendly, man. Too easy, too farm friendly, too healthy. Soup for life, y'all. I'm gradually getting the family on board. Me because I'm the head chef. Sometimes they get chef's choice. Look who's here! Dude's in the hammock. Who's that for? Who has the soup? Is it not? We don't need no tomato sauce in the soup.

Also, this is homesteader's food.

Annie said it's soup season.

It's soup season.

Lily said every day is Soup season for him.

She said we eat souping it up all summer.

Well, let me tell you, if you don't like soup, just get hungry. Just get hungry. Soup will be just fine.

Yeah, my grandparents grew up in the Depression and they always, you know, you can take a little bit of something of all these other things and make a lot of something. Yeah, so soup is timeless.

Yeah, stretches the food. Yeah, I just saw some beans on the counter. I just threw those in there. We had some carrots, green beans. They want starches. You could have— I could have done potatoes. I didn't think about it.

I know potatoes make the soup good. I'll see you later.

See you at the teens with families with teens meetup.

I got games.

You got the 12 and under games. Whoa, we need a tire! We need tires. Jonah's been wearing out the tires. Oh no, but they cost a ton of money. Well, you gotta wear it. Let's start this crab in a crash. It's funny, Josiah always comes and says to me, Pop, I'm leaving. Gets his hug. The beautiful one and I are leaving. Another town day. We're gonna get some stuff. Oh shoot, we better not forget those stones. We gotta get stones, we gotta get a food-grade bucket for my soaked grain project. See you, bud. Hey, hey, hey, no exceptions, bro. Had his shoes on. Here, Birdell, I'm leaving.

Bye.

Thanks for holding down the place.

You're welcome.

She's gonna make a dessert that she don't even like. Yeah, if it's any consolation, I won't eat any dessert either.

I can't make it today.

How about I make us some peanut butter fluffs?

Sure.

And we'll put it on some pancakes and that'll be our dessert.

Sure.

Look at you feeling all boss mama-ish in this minivan.

No, I just feel like I'm at home.

You're filming, feeling mom-esque in this van, aren't you?

I feel like I'm at home. There's a Place for my purse. This is what I love the most. And this is low. It's not up high. You can have your arm here and it's not resting on the middle, like, it flows.

There's more. They are designed smartly. I'll give you that. They are for moms.

Okay.

Families.

They say that like minivans are, you know, dorky or whatever. Give me all the dork. That's what I want, guys.

We had minivans before— we had a minivan before we even had kids.

The doors open to the side, like, it's amazing.

Don't know if we need a whole pallet, but these are— these are them. We are home, but we went to Lowe's. We got some buckets for soaking feed. We saw some cracked buckets. They said they were just gonna throw them away. We said, wait a minute, we can use cracked buckets. We're just gonna drill a hole. They gave them to us. Got a tamper. Tamper for tomorrow. I don't know, we're back at the house. I'm trying to think of supper. I'm refeeding, so I need to eat. Long term though, lifestyle, I'm gonna quit eating supper, so I'm gonna intermittent fast every day. Whoa, that one's so ripe it's red! We haven't had a good persimmon harvest— 2 years? Wow, here we go. We pruned them back too hard. Huh, all those are hard. Okay, so I don't know, we'll just— we'll clean this up, pit it out, skin it out. Teaspoon of lemon juice and 2 cinnamon and apple. I should have cut it up. Should have cut it up first. We are wrapping up supper. We noticed Squeeze sent us something. This is a regenerative citrus farm we visited. Was it in Georgia or Florida?

It's in Georgia.

Oh, citrus farm in Georgia.

These are limes.

Do you still want them?

They done sent us some limes.

Persian limes, Bangor lime, and Persian.

Oh, this is handy. Hold on. Oh, this is the benefit.

These should give a nutrition boost after you fast. We're excited to partner with you this year. Expect some fruit in time for Thanksgiving and then for Christmas.

This is 8 times as more nutrient-dense, this guy's farm.

He had it, he had it tested.

They ship to your door wherever you are.

Yes, and it's fairly priced, I believe.

Austin, play a little clip of our visit to them. We are at a regenerative citrus farm. Yes. Okay, before now I didn't even know that existed. So I may be the only one, right?

There may be a couple.

You're pioneering this?

Uh, yeah, it really is.

So what is a regenerative citrus farm?

So I'm growing citrus, it's certified organic, so that's a lot of focus on what we don't do. Regenerative— I'm rebuilding the whole ecosystem in the soil. So just like you do with, with animal manure, I do by adding microbes and feeding them.

This is going to be first. I'm taking it easy. I'm going so slow on these stages. I was going to do it every 3 days, but just enjoying it. I'm in no hurry. So we did persimmon compote, a little bit of lemon juice. I'm cooking— end up cooking a lot of water, putting it straight up on some yogurt. No sweetener.

Okay, so I think these are really—

this is a dessert. This is so good. This is dessert, Becky.

I'm so happy.

I'm persimmon compote. Instead of these junk store-bought lemons, I'm gonna put— I'm gonna do— it's what I do every night for my water when I start having a craving. I have this bad habit of wanting to eat at night. Totally kicking that. And especially when I miss supper or have a light supper like tonight and I get a little bit of hunger pains, or just should I just say boredom pains, I do a half a lemon in a quart jar. Notice ain't no lemon, this is a lime, but it's gonna work. I'm gonna make it work. Geez, it's got so much juice. That's more than from the store, y'all. Quarter teaspoon salt. And I'm excited. It's my kind of electrolyte right here. Excited. Let's review. Oh my gosh, it's more mellow than a lemon, which is surprising, but it's almost if I can feel the nutrients. And he said it's particularly good after a fast in his notes. Te gusta. Happy day.