We Burned Out

We've got to move turkeys, move sea monsters, move pigs, move laying hens, harvest and preserve tomatoes, fix a water line, make butter, and all the while, while we're burnt out. Yeah, we'll talk about that some today. We're burnt out. Been burnt out for 2 years.

Look, these are cucumbers, zucchinis coming up. I've got one, uh, of the yellow squash. It's not been a good squash year, interestingly enough. And then this is lettuce. And then dill, and then cilantro hasn't come up yet, but very exciting. And I have green bean seeds coming still. As soon as they get here this week, I will get those planted.

They hightailed it down to this access road. They're in need of grit. The monsters are getting quite dirty on this. It's a dirty job restoring lost land. Do you see that cake of manure? Yeah, that's, that's icing on this cake. This land is going to explode. Want to build land on top of sand? Organic matter, organic matter, animals, organic matter, animals, organic matter. We put hay, we put leaves, we've put compost, we've put chickens, pigs, sheep, cows.

It's looking like we probably have a lot of fruit, which is great. So it looks like we have a lot of hornworm action as well. Like, see this poop? I don't know if you can see it. I also need to trim and tack up You know, it's getting to the end of July and burnout is real. I mean, getting burned out on a homestead is extremely easy to do. And also then corresponding that with the length, like the time frame that you have been homesteading— we're in our 7th year of homesteading after the Great American Farm Tour, so we got like a really long break, obviously a year. So we got a year-long break during 2017 from the Great American Farm Tour. We had been homesteading prior to that as well. Boy, I just see a zucchini and just a mist. It's huge. Burnout is extremely real, and honestly, I don't know, I don't have any expert ways to combat it or anything. What I do know is, is that you have to take a rest once a week, No matter what.

Looking back, the burnout began— coincided with us moving out of our house to remodel it. And actually, I didn't even know it at the time. I was just in a slump, unmotivated, not excited as I once was, lacking in energy. I didn't even know it at the time. I figured it was the disruption from being out of the house. But over time and more thinking, I realized it wasn't. Let's get to that in a second. We have finished the sea monsters, we have finished the tea birds. We've only got the pigs and the layer chickens to go. Just putting energy in the fruit, you can't— it won't make it. Fruition.

That's not true because we're gonna put these sides down. Who knows how long this will go?

Thanksgiving is as long as you can go.

Well, I would like to try to use the season extension this year if possible.

Okay.

One thing about burnout too that I was just thinking about is do something on the homestead that you enjoy, like your tomatoes or whatever it is that you enjoy. Like, I really enjoy this. I really hope the sun doesn't come out anytime soon so that I can stay in here for several hours. It does not bring me when sauna mode gets activated. That's when it brings— why did I do this?

Wow, you can really tell the difference between where you've been. She's been to right there. Look how bushy and wild it gets there.

It's important to do things on the homestead that bring you joy. Another thing that brings me joy on the homestead is flowers, and I did fail deeply with that this year. Another thing that can really help with burnout is weed fabric. I did find a burlap weed fabric that I think we're gonna try next year on everything. I don't want to weed anymore. I'm over it. Not that I ever liked it. No.

A little competition for the main project today. Jonah's flipping a trailer. We had an old trailer on the farm. He's gonna flip it and sell it. Very proud of him for that. He's Jonesing to do that. Now that some parts came in. But we gotta get the farm stuff done first. That's such a problem. I need to get there and come back and start pushing on it. No, that's extracurricular. We gotta get this done. I was able to get Jonah and Jos— I can't lift up my arm. I can't lift up this arm without a camera in it. Oh wow, it's getting better. Dislocated my shoulder 3 weeks ago today. We got Josiah and Lily helping Mom. Jonah's turn to do the kitchen, so he's on that. I guess that leaves you and I, bud. First things first, deciding where we're gonna put these guys.

They could be in those trees, like right over there.

Yeah, what about Lily's ring? Just— although it's coming back, we probably don't need to put pigs on it, huh? Now we could just put them down through here. Gideon, this is wider than I thought. First thing you want to do is drain this water. We can be working while draining. Second thing you want to do is get this filling up. It's been a very comfortable morning because it's been cloudy. It's about to get real. I normally have the water line on, but it's broke, so we have to turn it on when we need it. Hopefully we're going to fix that today. Can you see it? Goes right through there. Little bonus project for us this morning. Kids have destroyed— the pigs have destroyed their, uh, shed sled. Time out from the pigs to help the beautiful one. Sun came out, now this is an oven. Okay, so we're harvesting?

Yeah.

Okay, are you ready to move the pigs? Okay, I'm gonna send Josiah. Josiah, will you go tell Matt? And then film fixing the, the, uh, shed too. Our water should be filled by now. It's not even going. I don't know if I should be jumping. That's off, honey. Okay, there should be working. Filling up now. Okay, let's get them their food. They haven't eaten yet. They don't care though, they're pretty happy on the new grass. Hey, Jonah fixed our sled. Thank you very much. Burnout kind of sneaks up on you. It snuck up on us. I finally realized it when we moved back in our house. And there was an initial energy, but it didn't last very long, and I was back into that funk. And I finally realized it's been 7 years since the Great American Farm Tour. 2017 was the Great American Farm Tour. So basically it's been 7 years since we started our homestead over. I don't know what it is about 7 years, but marriage is struggle, work burnout, farming burnout. If you can get past that 7-year mark, good chance you're gonna make it. I guess I just made that up. I'm not making up this phenomenon that there can be— tends to be a burnout around the 7-year mark. And when we realize that, at least we have identified it and can say it's not— there's nothing wrong with us. We haven't lost our passion. We haven't lost our purpose. Sick and tired of it. Is sick and tired of it the right word? I want to be careful here. I think it's okay to be sick and tired of it sometimes. A lot of it's the same day in, day out, year in, year out, and it can wear on somebody, and it's wearing on us. Now what are we going to do about it? Well, we're going to quit. Um, yes. Just kidding, just kidding. We're not even gonna slow down necessarily. There's a difference between burnout and overwhelm. Overwhelm would mean you need to slow down. We're not overwhelmed, we're burnt out, so it doesn't necessarily call for a slowdown. I think we'll finish this conversation inside, out of the heat, because we are done. Pigs are fat and happy. Did y'all move the chickens over too? Sweet. Fat and happy in this new spot. Look at that. That is an area that had been hay bombed, had a little bit of soil, and they're just loving it. This one's straightening out. Look, she's stealing over here, filling in the pig's hole. Look at that pig made that hole. These chickens will smooth it out a bit and get it ready for planting.

We have 3 gigantic Crates of tomatoes. Oh, what else do you have? What is that? It's corn. Josiah and Henry are doing the corn. Forgot that I have 4 trays of blueberries right now in the freezer, so I'm getting those. I'm gonna bag them up and get those back in the freezer. And then Justin thought he saw another thing of, um, broccoli somewhere, but I don't, I don't remember that. So I think this coming week I'm gonna hit the blueberry farm again and I'm gonna freeze more blueberries. Coming up in August when we do Grow 30, I'm gonna, um, one of our days we need to organize all the freezers because I think that's That's one of our issues is that we're not organized after the harvest. Like, in the freezer section. You know what I mean?

I can't pull this line up anymore. It's gotten so deep. All right, we're gonna have to dig this up. Do you like hard manual labor in the noonday sun?

No.

That's what we got today. Well, we found it. It's a little hole right here. You know one thing we didn't bring is a saw. I do have my Leatherman. You think you're faster than me?

Yeah, you do want to try.

Fixed it. Well, we'll see if we fixed it. Gideon's going to turn it on. Shoot. Okay, we fixed it, but why is it still leaking? I damaged this somehow. Get in this, this adapter. It's melted.

You melted it. I literally saw you.

Oh, okay, well that's probably the problem. All right, go turn it on. Is it on? It says it's on. You'd never know it because there's not one leak. Hot dog. We fixed it!

So many hours later, I am just getting the crushed tomatoes into jars, and I'm gonna start processing them soon. So yeah, that— I don't think I've ever done this many tomatoes in my life. It's a lot. I came over here to check and I had one of my jars break. Darn it, I didn't even hear it. I didn't hear the pop. I've been in the kitchen the whole time. I'm gonna fish that glass out, I think. So I think that one I accidentally might have broken. I felt— I thought it was close. I thought it was in like the thing, and I think I let it go a little too soon. So, and then this is my sterilization. So I've got this on high. I'm going to get it up to temp, and then that sterilizes them. This is the final result. I have 21, 22, 23, 23 quarts of sauce.

We've had a tomato explosion in here, Rebecca. This is a record. Beefcake and Poundcake are gonna taste like tomatoes. They're babies. 20 quarts, I would imagine, in one day. This is 20% of our yearly goal today. They're working on that. I'm gonna sneak away, do a bit of cream separating so we can get some butter. It's been a minute since we've been able to do butter, but look at this. She's not been giving a whole lot of cream. I cannot wait till Vanilla has her baby. She's a cream giver. Half a gallon of cream. In lieu of quitting— it's just not gonna happen. This is burnout. This is not, uh, overwhelm. I actually had a farm sitter. I was training him and it was taking a long time. There was a long list and I don't even think it was the busiest time of our year. We were about right here. We were 3 or 4 hours, and I said to him, is it worth it? You know, gauging him to see if he was tired. I was tired, I was done. And he said, you have to. And he knew where we were coming from. And the reason we homestead is for our health. You cannot buy this stuff anywhere else, this quality. We're talking about even grass-fed beef. We're starting to run low on our stores and we're trying to think where can we source other grass-fed beef. And they vaccinate, or they might— it will— it may not be 100% grass-fed. And then if it is, they might vaccinate or still use antibiotics or grain finish. They might use commercial chicken manure fertilizer on their pastures. It's just like, ugh. When we're coming at it from this health conviction. I have to. I have to. I think about what Joel Salatin said when Ben Haller asked him, what do you do about burnout?

And this is his answer: I think how you prevent burnout is to have a vision big enough. The problem is most people don't have a big enough vision. And, uh, you know, uh, and so our mission statement is to develop economically, ecologically, and emotionally enhancing agricultural prototypes and facilitate their duplication throughout the world. So that's our mission statement. That's a, that's a, that's a big vision. That's a big mission.

So you got to tap into your vision. You got to remember your vision. The other thing too is the way we're managing these animals is we're actually making the place better. Whether I want to show up or not doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what I want. That's That's a feeling. That's not a compass for right and wrong. What we're doing is the right thing to do whether we're in the mood or not. Just like folks in plumbing or electrical work, we're in homesteading, we're in content creation. Push through, show up, go to work whether you want to or not. There are ebbs and flows. We're getting through. Some things we might do to bring back some excitement is you'll notice we're always trying new things. I mean, in the garden we tried plastic weed barrier just to get us back on our feet after the hurricane and losing Rebecca's mom and moving into this house. But next year, we don't like the plastic. We will have a go at cover crop garden. Just, you know, always mixing it up, always trying to learn something, pushing the boundaries. That helps. Thanks for listening to my TED Talk. Happy day.