We Got the Work Done Today

I guess my idea is this morning is just do something, so long as I don't make it worse, worse. Bug net! That's just in time to transplant those bug-sensitive veggies. Happy day, and welcome to another day in the life of a Western North Carolina family living their life as healthy as they can using the homestead to help make that happen. Let's try to get Rebecca out. Getting the sun. We're getting the sun.

Everybody, whether or not you live in a cloudy place or a sunny place, whether or not there's cloud cover or not that day, should really strive to get bright light in your eyes, ideally from sunlight, within the first 30 to 60 minutes after waking.

10 minutes on a cloudy day.

Well, it's not cloudy today.

You were able to look up at it?

All right, all right, we're gonna get you sleeping better.

You gotta say— I don't say that it's No, I don't say this. I'm gonna sleep great tonight. Bless her heart, is taking the brunt of this homestead build. Hey, how are your horses liking the new being out in the pasture? Um, it's okay. They're okay with it? Yeah. The smiley one, how you doing this morning? Good morning. What's the game plan? I like those overalls. I don't know. Yeah, I'm just putting a pulse on the farm now. Gotcha. Just got them in this new paddock this morning. Fresh grass. You gotta help us. All you can eat ice cream. I have to go over there. I'm gonna help you. Oh, they're really confused now. All the way to that where the horses are. There they go. They like to follow the, uh, milk sled. There you go. This is where the cows were, and normally the steers grow right behind them. But there's not enough. Look how much they graze this. This is new pasture we're establishing from an earthworks job. We need to give it a break. We're gonna skip this paddock, bring the steers over here. She wants her calf, guys. Oh yeah, can we get her her calf? Sam's running after it. He's missed the farm. Who's this? What's your name? John. You've been gone like 6 weeks. There it goes. That one's figured it out. When we get hay and we come back through here, we'll hay bomb it. It will slow down and we'll hay bomb the crud out of this. That's what's supposed to happen. They're supposed to go in and eat, not go in and jump around. Hey, if you've got an all-you-can-eat ice cream buffet this morning, you'd probably jump around too. See this swath right here? Joel taught me to look at that and say, the whole farm can look like this. That's the excitement that is the future on this farm. Look at that. Imagine if all this looked like this. I mean, a lot of it does. This too will look like this. Laundry room is complete. Lila, your bathroom might be working on— it might be working on your bathroom. What do you think? I think it's cool.

That is cool.

Now I've had x-rays done on my back, which is feeling better as I get moving. I've had my feet examined. Here you guys go. Lily, come here. Look, this is not gonna be enough water. Training Lily on these chickens. It's gonna be hot today. Put this on the list: we got to get these chickens out of this high tunnel. There is a lot to do, like to get these guys out. We need to get our compost out of our deep bedding piled up and going. We need to make compost. We need to put these chickens on it. The potatoes have exploded, but so have the weeds, so we need to get in here before they take control. Beefcake is not happy. Pig is not meant to be alone, so he needs to get over there next to— let's call her Pound Cake. She's Pound Cake or Cupcake, I forget which one she is. Mom Pig, you just need at least be next to her, don't you, buddy? I'm sorry, we'll get you over there. I'm sorry. And without the internet or a companion, extra bored. Oh, I want to do an experiment. I've been doing the Market Farm method on this and just hoeing weeds, cultivating weeds lightly. I did get all these leaves from a landscaper friend of mine. Let's, let's do a side-by-side comparison. A weed, a row, and then mulch it heavily to get that water back in there. Back with you. You know what I miss? There were years that she and I were the milkers, and then just something happened. Now just I and Jonah are the milkers. How's Mama Pig? You want more slop? You want more skim milk? Talks with your— you probably want an adult companion. You need another adult to talk to. So we're gonna put Beefcake over there and they'll be right next to each other and they can't mate. We want to time it to where we have pigs now and not in the fall. They have very bad eyesight. They have great smell. Look at that nose. Yeah, she's wallowing in her own manure over here. We need to get mulch in here. That's got to be high on the priority list. And I got a little stench over here, so yeah, that's when you know for sure you need to add Oh, why don't we take over there? We're going to. Good idea. Where are you going, man? Pile up the stumps. Okay, out in the pasture. We are definitely in a new season, a divide and conquering season. These boys big enough to just do their own projects. Trying a new routine. Chores in the morning, some people got to eat, and come back in, make breakfast. Trying a new hack here, frying bacon in water. Makes it crispier, the water evaporates. Jonah's opting out. You, Josiah, Lily, Gideon. Although I wonder, are we fogged up? I wonder what that does for the grease. That takes away our bacon grease. I ain't doing this again. Trying a new routine where chores, breakfast, and then project. And because it's spring, all day project. He says let's do the early breakfast right when we wake up, like while it's still dark. We're burning cold morning air right now, and it's gonna be hot in the afternoon. Um, I'm officially never doing that method again. There is no baking grease in the bottom of this thing. Wait, I take that back. There's grease. There it all is. Wow.

What is it?

Just save— have the grease and leave some of it for cooking those eggs. All right, put those eggs on it. I did turn it out crispy. Bacon and eggs, get a dump of cheese. Becca and I have to pick out some grout to keep these tile guys going. That's good. That's new. It looks—

I like it. It looks darker in here.

You was thinking it was too light?

It felt a little too blue. I wanted it more navy.

At least.

Maybe I don't want to do a white grout.

Maybe you don't want to what?

Do a white grout.

We put the floor in the sunroom. I think we're all right. Don't think it's gonna rain. This wood cannot get wet. Underneath this tarp lies 2,300 square feet of beautiful oak wood flooring for our dream homestead house. The contractors on this job— the general con— we didn't get a general contractor for this. Maybe a mistake. It is us. We made this happen. Went all the way to Tennessee yesterday, the other side of Tennessee, Nashville. I can crank this high enough. Oh boy.

Oh.

No, I can't lower that. All hands on deck getting this wood in. It's close there. We, we can easily offload it over. We'll walk through here, maybe even this way. All hands on deck. All right, how'd it go out there today, Jonah?

You're done?

No. How'd it go? I had to fill up. I see that. How'd it go though?

Fine.

How much did you get done? A lot of it. Let's take a break and stack wood, although you got a lesson in a few minutes. It's 11 o'clock. Depending on how long it takes, I think we can get this done. A little over halfway done. It's gonna take a little over an hour. You're gonna lift over 1,500 pounds. I don't know where you've been.

Right here.

No, been on his lesson. All right, let's see, let's see what you got. Hey, good job! Everybody lose spirit? Did you ever have spirit? We got more to do this afternoon. We gotta weed, we gotta make a compost pile, we gotta go eat lunch. What? Oh, you're calling that, aren't you? You're gonna be in that track loader. I have to take off the front. Let's, let's take a break and go eat. Oh, everybody's done? Nobody waited for their old man? Ice cream! Everybody worked so hard, hour and a half in the hot sun. We're gonna ice cream after lunch. A little spearmint, a little leftover— this is leftover stud muffin roast. I fried up some onions, some of our garlic. Have you tasted it yet?

Stud muffin?

Well, no, not that one.

I would say I can just only imagine it's gonna make it better. I've had it.

It's the best roast we've ever— he's the best roast we've ever— meat we've ever had. Well deserved.

4 thumbs up.

Laboring in the new day sun.

I know, I'm so tired.

You've used every one of those calories.

Like, my fingertips all hurt.

Did we have too much nitrogen in that pile? I smell it.

Smell it?

Yeah, I don't. We had a good mix of, uh, good mix of manure in there, didn't we? Probably want to turn it every other day. Justin, you call me Mr. Justin. Are you giving more than you're taking? I bet you're close. That's a man. We learned that on camping trip. A man gives more than he takes. Exciting day, getting the bedding out. It's gonna mix good. It's that critical mass. If we were putting this on the pasture, we just put it in the manure spreader and do this as is. This is gonna be garden compost, so that needs to be really fine. We need to kill any weed seeds in it, meaning we need to get it over 120 degrees. It's gonna be a gigantic pile, and then they're gonna add the horse to it. We'll put the chickens on it. Those boys get to work when their friends kids come and you get done, you get to go play. I don't even know where they are, but they got it done. This is a gigantic compost pile. The bigger, the better, the quicker it's going to heat up. What's it reading at, Henry? Hold on, let me see it. Let me see it. Oh yeah, it's only at like 55. What do you want to bet it heats up overnight? Hose it down good. Wait, do it, do it a little bit.

Yeah, there you go.

Putting that on the list— castrate those piglets. Soon. Okay, water it till you think you've watered it enough and then double it up. All right, I'm gonna go get the piping. You guys stay here and water it. We got gutters, but right now they're just— they're draining right next to the house. I think I've got a temporary solution, but temporary or long-term? Both. We've got to dig under this sidewalk and pipe something out through there. And preferably before it rains. I don't think I've ever dug a ditch under a concrete sidewalk, but what you got to do as a homeowner.

We got through. Probably do We did it!

Can we get a 4-inch? Can we dig a ditch all the way out? Your machine can't get here, so you're gonna have to dig it by hand. This is going right there to the corner of the house. Don't hit this house. It's gonna stick to you. Go on, drag it out. You climb in the persimmon tree? I'm excited about this persimmon tree. Look, it's budding! And it's budding late enough. What, we're 20 days away from the last possible frost? We're not flowering, so we're good. We got the second drain off. We are temporarily set. Let's see if it rains. We'll see how we do. Hey, Henry! Henry, how you doing down there? Oh my gosh, Becky!

Well, I bought those.

No, I know, but this—

yeah, we're waiting.

We plant our groceries, baby.

We gotta get the peas in the ground.

Let's put them in the ground. I don't know, we got about 30 minutes Dinner. Lily's cooking it tonight. It's like those potatoes have been planted there. See those potato plants? Yeah, they're like straight through there. It's not like volunteers.

We mess up.

Well, there's 4 beds of potatoes right there, and there's not potatoes in the middle. I would say those would be volunteers, but they're too straight of a line. 2 rows weeded, more to do tomorrow. We gotta go check the bees. I feel like we're gonna walk out here and these bees are gonna be dead because what's it been, 2 weeks? I've never had an animal that you didn't have to kill care for for a week and a half.

Well, like that you didn't—

oh look, they're very much alive. I'd say they're thriving, huh?

They look like they are.

We've got to get their nucleus containers out. Should I pull Austin and just grab them?

Yeah, I'll hold the camera back. Yeah, it's off. I just turned it off.

Whoa, there's a bunch of dead ones in there.

Oh my goodness, I wonder if they just didn't go in the hive, if they just stayed in the box.

I think Austin would probably just walk right out and get it.

Yeah, he would.

Boy, they're thriving, aren't they?

They are.

Couple dive bombing me.

She said stop. Okay, don't, don't, don't do the swatting.

Why?

Don't swat.

Well, then it's going to sting me. Oh, she said walk away. Okay, dive bombing us. We're getting out of there. Gonna respect them. Yeah, she said don't do that on a cloudy day. What do we do, we walk over there when it's cloudy?

Well, not—

well, we definitely aren't opening them up. Definitely not a cloudy day.

We got our containers out of the fence. Did we turn the fence back on?

No.

Why do they get weird on cloudy days? They think I'm a bear in this black shirt. I'm gonna get stung. It's gonna work better with a camera. They don't seem to care now. All right, I'm going, I'm leaving. All right, well, that was fun. New experience with bees. You don't have to care for them for a week and a half, but you could get stung when you do. One did not— kind of came around me but didn't dive bomb me. That's scary when they dive bomb you, they just run right into you.

I wonder if it's the, um, the black shirt. Yeah, because that's one thing she said, it was like the bear thing.

Why?

What about the other one?

I don't want to get it. I'll get it another time. You go get it, Miss Thing. I got one. How's the dinner coming? I had to make ice cream, so that'll be later. Yay, ice cream twice! Oh, look what was left in the oven. Okay, let's give that to Mom as an appetizer. This is potatoes from lunch, and I guess the oven got left on. Here's a nice appetizer for the Mexican meal.

The pigs will enjoy them.

Look at this kid, he's got winter socks on, flannel pants. In the winter, he wants his biats, which are shorts. And he insisted on those flannel pants today. It's hot. You gonna eat with socks on? How's that working, Henry? Thank you, Lily, for this Mexican. We got the work done today, didn't we? Yep. Give me another one tomorrow. And we got ice cream. Only homesteaders with the family cow can have ice cream twice a day when 2 are milk, which we have to dry off. Honey, party's about to be over.

She's not giving that much anyway.

Half a gallon. Not even? Oh, okay. Vanilla's giving that much? Like 2 gallons? Hey, ride that wave, guys. Ride that wave. Keep milking her real good, Josiah. All right, happy day.