We Planted 2-acres of GRASS (to Feed our Family)

In this video, we've got to plant our pasture, cover it up before we lose critical topsoil to the coming rains. I'm fasting right now to address my Lyme disease, jumpstart a all-beef and lamb diet. I'm doing the Lion's Diet, how appropriate since we're trying to eat more and more ruminants, grazers. Also clearing this land for that reason so that we can have more ruminants. I'm on day 2, 3. I'm gonna have to force myself to take it easy. Is this a hurried snack?

Uh-huh.

Or a long-entailed snack?

All I have to do is blend it.

You gonna pick up after yourself?

Yeah, probably not.

Good morning! Did you catch anything last night? Hmm? What, you don't want to eat while I'm here? There we go. You keep the mice away. Almanza, you're a good cat. You coming with? Well, you need socks and shoes. Yeah, sock, sock, right. Good job. You starting to talk? That's a sock. There you go. Dropped it. Okay, we'll put it on better. There we go. Where y'all taking that?

Into the dumpster.

Okay, such a little helper.

Yeah, yeah, good job.

We're having to milk Flossie in the stanchion because She's been acting up when she's just loosely tied in the pole barn. Make our job a little more, more difficult. It's not crazy difficult, but it's a little trickier getting her from there all the way over to here without getting everybody else out. This is a mess. The water got left on and flooded this area. This whole thing needs to be mucked, or we can get you guys out to the new pasture. What do you say? As soon as possible. We're getting you out there. Those are my meat cows, AKA steers. We'll have plenty of beef this coming fall.

Good morning.

Does that feel good on your shedding neck? You don't even want to stand up to poop. You're just gonna poop right there? Come on, let's go, let's go. There we go. Third day into my fast. I'm feeling it. Out of breath, heart beating. This is twice as hard as it usually is. Thankfully this isn't a hard job, so it's still possible. You want to go in? Yeah. Okay, but you're coming with, Gideon. We gotta train Vanilla. Hence name, because all the cream. All the vanilla ice cream we will get from this cow. But we have to train her first. This is her first calf. You have to have a calf for the mama cow to produce milk, and you're gonna have to have that cow be still so that we can get the milk. She really likes it right there where she's shedding. Okay, you're gonna slowly work your way down. Start at her head. Whoops, left the fence open. And they didn't miss a beat. Come on. No, no, no, let's go. You know, is he going in? Okay, come on, come on, honey. Okay, getting stinky. It's time to move. Josiah is gonna pull up those Logs right there. Mother Nature is a modest gal and likes to be covered up. The problem is we just stripped her of 2 acres to create more pasture to grow more meat and dairy for our family. Taking a page out of Mother Nature's handbook, it's our number one priority to get her covered again. We must protect her before the rains come and wash away that hard-earned topsoil. It's working great. Thank you. You coming to help?

I mean, I'm coming to be out here. I didn't know you guys wouldn't have pitchforks.

This means 3 things. We've got to smooth her out by hand, like with bow rakes and shovels, and get what the big machines couldn't get— the fine stuff. The other thing we got to do is put down Choice Seeds. We like Nature Seeds, their Southeast Dairy Cattle Mix. The most critical is cover her up with something. For us, we have spent hay and we have hay. We'll cover up with that. Spread it very thin. This looks like a daunting task. Doesn't feel that way when we say, let's just go to the tree there. From this ridge to tree to the edge, and then we'll look at our next section and it won't be as intimidating. She's gonna lay an egg in the cow feeder. She's been laying in that trash can, but that trash can's getting full. That's a load. Let's do it. The process was slow, daunting, and seemingly impossible. Thankfully, we had a new friend show up. This is Nelson, all the way from Kenya. But you live here now though, don't you, Nelson?

I do live here now.

You are a friend of a friend. A friend that makes you a friend of mine. You were smelling the manure a little bit there.

Reminds me of home.

Reminds you of your home.

Yes, it does, for sure.

Did you grow up in the village or out in the city? Or in the city?

I grew up in the village. A lot of milking the cows, cleaning poop, and getting a chance to eat the animals once in a while.

Yes, that was always good. Nelson asked me how long this take to clear. Took 2 days with big machines.

It's impressive.

But before that, it took us 100 days to chop all the little trees down.

I'm a tree hugger. Does it ever hurt when you cut the trees down?

Oh yeah.

Yeah, but, but listen, pasture's, pasture's gonna grow here and we're gonna bring the animals through and it's gonna create more carbon than even those trees we're creating because the grass is going to be mowed with the animals and our machines and it's going to regenerate. We're going to make up for it, is my reasoning. That's why I'm in a rush to get this hay down so we don't lose any of this soil.

Absolutely.

So how long has it been since you hand milked a cow? 80 years now. Did you have machines or did you hand milk? We hand milk. What was the big struggle with milking the cows in Africa?

Just the fact that they kick.

Yeah, and got a bunch of kickers.

And some people want to do the milk for selling, you know, sometimes if your cow is not giving enough milk.

Yeah, that's always bad. Do you have a common grazing area or do you graze only your property?

It depends. A lot of people don't have much land, so we'll use a lot of zero grazing. And so that means that people kind of have to plant, you know, nepia grass and just kind of, you know, every day they'll go cut the grass down and then they'll come and chop it up in there in the straws.

Oh, they cut it up and bring it to the cow?

That's zero grazing.

Let's see if we can't do this section right here. It's going a lot slower than I thought and hoped though. What do we got? 10th? Maybe a 20th? 20%?

Yeah.

Good morning, crazy hair don't care. Everybody but Jonah, get up. You got driver's ed, my man. Driver's ed. You're gonna be driving the track loader today. Okay, hauling hay up there. You ready? Don't take too long on this tea, crazy hair.

But since that's coming at 8, you got your lessons today.

Can you hurry with your chores and get a hay bale out there by 8 o'clock?

Yeah, well, where'd I put it?

Put it just below where we've been spreading hay, like 20 feet below. Probably the most exciting, and I would look most forward to is going ahead and put livestock out there. Nothing can rejuvenate a piece of land better and quicker than a live animal. You ready to get out? Getting them out there, feeding them hay on spot— that wasted hay becomes organic matter and they manure, adding fertility to the land. And plus, a little bit of disturbance can be good for the land. Nothing establishes a pasture faster than just putting the ruminants on it. We've been having to take Flossie over because she's been kicking. Let me try to milk her. Yesterday Randolph put in this stanchion and it's pretty sturdy, and I'm hoping just a headlock will calm her down. Okay, no kicking. Is it just the headlock? She might have to get a full stanchion if she starts kicking when I do this, but I think she's gonna sit still. I think she's gonna be all right. No, no, no. Uh-oh, I might have laughed too soon. Lots of alfalfa. She's standing still. You want to try it? Okay. You feel comfortable? Safe?

Yeah.

All right. This feels so good that that works. I'm a stickler for like cutting as much off chores as we can, and that's like 15 minutes. Although I don't think Lily's convinced. She's just maybe gonna have to trust me and see on this one. Lily, why do you like the other way so much better, hauling her up? Away to the station because I could do it for myself. Well, now my challenge is for Lily is catch the spirit of that, which is the spirit of wanting to do things independently, which is good. So I'm gonna have to think about that, how I can incorporate that. Hopefully this is going to be faster. We didn't have to load Sally with hay. We've got the hay in place. Hopefully it's faster. It's a great spot. Grab it by hand. Let's cross our fingers this is fast. Happy day, and look what has come. Let's hug some trees. There are 80-something-odd trees in here. We are pasturing our forest and forestering our pastures. This week has been a big focus on on pasturing our forest. Well, probably next week is a big focus on foresting our pastures. And while we're foresting, why not do the permaculture way and plant some edible for us? So fruit trees. Good morning, Mr. Brown.

Good morning, Papa.

Yeah, bud, could you take me down to the treehouse where my boots are. Sure, won't be doing this forever. Mr. Brown, where are your shoes? There they are.

Oh, there they are.

All right, can let you down.

Okay, I warm up the house.

Yeah, and then get another jacket. Get your jacket on. With that hay, Jonah, we can spread that here, maybe go all the way to that stump, across and down this way.

Mhm.

Don't go beyond that stump, it's too swampy. We need to let it dry out. We still got below that area. We did that whole area. We got to do this and then we got to get up there. Problem is over there we need to bow rake. Just looking at it seems much more than what we can do today. We did start early, so there is some hope. It's only 8:30. We got 2 and a half more hours we can work on this. It would be a dream if we got the steers, but I'm gonna kind of maybe go ahead and release that. I hate to keep putting it off till tomorrow, but I may have to do that again. Okay, pretty pleased. Probably got another hour and a half of spreading. Let's have goals. Finish this section. Before breakfast. To stay motivated, I'm seeing the big picture. I'm enjoying working with my family. I'm seeing what this will become for my grandchildren. I'm seeing my grandchildren run barefoot up through there chasing some sheep. My kids aren't seeing it so much. Gideon, do you like doing this?

No, not really.

What makes you do this?

I don't know. Well, so I can have pasture.

That might be the Sunday school answer. They're giving me a hard time this morning. Lest you think we're all just unicorns farting rainbows. Lily's especially struggling a little bit with this. Hey Lily, do you like doing this?

No.

So I'm thinking, how do I motivate them? Okay, we're humans, we're motivated by rewards. Does this help you kids, knowing that this will never be bare for your children, that this is your land? Your kids will never know Bury dirt here. What would motivate you? A prize at the end?

Yeah.

What prize you want?

Um, a dirt bike.

A dirt bike is strong. A horse. Yes, this is a horse one day, Lily. Can you imagine your horse grazing this land? Can you see it? We needed this for your horse. I see a little smile coming up. Nope, she's gonna turn around. She ain't gonna give me that smile. How do you like this job, going and getting the hay? You like it? We found something you like. I'll say, guys, this is working really fast, this method with having Sally dropping it in place. He can't keep up with us. We're getting done.

Can I be able to spend $20 on Amazon for whatever I want?

What if I do let them get something, you know, even though I strange. Like, we're cleaning out our house and we're gonna let you bring something in. Well, the bigger picture here is we want you to see and enjoy this vision, so I went with it. This toy reward idea is working out pretty well. They've already picked up their pace. Do you have a toy idea?

Yeah.

What?

It's like toy animals.

What toy animal?

Like toy animal horse.

Okay. And what about you?

I'm gonna get that set to what Josiah got.

But we need a good attitude today and tomorrow. We gotta finish strong. We finished that section. This section, Jonah? Has he tried to grade this, Josiah? Okay, we're gonna get Josiah up here to grade this. That's pretty rough. I don't want to do that by hand. He's done right here, maybe. This is real rough. Let's get the logs out for him. Mama has called for breakfast. And Randolph's here. We need another stanchion for, for a cow we're training. Yeah, I'm thinking just the same thing, same thing over here. Yeah, you could get started on it and I'll show you how I want to orient it. All right, but it's worked great, worked great. Yeah, she's not kicking. Beck, you got to feed these starving children. I know, poor thing, their morale is down. But this will do it. Look at your, your special— what is that, onions, peppers, bacon, cheese? And bacon bakes.

Don't delete that. Don't delete it.

Maybe it's working. They're excited.

Saying I want to get is more than $20.

Uh-oh.

But can I work for free for you for a couple of weeks?

I don't know about that. Josiah, we got a tractor job for you. We're gonna need the mini ax. You missed a couple stumps out there.

Okay.

And then we need track loader for leveling behind where the pigs were. Good morning, my man. Good morning. You want to know what we're going to do today?

Yeah.

Let's finish this. Seed the pasture. Well, we ran out of seed, but put down the hay. We'll seed it later. Get the steers out there. The week ends today. How many days have I thought I would be able to get these guys out? They must get out. This area is getting wet. Things are starting to grow. You want to be out and about. We got to restore this pasture as soon as possible so we can have more and more food for our family. Don't jump up and down for joy and hurt yourself. Good morning, Vanilla! You ready to be trained? 2 weeks away exactly to her due date. Randolph has installed a little stanchion here in the corner, just zip ties, so it's super temporary. Vanilla, you think you're ready to get in that? What do you think, Lily? You think she'll go? Maybe today. She's never been in a stanchion before. Here, here, vanilla, vanilla.

There she goes.

Almost.

Come on, good first day session.

Call the Inquirer, we got everybody here.

Can I get me at 9?

You could come in and help Mama after we get the hay down and when we start getting the steers. Yeah, there's only around the pigs is left. Can we do it? It's the last day, last chance.

Would it take an hour?

Uh, yeah, we could maybe knock it out in an hour. The morning of our last day, I woke up, still dark outside, it's raining. I'm like, oh, we're maybe a third away from being done. I even went back to bed and I was like, ah, it's raining, we're not gonna be able to do nothing. Thankfully, I found some resolve, got up, and by the time we went out, it had stopped raining. And the rain brought a blessing and a curse. I mean, a curse in that it became hard to, to work in. It was so muddy, it was slippery, it was— we were sinking deep. But the blessing was I was so bent on getting these cows out, I realized with this rain event, this newly processed land is going to be way too vulnerable for cows right now. As much as cows will help it, it needs to dry out more. And so it saved us from a lot of destruction, just me seeing that and getting into my head and been saying, just wait. My gut's saying it's too soon. Oh yeah, oh yeah, way too soon. I don't even want to walk on this. I'm peculiar about my pastures. My heart and soul, they're my, they're my beef, they're my energy, they're my medicine. Because these pastures turn unedible things like grass into nutrient-dense meat that is my energy and medicine. And there's two, and y'all's kids behind you. I used to think my dad was crazy for working me like this, but now I thank him for it. Hey, Josiah, the only one working? Josiah and Pete? I can't believe it, we are almost there. We just got this little section over there, just this little gap here. 10 minutes maybe. Get in, let's fill in the gaps. Bet he's working better now that his toy is coming. Comes tomorrow. You working better now that your toy's coming? One little patch we had to send Jonah back for. I want you guys to see something. Do you see the grass coming up? Pigs were in here. They've moved on. This is a place we didn't disturb with the machines. And oh my word, look at this! Look at this! Everybody take a breath, smell the roses. And now we say, what's next? Hey Josiah, go get us a load of wood chips on Dorton. The name for, uh, The name for the track letter: Dustin and Durton. Dusty and Dirty. We'll pretend their last names are Rhodes. Dusty and Dirty Rhodes. That was gonna be y'all's names if I would have stayed a pro mountain biker and your mom didn't put a kibosh on it. Yeah, Dusty and Dirty. All right, Jonah, we can't get the steers out, so let's muck out their little area here. The week is over. We finished. It's raining. You've probably heard it in the narration as I As I told this story, it's raining and I'm relaxed. The whole land is covered. The hay is protecting the soil from being washed away. That place is rapidly blooming and booming. And the work we did this week, we will reap the benefits of that forever. But from now on, we're reaping the benefits of that, and I get to experience that the rest of my life, and I get to go to the grave knowing that those behind me have a better place.