We Quit the Grocery Store + Grew it Ourselves 2024

Hurricane Helene, golf ball-sized hail, house build, illness, and grandma's death were all unbelievable obstacles in our way. Fighting chronic illness and trying to live the healthiest life possible for our— the longevity of us, for our children and our grandchildren yet born. We are growing our own food. We have some concerns about the stuff in the grocery store, but the last nail in the coffin was the appeal, the appeals. This is like a wax preservative that even goes on organics. And the fact that if you get tomatoes, because they're not even vine ripened when you buy them at the store and they're ripened over time, not on the vine, you're losing like 75 or is it 85% of the nutrients before it gets to your plate. This is a big concern for us, and it means we need to grow most of our own food and quit the grocery store. Let's do it. And we're here, our weekly mini date, supplementing our food. Oh, already it's getting colder. Uh, got a couple of hacks for those of you wanting to grow some of your own food that aren't quite there yet or want to grow more of your own. Notice what she's getting. We didn't get peppers, although we love them. Ditto on zucchini. And cucumbers, probably what we miss the most. I'm noticing the co-op is good about having seasonal veggies. We're not getting tomatoes. We're getting things we could have grown. We're getting seasonal items like cabbages, collards, carrots, broccoli, and sweet potatoes and bananas. It's going to be 10 degrees tomorrow. We're not growing bananas in western North Carolina. One thing we don't need a lot of— meat. Uh, about the bananas. Those are a cheat. It's hard to beat a banana for a great snack for kids. Clean, easy, delicious, and actually it is in season all year round. The point is, uh, you're gonna grow food, you're gonna be— you're gonna need to cook said food and use it. So you don't have to be homesteading to start homesteading. Homesteading starts now. Again, the point is to start buying stuff that is in season that you could have grown. My second hack for you is to look at what you're buying. That's what's close to your heart. That's what you should grow. You're trying to figure out what you should grow. That's what you should grow. And if you're already growing, that's what then you should prioritize. Let's take a look. Uh, chips are gonna be hard to grow. That's just gonna have to remain a cheat.

We could grow corn and grind it and then make it into chips.

Oreos and Hot Pockets. You know, maybe you shouldn't be eating that stuff.

Or just have it as a cheat. Yeah, occasionally. Not eat it once a week.

Or yeah, it's a small percentage of this cart. I for one am not giving up chocolate for a while. I don't even think I'm gonna give that up during the 100-day challenge or something.

Yeah, I think we're gonna have some things.

I think we're gonna allow ourselves some cheats. Calling the house. You still think it's okay if we go to lunch? Yeah, it's fine if you guys want to go to lunch. Okay, thank you. Who's watching Henry right now? I am getting cheese. Look at all this cheese. You know what that's telling me? That's telling me we might need to put that third cow higher on our priority list.

Call the cow guy and see.

Yeah, all right. I hope they itemize this receipt so we can easily figure out how much we're spending on dairy. If they don't, I'll add it up. Okay, that temperature is dropping fast. Becca's got an 11 o'clock phone call. I broke it into 3 categories: dairy, cheats and fruits and veggies. I'm, I'm shocked. This is definitely a reality check even for me. It's cold out here, but I'm gonna try to explain this to you. Dairy is 40% of this bill. Almost 40%. We're already growing our own. We didn't have to buy any milk. We didn't have to buy any yogurt. We only had to supplement a little with cream. We had to buy all our cheese. Cheats was 21%. Maybe this is the most shocking is Fruits and veggies was only 19%. What percentage do you think we just spent on dairy? I'll give you a hint, this is very telling to me.

I'm gonna say this is—

this is changing the direction of our homestead. 40%.

40%.

That's exactly right. 40%, Becky. How much do you think we spent on cheats?

$30.

21%.

21%.

What do you think we spent on fruit and veggies?

Oh, that was 60% then.

19.

19%?

Most of that dairy, mozzarella, we could have grown. Is cheddar hard to make? Mozzarella is easy enough. Ricotta is easy enough. Cheddar? Oh, we had to supplement with some cream on there. So hopefully we don't have to get 4 cows.

No.

We only have so much land. We don't even have room for 3. We're gonna have to supplement with hay. But our goal is to quit the grocery store. We'll just buy some hay. I really think this is one of those Pivotal moment.

Aha moment where we decide to buy another cow.

Yes, I'm gonna text him right now. Are you all right?

I'm ready.

We've got the milk down, we've got the yogurt down, we've got some of the— but we got some of the cream down, some of the butter down, but we need all the rest of the butter and the cream and the cheese. Unless you want to quit cheese. Her silence is her agreeing.

I don't like my cheese.

You do not take her cheese away. I know, we've already taken gluten. That's right. We've taken our gluten. We better not take our cheese. Receipt exercises— actually, you know what Jesus said? He said, where your treasure is, there your heart is. So imagine your heart has a little string attached to it, and it's attached to your money. Wherever your money is going, that's where your heart is. So look at your grocery receipt, X out Oreos, and, you know, just put cheats in a category. Have some cheats, but then look at the stuff you're buying. That's where your heart is. What you think you want look at the evidence and have a serious talk. You know, we might have been real excited about going all in the garden, but we need to prioritize the dairy. We're going to be planning our 2024 plot with a new software. But the next time you pull it in from this one, it's going to be the other 6. What we essentially did is the software company SeedTime, the, the dad and son team, walked us through how to plan the garden. We had an event where y'all could watch. It's like 2,200 people signed up for that thing. You guys are excited. And we learned how to plant a garden with this thing to make it a lot easier than just like analog planning. One of our major objects for growing our own food in 2024 was our ongoing house build that extended much longer than we thought it would. It's the critical piece because it's our zone zero, you know. It's— everything stems out from there, so it's so important to us. We're in this rush to get the electric done, the HVAC done, and the framing done so that we can bring on the insulation. HVAC is done, electric's coming next week, and Sean's coming today to go over what he needs to get done for the framing. I came by because, you know, Justin's the only dude in the plant, in the state, that gives me anxiety, man. We were off to a blaze of glory, and then it just seems like we need to try to find that— I know, find that gas pedal.

All right.

They fail us for something, it's something that I don't foresee. I don't know what you want to do here. All of these jams are too wide, dude. Did I? Wow. What's up, little dude? Have you met Blaze? I have met Blaze. He's Peach's sidekick. Yep. Well, we've gotten to a point where we need the beautiful one back. Sorry to drag you out of your—

it's okay—

much-needed rest. I tried.

It's okay.

I got pretty far. I was like, I got this.

You need me, that is fine.

Oh boy. Rebecca's being a real trooper, not feeling good, getting out in the rain, pushing through. This is how bad she wants it. It's how bad we all want it. We only figured siding up top. We figured right here. The point is, where does Hardy start and stop? So does this become Hardy now?

I was thinking—

or is it all poplar? Or is it all poplar? Or where is that transition? I was thinking that it would go Here, basement, then you want to go all the way to the end?

Yeah, all the way to the end.

Put this one over here, maybe not looking good. We put the siding all the way here. Yeah, and they put the strip. Let's not put it this one. That was too much space, you see, for the space for the windows, everything. I hope I'm understanding them right. I think they're wanting to know how we want these— the siding set on the house. I got a siding question for you. Oh, do you know how the siding is supposed to go on the house? Where you have one board horizontal on the bottom all the way across and then it goes vertical? I think that's what we were talking about with Shawn. I had no idea. I don't think he wants to do that. I think there's a problem if he does do it. I'm caught in the middle, but supposed to be at top— on top. Big Daddy's here. He knows about construction. I don't know about construction. I think they've started to put They're all wrong. The other places they were right with that, from what I'm gathering. He said this is right. This one's right. This was right. Okay, he said, and then put the Z flashing on top. Okay, I think I communicated that. I think we're— I'm having them do the right thing. The crazy trick is I have no idea what I'm talking about. Am I hearing Rebecca right? Am I hearing Jose right? We're looking for some flashing. No. All right. That's really poor Josiah. This is why he doesn't like to work with me. Looky here. I think this will be our station for our side-by-sides and mower machines we use every day. Our new barn. It's just a shed in the bottom of our house. There's the flashing in here, which incidentally is our old barn, remember? I'm a big fan of a barn and a garage. Our new garage is the shed. Beauty wants a garage for her car. It's been a lifelong dream for her. I'm happy to deliver. We had to extend it out 2 feet, raise the roof, widen the doors, and now the Suburban can fit in there. I have a suspicion. What did I tell you? We're looking for like this PVC flashing type of stuff. I have no idea what that is. I'm texting back and forth with the builder. They put some stuff over here. Oh, oh, that's got to be it. PVC trim coil. I must put it over here with all this other stuff we're trying to keep out of the weather. Found it! Figured it out and found it. There's supposed to be one more, but today that's good enough. There it is! There it is! Never been so happy to find something I have no idea what it is. I'm gonna see what they're doing and learn. I think they're having to build their own flashing. Ah, okay. Hey, how was your lesson?

Good.

Yeah, this makes me very happy. 2, 3, 4, 5, 8 very capable, hardworking men. Just swarming our house right now for siding. One thing that was good and bad is that our children became, as they aging, became more independent. You know, they were less our assistants and more doing their own projects. And many times that lined up with our mission. Sometimes it didn't, but I still think it's a good thing. For example, they really are getting good at running the machine. Getting repositioned above it.

I don't know why he just won't let me do it.

How could you do it? You're supposed to put it really close to the blade and then it doesn't do what it's doing.

Yeah.

Look, I guess big daddy's taking over the chickens. She's got you doing the chickens, huh? He did it! What do you think about that big rock?

That's just a stupid boulder!

Henry's walking on a retainer wall for a driveway to get Grandma up closer to the door. Big Daddy's gonna build a ramp. She's having a harder time going up steps with her ALS, so This will make it a lot easier. Jonah's saying Josiah will stack, Jonah will go get rocks. I've been overrided by the boss. Got the wall done and it is beautiful. Worked out nice. Jonah's filling in the dirt. I think you're on to something, but I still think it's not down, down and out. You've done it right here. Look, I think we're good here. There's a rock there. You're not gonna be able to go any deeper anyway. Maybe from here on, a little more gradual slope out of here. That— you got a knack for this. We decided with the freezing at night and then thawing out in the day, it's never gonna dry out in the winter. We're just gonna gravel it and go. Should I try it? Look at this. Much better. Still a little soft, but I'm not sinking. Take it one little step at a time. We got some trees along the edge and we got a little batch right there. How long does it take us to clear I don't know, 1,200 square feet. This is how all our kids learn how to drive. Turn the wheel the opposite way.

Is this one?

There it is. Yep, that's it. R. The track loader needs some hydraulics, so I'm going to just coach him. Get your escape path ready. Our first harvest of the year. Quite a magnificent one. Our old bull Stud Muffin. Everybody go around the barn, and once you go around the barn, be quiet. He's not used to this. We don't want to stress him out. Construction crew caught one of this. I wanted to watch too. As if I didn't— pressure's on. Okay, we did it. I got emotional. I think it was relief, happiness, sadness all at once. We got him in the first shot. He never knew it was coming. Oh, I am very gross. Yes, we have the guts out finally. Gosh, what'd that take, 2 hours? You almost won. How am I going to clean this apron? You can't just put this in the wash. He'd end up giving us over 800 pounds in our freezer of beef. That's going to be a lot of food for us in 2024, but he needed to be replaced. It just so happened that our ram needed to be replaced and both a new ram and bull were available in Virginia, so we hit the road. Here comes our ram getting pushed by a tractor. So Bruce is the bigger one, he's more mature. Okay, he is 3, I think. Yeah, Ike and Mike on the back there are 2. Yeah, they're big stout guys, but Bruce Bruce is about the sweetest thing. Mike is warming up to us, all white one. Ike displays beautiful genetics, but we got him from another farm, uh, that we know really well. What breed is this? Uh, they're a Katahdin— well, Bruce is a Katahdin Dorper cross, uh, predominantly Katahdin. And really, I think all three of them are that majority. Our flock is— yeah, I don't really care, but which one you like? I don't care. The proven ram but older, or a skittish ram but younger. And this guy that says real calm, if we get him, we can just grow up a baby ram from him. Well, I did just that. See, I thought they were all for sale, and I was eyeing that guy. He happens to be the one that's not for sale.

Do you want to lift him up into the crate while the crate's up in the truck, or do you want to put him in the crate?

What do you want to do, Jim? I think Jim would like to be crazy.

The Katahdin, I think, is a little bigger than Dorper.

Wow. Okay, Mike, you ready to go? It's one of them.

This is one of them.

These are two that are available, so I have, I have four yearling bulls. Okay, one is sold. Okay, I just registered him last week, so I, I go by— that's number 4 and this is number 6. There you go. It's hard to know, isn't it? I don't think you can lose. Which one?

That one's bigger.

Well, he might be older. You like the bigger— I don't know, bigger body, littler legs, filled out stomach. You see any weird— oh yeah, his, his is shedding better, isn't it? Okay, name? Virginia James. They've all been— you've been around them a lot then, haven't you? Every day. They're going to come right up to you. Yeah. How big is your herd? Actually, I sold all my females last September. And so now I have these 4 yearling bulls and then I have the 3-year-old bull. They're both great looking. I'm kind of leaning towards that guy. He's got the similar body constitution. That's me like William. I don't think we could lose with either one of them. Why don't we go in and do the paperwork? All right. It's him. Gentle but not handled, which is good. Doesn't mean he's gonna come and try to get rubbed by the children, you know what I mean? You want to drive? I'll direct you. Oh, you want me to drive? You're eating? You got the munchies? He's retiring, so I'm glad to get one of his bulls. Our neighbor has one of his bulls and it's turned out great. There we go. You tamed them well. All right, William, we're going home. Got a good feeling about you. All right, Mike. Such ordinary names. We might have to come up with some funky names. That muffin too, I like it. We don't want to convince your mom. It stinks.

That muffin is too good of a name.

It's too good of a name. Nacho's a good name. I know, we're keeping it. Is this Nacho? Oh, is this all on Nacho number 2? I like it. We just have to convince your mom.

We also need to name our next milk cow Flossie.

Yeah. Oh, it's only 6 hours. Yeah, 6 hours and 40 minutes. All right. No, don't do that. Oh, there they are. Yes. Oh yeah, pull in here then. Look, coming out to greet us. Stop.

What? I like honking the horn.

Nobody's coming to see me. They're coming to see the bull and the ram, huh?

Hey, trying to come meet you, but they wouldn't let me.

They're gonna be so hyped up tonight. It's probably better just leave in there. First light, our new bull and our new ram. I'm sure they're ready to get out of here and get with some companions.

You gotta line it up good.

Turn the fence off. No, take this off. Big steer feels threatened by the bull. I know, they just got figuring out who's the boss. There could be a pretty good fight if they're equally matched. I think our bull's bigger. Don't drive Selma on this if you don't have to, bro. We want the grass to grow up. Release the Kraken! Oh, they're not too aggressive. We need to get this fence back on. They're way up in the corner. If he gets out, he has He has no sense of home. This is bad. He's going around testing the fence. I'm not sure if this fence is even on. I don't know if he's ever been in an electric net. I didn't see any when I was over there. It was all hardware. Hey, hey, hey! We gotta test this fence. I should have tested the fence before we started. They're figuring out who's boss already. Oh, the other one's trying. Same time. He showed that one. They got to figure out the pecking order. Let him get a drink. He's still checking out his surroundings. He's like, oh, some water. Oh, some minerals. A fence. You don't want to be in there with them. Like, give me a break, guys. I'm going to drink some water. Poor guy. He was back in charge after Stud. Nothing left. Now he has to submit again. Oh, he's not done yet, guy. He's gonna have to fight them all. Don't get downhill, bud. You'll lose for sure. I'm pulling for the bull. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Josiah, is it working?

No.

Jonah, trace it, please. Quick. Brady's gonna just push right through this fence. Goodness, I didn't expect this amount of walloping. They calm down. Everybody's give up the fight but that one. Boy, the poor guy can't move without being followed.

Hey, hey, it's all connected!

Is it a broken tester? Besides, gonna go to get another tester. It could be it. Jonah went along the whole line and didn't see anything. He's trying it. He's, he's looking over it. This is not good. No bueno. I've had a cow not oriented get out. We didn't find it for a week. I don't like how he's looking over this fence. He is seriously making loops around this thing, just looking for a way out. Testing the tester, it works. Nothing. Looks like they're— they take a break and then they go at it again. He's having to beat everybody down, even in It included that little tiny one. Listen, you got it! As soon as you got the fence going, they're all gone. That's a lot of meat right there, isn't it, guys? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 steers. I think we're through the danger zone. He's calmed down, they're calmed down. They are now a herd. If he were to get out, I think he would want to come back eventually to these guys because there's no other herds around. Our pathways came in handy. Get up this crazy steep hill. Look how steep that is. Got this fence turned on just in time. I didn't get it caught on camera, but he came down, put his little nose on that fence, and it got him. He's trained to have an electric fence now. It is, it's cut right there. Say hi, Mom.

Hey, Mom.

Ready to be home? I'm ready to get you home. His name is Nacho Nueve. You know what that means? Nacho 2? The new Nacho. I'm glad we decided not to put the ram in with the steers after all that drama this morning. Okay, here, come on. I've been calling him Nacho Nueve, but she pointed pointed out that's not your 9. Whoops. I'm trying to say new. What's new? Nuevo. Look, he's already eaten. That's a good sign. Let's go mix us some stud muffin. Hopefully a stud muffin dinner tonight. Hey, how's my favorite butcher?

She's recovering from her cold.

Okay, that's 2. I got some some samples for us. We did this, but we put too much fat in it. This is what we're looking for, about 20%.

Oh yeah, so that's what we normally do.

Pretty much what we have. Okay, you think he is a— he can't be an 80/20.

No, they'll mix it to make it 80.

He's probably more like 7%, but yeah, you'll mix it. All right, you're gonna cook up one of the New Yorks. Yep, just to see where it's just a thin to see if it's tough. Because somebody has said, hey, that's a tender one, 10 more tender one. But we'll see.

8 years old might not be—

I know, right? So we might turn that in that burger too. How much percentage fat do you already think he has? Uh, he's pretty fatty. Yeah, see, you have some fat. Oh yeah, I've got another log of fat, and we've got a bunch of your fat. Yeah. So how do you figure 80/20? Counting the fat that's already in Yeah, so I'll give it, I'll give it another 10 pounds of fat that's in there because it's usually, it's mainly if there's any fat like in there like that, it's mainly mostly this. I know I threw up several chunks like this in there. This is 10% fat. Yeah. So you'll add another 10%. Yeah. Okay. And then it'll be ready to go.

Nice.

That's all it is for to be ground. It's the 3. No, no, no, no, no, no.

That's what we did today.

I didn't think so. I was gonna say, no. Short ribs, the fatty chuck roast, looking pretty lean though. Look at that, look at that fat on here. Pants stud, you're making me hungry.

They want your steak.

Medium, uh, or medium rare. So this is actually a mixer and a grinder. Yep. That's looking good. Well, you put that back in there. It's a little too fatty. Yeah. Got a burger press to put it in the patties for us, which saves us so much time on the other end. Then they run it through a second time to get it more consistent, and that's looking good. I'm thinking we're nailing it.

Look at you.

Oh yeah, he's tough. He's tough as hell. This is what I need.

State of the art.

Pretty cool, huh? This is basically how you load it. Wow, wow, I think that's right. We'll see, won't we?

I'm gonna cook it.

And this is custom butchery at its finest. The steak may be tough, but it sure is tasty. Still chewing it. Wow, it's fatty, but it's just tough, isn't it? Yeah, see You cut off the, the fat so you can get a better calculation? Yep. Is that how you— how would— how people would get tallow or suet? Yeah. We got chunks of heart to add in too, so we split up the heart evenly to all the different compartments. So far we're just using this fat, but we're soon going to be out.

This is the 3-pound burger, no seasoning.

Oh. Y'all did good. Good job.

Looks great.

It's very flavorful. Hard to go back to regular burger after you get used to this flavor, right? So happy right now. This is extremely flavorful. I think we got used to it with Flossie. I think this is even more rich in flavor. I think it might throw you off at first if you were to try it, but we just ran out of Flossie. It was hard for me to adjust to her, and then we went to normal beef, almost a hair sour. There's no other way. Sexy. You can't buy this. You're home, smoke some of this, have it with the kids on a bun, cheese. Okay, keep it up, man. That was delicious. Stud muffin, here we go for dinner tonight. Thank you, guys. You nailed it. To support our ever-growing family, we try to add more and more pasture by clearing some of our forest each winter. Let's clear some pasture. More dairy, more beef, here we come. Look what I just got done. Plenty of work for those guys to do. You know, all this can be quite intimidating, but I just think about it like one step at a time, one fuel tank at a time. 45 minutes to an hour. That's all I got to do. Just focus on that. That's a tank. I'm well aware. that it'd be more efficient just to keep on this project.

One empty. What? One empty.

Dang, we're almost done. I think that's the only cluster left. Almost done. Ran out of fuel. I bet we'll get it in one more fuel tank. Mañana. Everybody's safe. Nobody got hurt. We work together.

What's wrong? Oh shoot, look how it's all ripped up into there.

Oh, did it get caught in this? Yes. Yeah, look, it got caught up in this. Do what we can with the track loader. I've texted the hydraulics guy. I wish you had a camera on me there. All right, I'm gonna keep working a little bit. Maybe I can get the rest of these odd, odd and in, odd, odd ones. I think that's all I lack. We just got to get that pine tree on the ground. I can delimit and maybe chop it in two and be done. That's it, Josiah. Thank you. We survived one gas tank at a time! That's a celebration! I think that constitutes a "got done with the chainsaw" part of clearing for the winter. Jonah works all day on that pasture and he wants to show it to us.

Wow, this is crazy! You pull up to the edge.

Wow, so cool!

No sticks.

Yeah, there's— this is a lot stickless than the ones we've done in the past. This is probably an acre and a half. Proud of you, buddy. Thanks. Good accomplishment. We're getting so close. It's good we got these boys.

I know, this is so amazing. This is so amazing.

Yeah, thanks for all your work in it. I guess I'm just gonna have to thank myself. Thanks for risking life and limb on that chainsaw.

I did chainsawing too. I pushed all the trees over.

We have meat pretty much dialed in, and you know, it's our favorite, so it made sense. But now if we're really going to quit the grocery store, we've got to go all in on the things— the beautiful— like veggies. And for the first time in 19 years Honeybees.

You want to see your girls?

Yeah, that's what they are.

Yeah, we're gonna learn.

Yeah, you're gonna learn all kinds. Oh wow, happy with this cold weather though.

Yeah, today what we're gonna do is we'll place them and we'll get them set up, but I'll, I'll open up, but we won't open up because it's a little too cold. This is your guys's hive stand. We milled, uh, milled the oak. It's oak, so it's solid, and then and my husband and son were like, let's brand it. So for the road— I mean, that's awesome. Our last name's Richardson. Okay, I don't typically like to get into the hives until it's around 60, close to 60 degrees. Tomorrow I think it's going to be like 58, I saw, and then sunnier.

First up, we're gonna talk about where to put these hives. We think we got our locale. Austin's documenting this for putting up a course. You learn anything? Not yet. Not yet. I'm sure it's very basic so far. Yeah, basic. We tried a couple of different spaces and she helped us narrow it down to this one. By the way, it was 80 degrees yesterday. It's like 35 right now. Custom stand, Oak. They even branded our— their last name starts with R too, huh? We got us a new Energizer from Premier One and we got their B-net. Apparently According to Kaylee, it's not for the hunt. I was like, we don't need this net yet. It's not for the honey. They're not after the honey. She said, poo is a liar. They included these fiber tufts. You make a turn right here. There's fiber tufts. You can make a turn wherever you want. Historic moment, kids. I'm not sure if the hauler's ever had bees. I think it's getting colder.

So anticlimactic.

So you opened it tomorrow? They didn't go anywhere?

They're— no, she doesn't think they will. Because it's so cold. I just wanna— I wanna give them the option.

So if this were 80 degrees out here, they would have just started? Yeah, they just would have went out right away.

They don't want— nobody came out. They're gonna kind of fly out and then they're gonna kind of circle around their perimeter. Okay. And it's like their way of like navigating, like, this is my home. Okay. And then, you know, they'll come back in and you'll see it. Hi, girl!

Hello!

See how docile they are? So pretty chill. Not really, no. They're just— this is normal. This temperature is actually pretty good. We're not— we're really—

if you open this up in June, it's going to be like this.

They might, you know. It's only certain times of year, uh, that I notice when they can get a little bit feisty. They're more worried about pollinating and getting nectar. Yes, that wind. I'm just gonna step this— yeah, it happens. That wind picked up, so I want to protect them really quick. Okay. All right, so this frame— and I see the queen. Oh wait, let me see. The queen is right there. Oh yes, I see her. I see it right there. Oh wow, yeah, yeah. So she is really—

all right, see her off there?

Right here, right there.

There's only one queen in this whole thing?

Only one.

We got really lucky, I think.

Yep. So brood, you'll see larva, and then see right in through here, this is all— see all these little itty bitty, itty bitty spots right in the center? Those are all the day-old eggs. Oh wow. Now you got to name them. You gotta name your queens. Oh, do you? Yeah, yeah, I named my hives. I name them. I'll help you put in. Okay. How's it feel to hold this many bees?

It's crazy.

Is it crazy, Gideon? But isn't it cool? All right, now we'll put 2 frames in, and, uh, and then we'll shut them up.

If the house build wasn't enough distraction, we had a grease fire in our guest cabin that we were staying in. And we had to move from there to the 700-square-foot tiny home, old original farmhouse. What is this? They're coming. Uh-oh, either they're running— they can't be this excited. They must be gonna tell us. They want to be first advocate. House almost burned down. What? Are you okay?

He slid on fire.

We barely got it out. How did you get it out?

We had to use the fire extinguisher. Everything's—

fire extinguisher?

The house is full of smoke and the fire extinguisher dust is everywhere. You can see the smoke coming out of the house.

Oh no, they got a little excited with the, uh, wings. Smart of them though, they did the fire hydrant. I got a fan, uh, fishing it out. Kids did the right thing, get a fire extinguisher. But it's like it snowed in here. Everything's gonna have to be cleaned. Oh boy, I think the chicken's okay, but we're not gonna risk it. Called the emergency cleanup people. That is the restoration company. All right, they're set to it. And Beauty arrived with the food. Well, aren't we thankful for this? Yeah, original farmhouse. Papa was raised in this house with 4 brothers and sisters plus parents. And I don't know if they had insulation. They didn't have running water and electricity. Yeah, we had to camp out in the farmhouse last night. We divided and slept last night. Boys at Grandma's, us in the farmhouse. Hey, at least we have running water and electricity. When my dad Pop Paul grew up here, 4 brothers and sisters, so just like y'all, but no running water or electricity. No complaining. Are we gonna move in tonight? I think we get to move back into the cabin. They're gonna deep clean it today. Restoration company's back. There's some burned animals. Oh yeah, I came in, there was smoke in the back. I didn't know if it was fire extinguisher or smoke. Yeah, so there's probably— there's smoke in here, it's probably gone through most of the house. Okay, usually.

So you just clean everything? Is that how it goes?

I don't know if you heard that, but he just said 2 weeks. Bruh, I guess we're not going to be eating this. Y'all want some green beans? On the phone with the insurance company. $2,500 deductible. The man is saying it's going to cost over $10,000. Restoration company is here restoring our smoked up house.

Did you ask them what they thought the timeline was?

The jefe isn't here.

Oh, did you talk to them about cleaning certain things?

No, I haven't talked to them. Come on, Lily, anything you don't use or wear anymore you're gonna throw away, okay? Textile's coming. They don't need to wash anything that we don't That we're not gonna keep.

Yeah, like old toys and junk. I know this.

Our normal life has been severely disrupted. I figure the more attention we can put on this, the better. Get it over with. Here. And we can get back to normal. Do you understand?

Yeah.

Like the granny quilt, leave it. We want that. Gideon, do you wear this shirt anymore?

Yes.

Okay, then we want it. You guys want a tour of the farmhouse? This is where my dad and his 4 brothers and sisters grew up. No running water, no electricity, so we're not complaining, okay? We got a living room. Boys have got a blow-up mattress in the living room. Lily and Gideon camping out in my hyperbaric chamber. This has kind of been the health house. It's been where we process our milk. It's where we have our studio for interviews. That's all off. Kitchen. Real simple. Papaw's outhouse was somewhere out there. This is all our milk supplies. That looks good, guys. And this bathroom, it was an addition because when you don't have any running water or electricity, you didn't need a bathroom. Mom's in the master bedroom, if you dare call it that. I think Dad's siblings were like y'all. Everybody had to share a bed. Somebody had to sleep in the living room. Restoration's back. Well, if we're moving in here, we gotta tackle all this junk that's been stored in here over time. Mom's gotta get the kids some new clothes. Well, the ones that have been destroyed.

That, and also they're just growing boys.

Gideon, let's cut it much higher. Now we have this big mountain laurel. We have this amazing little swing. We sit on this swing and that's our view. I think we can improve on that though. What do you think? I told Austin our editor, who happens to be moving in for a year or two, which is going to be exciting for the edit and also for filming assist. Austin, we're inadvertently getting this place ready for you, so I might as well go at it.

Go to one branch.

Wait, you've changed your mind already?

Yeah.

Okay. Rebecca and I can't live in somewhere without improving it drastically. How am I gonna get that? I guess I'm gonna get down there. I want to give you guys the swing shot and you guys kind of get a time lapse of it improving. That's better. I have to saw that one with the chainsaw, it's so thick. But still, those bushes are in the way. That's going to be a spectacular view. Lily's horse ring, Violet's pasture. This boxwood I need to cut way back. We need to get— cut this one way back down. I think I think it's chainsaw work. How is this happening? This is the second one we've gotten to you guys. Guys, why was a box on it?

It wasn't on it, it was under it.

That's the second air mattress we've bought. We haven't even been here a week. Jonah, can I cut these boxwoods down, man? Come here. What's your affinity with these boxwoods?

It gives us privacy because you have so much parent the walls away.

But what about the view?

It's there.

Yeah, if you stand up. Jonah wants privacy in the field from any future guests, but like, aren't they going to be like invited guests? And won't that be part of the experience for the guests, is being able to look out into the field? I got to be careful to override my son though. I don't want to deflate him. What do you think? Might have to take a family vote.

Just trim them down normal, like That one, I want trimmed down a lot.

You don't want them trimmed down a lot? Why?

Because they wouldn't have such a green top. Like, why don't we do it like that one?

There's such a beautiful pasture we've worked so hard to make and we can't even see it. You can see it when we get into that house. And why can't our guests see it? Why don't you want them to see it?

Because look, we can still see if you need to go to the bathroom.

Is that seriously why we're not cutting?

No, no, no, but it's privacy from the road is the main thing.

There's nobody on this road. It's a dead-end road. Josiah, trim the bushes down so we have a view or not? Or keep them so there's privacy? I don't care. Do you like the view or do you— Yes. Okay, yes, he's like, he's like, he likes the view.

Oh yeah, keep the bushes. Are we from the clan? Keep the bushes. Are they from the clan? A house and the bushes. It's our house. Bye, y'all.

Keep the house house clean. Don't burn it down, it's the only one we got left. Dad joke. What would you say the toughest thing about our life situation is right now?

It's just like the upheaval of our routine.

I'm gonna hone in on that one. Just losing— yeah, just trying to find stuff. Yeah, just like a knife.

Yeah, when we moved from our house to the cabin, it was like a 6-week process of us planning and packing, and it was like, no, you're moving now.

I just gave Randolph a list. We need a light in the living room. We need our reverse osmosis water filter, new faucet, sink. These are some of the most prioritized things. I've been disrupted. But we're just going with it. The best possible attitude's possible. You're getting some kitchen supplies?

Yeah, I just need like the bottom thing.

That's the bottom, isn't it?

What?

Oh no, no, I know what you need. You need to trade it.

I mean, like, if they sell this thing—

yeah, this thing, you might have to get Amazon. There you go.

What's this? I could have saved a lot of money.

It's a big towel. It's probably not real towel.

It's not.

Hey, we got our light ready. How's it going in here?

I guess okay.

A little harder than you thought? Yes. Stores took a lot longer than we thought. We thought we'd be home at 11:30. It's 1. We did the convenient thing. Next up, how we're gonna eat all together at the table. One problem at a time, huh? Watch this. This wasn't happening yesterday.

Watch.

I said, how'd you fix that, Randall?

My goodness.

But still, somehow we have to. We kept at it growing food. I want you guys to see this hay bomb. We've been feeding hay to the steers. Do you say we have some fair amount of steers? That is a lot of beef coming our way. Our favorite is for elephant dick. I'm generally in some mood in the morning, but acting a fool usually helps lift my spirit. So if we feed hay here in this area of pasture that struggles, they waste hay and that becomes organic matter and that feeds maintains the soil, but they also manure, and that fertilizes the soil. Way up there, we hay bined that. The hay has already been absorbed. It's growing back greener than it certainly would have. That was a really poor area. Jonah's initiating to pick up sticks. Curious to see how our Agribon is doing. Ah, look at that, they're intact. Attack. Yes. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, maybe 6. 6 of our peach trees are blooming, which means fruit, y'all. We're gonna have fruit this fall from the farm. The house kept coming along as we were staying more and more involved because we needed to. We needed this project to keep moving if we were ever gonna move in. 3/4 of the way through our homestead dream house. I think you time for an update. Let's show them what you've done. I'm so proud of you.

I haven't done anything.

Let's share with them what you've done.

Decking, railing.

What was that?

The—

well, and, and then the—

you, you probably saw it on the way up here, the stairs all the way across. I didn't want to have a railing, and so per code, yeah, you don't have to have a railing if you have stairs. So it's a way to get around that.

So the cool thing about these panoramic doors is— I believe you can open it normally, right?

Well, like this.

Yeah, this door just opens, and then you can totally— see if I get this right— clicks in and— yeah, pull down on this button, it just locks like that. Okay. And then it's, I guess, a wider— it's just like a big open door, more generous door. We'll be connected to the outside. Homesteaders were always outside. This deck though. The locust wood from our land.

Yeah, super beautiful.

Before, this was a covered porch. That was a covered porch.

Yeah, I'd say this was nothing.

And this is just over an existing roof. Yeah, my office, studio, library nook up top. It's been lots of hours snuck away up there. And we are in the master bedroom right now. I don't know if there's too much more to show you here than what you've seen in the past. This deck though You can access this deck through the office or mine and Rebecca's bedroom, and we can come out and we can count the piglets that just happened. Okay. Yeah, there's still 6 piglets. We're doing good. The calves are nursing. Looks like the cows have enough hay. Insulation happened too. Of course.

Good insulation.

And we ended up indoor insulating every room.

We did. We insulated.

I don't know if that was a knee-jerk reaction of living in 700 square feet together and only having one bathroom.

Well, we were still living in a cabin when we did that.

We're going to have so much privacy. Messy. And that, I don't know if we've—

very excited about that. We have a toilet with a door.

Right now we're living with one toilet and 700 square feet, 7 people. Part our meats kitchen, you know, grind burgers. You enjoying the view? It's a nice view out there. Oh, uh, farm bathroom people can access from the outside. They don't have to take off their shoes. Have an entire room dedicated just for freezers, ice, ice machine, and fridge. That's where I'm gonna hide our, uh, Mom is making every use of single space. What are you going to hide in there?

This is going to be like Christmas decorations.

Okay, that makes sense. This will be a training room. Weight training.

Weight training in this area.

What?

Foosball down there. Freezers.

Our idea is we don't assume the children ever have to leave. And so we need to make this happen in place. Big mudroom. For a homestead house, you want a mudroom. You want a generous mudroom. Rebecca finally gets her garage. Yeah, that she can put her vehicle in. We had to extend it so that she could. Well, I think we raised the roof too.

We did.

So it doesn't feel like we're sardines. When we went to harvest the maple wood for our flooring for our homestead dream house, we planned on 1,600 square feet.

How much did it turn into?

I don't I don't know where we got that or why we didn't question that, but we— as we come down the wire, we actually need 2,200 square feet. That work? Randolph's letting us borrow his big trailer. I think that'll do it. So anyway, uh, Mom scrambled to find us some wood flooring. All the regular stuff all around us is like 2 to 4 weeks out, and that's going to put everybody out on our homestead remodel. We're already behind where we normally— where we, where we wanted to be. We found this in Tennessee, Nashville, like what, 5 and a half hours? I think this must be the plant. That way, let's see if we see an office somewhere.

Somebody's gonna get mad at me driving around this place.

I bet that's our flooring right there, Jonah. Yeah, just pull right here somewhere and they can actually pull right here and they'll load from that side. Take the wheel well off. We are in the right place. There's one of our lumber.

That sag—

I'm not sure where he's gonna put this other one. I raped my hitch. That's better. And there's no way we're gonna get two stacks on here as is. We're gonna have to stack individually by hand. Sideways. Now we're going to start stacking up on top. 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. 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.

Been 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? As I said, growing our own food isn't optional to us, so we kept trucking on. I don't know if this is a gangly stage for old, uh, Harriet. Hey, just so you the calf in. Oh, uh-oh, we don't want to let the calf in. She'll drink all the milk. Calf was separated so the milk will build up. Oh, I shouldn't be doing this. Put the calf back out. Oh no, don't get on the food. Can you take the calf? My back's hurting, so— gone all night without milk, Hank, and then I get a little taste and You can't have it. Let's dump some wood chips in here today, guys. Let's dump some in the pigs too. Hopefully the wood chips are covered. Oh, she knows that's not hers, huh? A little special treat for Mama Pig. All right, stop. Oh, are we gonna have enough pig feed to get us till our other feed gets here? Here next week. You don't want to leave a farm sitter with that problem. You can do chicken feed in a pinch. Oh, look at these guys! They were just running around like crazy. I know, they're getting tired. What's she doing? All right, let's give her her feed. She's got all-you-can-eat feed, but this has got some skim in it. Cows will nurture you, girl. There's still 6. Nope, no, they are All right, that's good. Oh wow, our hay situation is getting desperately low. Don't worry about it too much because grass is on, but I was hoping the grass— the hay situation would last us through camping. I don't know if it's going to do that. I might have to put people out before. I think I'm gonna have to leave that for Lily's horses. We have a predicament, Josiah. I don't know if we have— the horses have enough hay till next week. We can't really touch that over there. I don't know, all this loose hay about is maybe, what, maybe 2 days with the loose hay? And then a round bale, 30 nails, maybe more like 2 dozen. How many bales do we go through a day? The Bromance need 7, or is that counting these guys? No, it's not. It's just the Bromance needs 7. The sheep. Okay, and then these guys need 3, so that's 10. Okay, so 1, 2, maybe 3 days. All right, we're working on getting them out into the pasture before we go. The steers got out. We're doing like Joe said, and we are starting in a different part of our farm. Come on, Gideon, just stand here. Gideon, you hold the fence. Henry, get over the fence with brother. Oh, here they come, here they come. Happiest day of the year right here.

Woo! I'll get this on.

You testing it? They are just going at it. Look at Henry watching them. Sheep are out, bro. No, they're not.

They're on the road.

Oh, they're out. Let's go get them. Sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep! Gideon, this is where we can use your wild energy. Let's go! Donna, how you gonna get the other two sheep? That's interesting why those sheep didn't come down. Grab them, Gideon. Are those the tame ones? Oh, sometimes that backfires on you. They might follow Lily. Gideon, stay on top of them. Can you pick up that one? Everybody left and you didn't go with them. All right, you see them? Yep, now you see them. Let them go. Henry, Henry, get them in.

Rabbit! No, I'm under them!

Now just set them over. Don't throw them, they're not chickens.

Help me! Look, this here got over here.

The newest, newest one? Yeah, I saw it. It limped, it gimped on down here. I think it'll be all right. Oh look, your He-Man's about to get out. Why is he getting— are you serious? Ice cream buffet is not enough for you, He-Man? You gotta go to another ice cream buffet. Look at this sight. Let's get them out. And then, guys, we can get Beefcake over here and he won't be so lonely. He's, he's kind of miserable out there by himself. What happened? I got on her and then she got up. Hey, that always works better with the camera, bro. They're like, what?

They're like, what? They haven't busted out but like once this winter.

How are we gonna herd the cows in, get the baby baby. You don't think the calf will follow the mom?

But it's not used to this.

Okay. Uh-oh, what's Blaze doing?

He's trying to help her.

They're gonna feel good. They're about to feel good. They do one kick, one little kick. Oh man, this is like having to eat rice and beans all winter long and then come to a good juicy steak. Ice cream buffet. Look at you, Shaggy. Guys, y'all been calling him Ike. I kind of like that. Let's go, let's go! There's more, there's more where you're going. Come on, come on. The calf's having a good time. We're almost there. There they go. There they recognize. Look, they ran to me. The steers. Oh look, Vanilla's meeting He-Man. You don't think she's in heat, do you? I mean, we're gonna— we're actually gonna put He-Man over right now. We might have to wait until they're not all as crazy to get over. You can see what he's going to try to do, can't you? Come on, here it comes, here it comes. Get him in there, get him in there, Johnna. Good. Now he'll be separated in field from mom just till the morning, and we'll get the milk. Oh, they're getting used to him, huh? Well, they don't have the internet. This This is the entertainment for the day. Let's get Harriet over. Here comes Harriet. You're wide on her, Josiah. You're wide. But she, but she comes back. Oh, she does? Shoot. All right, let me cut out He-Man. Okay, heads up. Here we go, here we go. Let's try this entrance right here. Come on, Chicago. Come on, Chicago. Good boy, he's a natural. Look. Hey man, those are your new baby's mamas. Baby's mama. Thousand sheep down there, what a happy sight. Lily riding her horse. Let's get this milk shawl down. This is our all-in-one mobile shade, minerals, stanchion if we need it. Cool things about this milk sled, we can pull it from either end. That's going to become handy. We lined it up here. You can't make a whole lot of sharp turns with it. You want to minimize that. Only got so much bracing across.

9 is hot.

This is very hot. That's when I don't even believe it. Anyway, look at this sight though. So I turned it on, it seems to be working. Even that speed ride is sitting it pretty good. You might be begging the question, wait a minute, didn't your cows just kill a lamb? We just got them separated yesterday. I don't know, the cows are just not goobers like steers. Steers are— I mean, they're in their teenagers, they're like me. You said it, not me. I just sort of don't want to leave. Hey, like, this, this isn't going to happen again for another year. This is the animals out on grass for the first day. They're just full as can be. The butter is going to get yellow again. It'd be layer chicks, could be sea monsters. They're going to get— they're going to go get Beefcake. We're going to get these cheeks out. Chicks out of the truck. Let's set up their heat first. And boy, let's hope that outlet's on. Let's see what it is. It is. Okay, let's see if the other ones are layer hens. Oh my gosh, it's all layer hens! What the heck? I mean, layer hens, did she order 100? 100? That light works. Of course it's not on because we have to turn on electricity. I tested it inside.

Oh, hold on, I'm trying to Take a picture.

Oh, problem is we have a fortress here, but rats can't get in there and kill them.

Papa, what?

There's a mouse trying to get in there. See, there's a drying mouse. Can this pry off?

I think so. Might have to go through the other side.

Yeah, that can be replaced. So we'll put this right here.

Stuff it in there.

Dona's getting the adapter for the RV outlet that we know is working. Drop cord to it. This light is turning on in 3. Oh, all right, this is the moment y'all been waiting for, and then you can eat. Kind of got a new nucleus, don't we?

Mhm, they're growing up.

They were just born, what, 2 days ago?

Yep.

A chick can live without food and water, I don't know what, 2, 3, 4 days, Rebecca. And that's the secret. That's why you can ship them in the post office. As soon as you give them food or water, they gotta have it from now on. And these aren't honeybees. No, we can't come back in a week and a half and see how they're doing. Whose job is gonna be the chicks? Crazy Chicken Lady. She got 60.

Well, that's what we normally have got.

So these— listen, these replace In the fall when they start laying, we cull all the old ladies and then anybody else.

Pet it. You can pet it. Just pet it, don't hold it.

We got a transplant today, but we also got a weed. We've been meaning to do our gardens at the top of the week, but we end up— seems like third week in a row doing it on Thursday, which is kind of— we'll end of our week, end of our vlogging week normally. So normally we're posting Sunday through Thursday. Sometimes we have extras, so those might go up on Friday and Saturday, but right now you can count on us usually 10 AM Sunday through Thursday. Lily, go ahead and put the tarp up. We'll plant. Becky weeding a carrot, laying down your life for the carrots right now. Okay, Lily, you you pull up the tarp, we're gonna plant the rest of this in cabbage. And then is this all we did of cabbages? Yes, one half row. Oh, sorry, I said what's next to the carrots. I meant what's down the line from carrots. And what's their measurement? What's their—

not remember.

Fish fertilizer and a lot of water. Rebecca's still weeding carrots. 55, 60 feet of cabbage planted. Rebecca, hopefully we have enough. To go all the way to the end, but I think you counted probably 18 inches and we've been planting it every foot.

Yeah, I know. Well, we'll see. We'll just see.

Dumping sand in the garden. You just sacrificed some of the garden for the chidlers. They're here, they're with us. We're not growing cabbages, we're growing chidlers.

That's perfect.

We may— I mean, I set out the cabbages. Yeah, and we're gonna make it perfect. Y'all got the carrots weeded?

Yes.

Okay, let's plant. Let's get— did you figure out spacing peas?

Um, 4 inches.

How many in a row? How many rows?

I think it's just one. 14 inches, so I guess maybe we could do—

that's too dark. Okay, what do you want me to do, Rebecca, for the peas?

Um, do a T-post on either end, both rows.

Okay.

And then you can get the plastic trellising material.

We'll do it. How are those silly seeds working?

They are actually working really well, those planters. I'm really, I'm really happy with first year trying them.

Yeah, easy to get stuff out. Just put your little finger in there.

Yep. I like that they're like squishable, so like if I wanted to squish it, oh, and it helps to get them out. Yeah, they're reusable and they're reusable, and I like that. I love— you know me, I like that have the stainless steel tray with them.

Ah, you know me, crazy stainless steel lady.

You know me, the crazy stainless steel lady. Like the fun colors.

Yeah, yeah, you would.

I would.

Just say I'm going around the edges. We like these, we're giving them the thumbs up, Beck. We're not going to promote anything we don't like, but affiliate link to Silly Seeds down in the description. Look at those alien potatoes. This was underneath the silage tarp. I guess that's what happens and there's potatoes in the ground. There's a potato attached. We might can plant it somewhere. Every 18 inches of broccoli in each row. Henry, you can— well, not really. Henry can maybe do these ones. We are a half a row short on broccoli. We need 16 more broccolis. Oh, we got a whole row of cabbage, half of bed a piece. There's little holes been poked through that, some big ones. Instead of having to buy a whole new silage tarp, let's try the, uh, it's like a big wide roll of electrical tape. I bet that's what it is. Did you say we had some holes? Still going. Silage tarp and tape from Farmer's Friend. Try to pull it together before you tape it. Annie, shall we flip it? Becca has gone to the horse with Lily the vet. Annie, do you want to— let's put the, uh, trellis up. Saggy. So we're gonna get 2 T-posts for the middle. So proud of that Chickshaw, the 5.0, what it has become. One person with 36 birds by hand or with a machine. We have the optional hitch. We're good. Now we need to string these up. Try a little, uh How many gates you think this is? 8. I like it, I like it. Annie's getting concerned about the plants in this hot weather. I'm getting concerned about my white, very white skin, my clear skin.

I'm so pale. You're on it. Today's snow is crippling.

I found a long sleeve, but did find some sunscreen. That'll help. Annie has watered. Does seem better. I'm gonna finish this other trellis. And he's putting up our, uh, Quick Hoops. You know what, guys, let's have another shout out right here. I'm gonna leave a link to all the things down in the description. Be your first year trying them. They're supposed to be to where you can put the top material on and off easy. Did it come with the material too, Annie? I did. You know how to use this?

I looked at the instructions.

Oh, okay, good.

But that doesn't mean I know how to use it.

What is it? You guys having a snack in the shade? All right, you stay cool. Key to growing brassicas organically: bug net. Bug net. Bugs love, love them. I'm gonna work on this other petrel as well. Annie figures out the Quick Hoops. Starting to shape up nicely. Mom's in town, town day, and she says soon we're going to be planting in our raised beds. Whoa, whoa, whoa, don't throw the wheat! That's food for the chickens. Who do we got here? Lois. And who's this?

Kaya.

Kaya, you a friend of Lois? You visiting from Texas? All right, in our raised beds down here The leaf mulch worked spectacularly. Minnie has made her a bed in the dirt. And here we need to add some compost, but first let's weed. This is going to be a perfect example. Today we're going to feed the chickens from the garden, and in a little bit they're going to feed the garden from the chickens. Chickens are on wood chip bedding. Chickens scratch it, manure it, break it down, and eventually underneath the wood chips, a rich Loom. Good job. We're gonna have to get maybe one or two more loads because Mom wants it up higher, the dirt. Go work on another one. I'll get it ready. 2 compost wheelbarrows in that one, 2 compost wheelbarrows in that one. Now the chickens have fed the garden. Classic permaculture right there. One element serves the needs of the other. That's why they're in proximity, folks. Get the chickens out of the backyard, in the front yard. You visit them often, that's where they belong. Secondly, get— if you're gonna have a garden Might as well get some chickens beside it making compost and eating the wheat.

Oh, this is chicken poop.

Well, it was. It's converted. It's transformed. Interesting things are happening in the greenhouse.

Yes.

So is this woo-woo?

We're trying something called electroculture, and it's—

are we getting woo?

No, this is like an ancient practice. Ancient? You want to say that our ancestors were wrong Brass?

Brass?

Uh, copper.

Copper twine.

Well, copper. They were doing it in like the 1400s or something.

Okay, what's the idea?

Um, so you wrap it around this and then it is supposed to take like the energy from the earth. I'll do it. Oh yeah, here you go.

Is it supposed to ground out, honey?

It's not. I, I don't know. We're gonna try it. You need what? Okay, here, cut it. He likes to do this job. Says 6 feet of— if you can go 20 feet tall, it's the best.

Goodness.

But they said 6 plus, but, but obviously I'm not doing that.

Well, these in the little high tunnel, in the little greenhouse— I mean, the little greenhouse.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know if I'm really expecting anything to happen, but this is a fun project and they look cool, so— and I'm enjoying my time with my two 2 sons, so that's good. We're winning.

I'm sorry, winning. Starting to get the concept now? Oops, winning.

So I just got this. This is just like, um, it's from Amazon. It's an 18-gauge spool of copper. How much money is it? It was only like $20.

Why, you like—

are you like this? Are you enjoying it, or do you want me to buy you some for something else? The boys want copper to melt.

Oh, we're gonna have 4 of those in 1 square foot.

I know, but this is a— this is a, a, uh, iceberg lettuce. All right, I wanted to have some room.

This is what I'm going to do. I didn't even know you liked iceberg lettuce.

I'm trying it out.

All right, going to try to grow it, see what happens.

Justin, they've got to get out. He has a hammer.

8 square inches spacing, maybe a foot.

I'm just— this is my pretty garden. Yeah, I don't need need to have production out here.

I know.

I want to sit on my— I want to sit on my deck and look at the beauty. Maybe new raised bed idea. Yeah, I was thinking we would do one here, maybe do one over there.

She's gonna make me— but she's gonna make me have rock raised beds.

Do like long ones here. Do longer but skinnier. Yeah, down. And then, then maybe have like some circular ones.

Yeah.

Like do kind of a pretty design.

Are you gonna rake the— you're gonna put the leaves back around it, right?

Yes.

You think Winnie will stay out of it now that there's plants in it? Do we have any rails?

I don't know what we're gonna do if not.

We need our new— we need our new bed design where we actually have rails. Lily was supposed to get grass clippings, but I don't— I don't— we don't know what happened to that. Hey, where y'all going? Up there, well known. All right, or at least as far as we can go. Got the grass clipper attached. Grass clippings are our favorite of all time mulches, garden mulches. Lots of nitrogen, easy to work with, readily available, degrades easily. And did I say lots of nitrogen in them? I think it clogs up, Rebecca. Because it's wet. Yeah, I think I gotta cut grass clippings when it's dry.

All right, I'll help.

We're gonna do it the old school way. All right, so our method here is Rebecca looks like she's doing a lettuce every square foot or every 8 inches.

Grass clippings, what will happen is that they'll turn brown. Yeah, it'll kind of be like hay, matted hay.

Yeah, and then, um, It's so easy to work with.

It will, it'll be very beautiful.

And then, boy, what's going on? Your woo-woo pole in the middle, we can't vouch for that. Stop it! Don't call it a woo-woo pole. You need a t-shirt that says woo-woo. Food growing is a lifestyle. So there's any number of things we could be doing today though. We're clearing this high tunnel for beautiful one's summer garden. Chickens have laid on top of the turkey shaw. Yeah, there's your lesser date. Where?

On top of the turkey shaw.

Oh, funny. It does look like lesser. We call those, uh, lesser dates, those little, uh, man, they look just like that. They're coated in coconut. They're little dates and little tiny pieces. He's gonna get it out with the machine and then we're gonna make beds with compost. He's clearing that out. He takes his track loader, he drops compost in a row, and then we rake it into a bed. Hopefully we don't have to move this compost pot, because if you move it and then move it again, you lose— you lose compost every time. Hopefully we don't compact it too much. Wow. I know the drain coat is in here somewhere. Hopefully that doesn't destroy it everywhere. And hook this other hose up here if you need to, to get in all the way. Spray it down as it scoops it up. Meanwhile, what are you doing with those loppers?

What? They said it said 6+ feet would be good.

Well, you're obviously—

I had a little— there's one, this one right here.

You're gonna woo woo to the max. How's it supposed to help your garden?

It collects the energy of the earth.

Okay, and it makes things grow faster and stronger. Better.

Yeah.

Are you going to help Mom? Good. That's a funky outfit. I'm gonna use my Meadow Creatures broad fork. It's a peeper fork. And let's make sure this is not going to be too compact. Not bad, getting it in just with one foot weight. That's not bad. What we'll do is make sure we broad fork in the beds after he's done. For us to do this this by hand would probably— would basically be virtually impossible. It would probably take days as opposed to just an hour with the machine. Okay, is he going with you? I'm cleared everybody out, we're getting too tight. You did a fantastic job. Yeah, he left. Look, he just skimmed it, and look how much soil he left. And look how much soil the chickens made for us. Rebecca, do you see this? We'll probably build gigantic beds Rebecca. So it won't even matter if, you know, the ground's hard underneath it, although it's not too hard. We can easily broadfork. Look at this, Jonah, this is like 3 inches of compost. 4. I like it. Somebody said in the comments I don't experiment anymore. I don't know what you're talking about. I'm like a constant, never-ending experiment. We experimented leaving wood chips here and as a mulch, but then found that weeds came up crazy through it, and then it was hard to weed. Hey Jonah, come sprinkle this while I'm doing this. So now we're doing the Joel Salatin thing and we're just removing the top bedding, and I really like it so far. It's important that we do it now because it's going to get blazing hot A little over halfway done. This is a big stretch because it's actually deep, so there's quite a bit of mulch there. Get in. We're starting in on the, the old tomato plants. Yeah, glory of homesteading right here, more or less what it's about. You got to learn how to love the journey, the monotony, because I'm picking out old tomato vines. 2 inches at a time. And sure, we could leave it, it's not messing with functionality, but if this is to also serve as a happy place, we want it to be a tidy place. What, 20 feet? Getting tired, it's getting toward lunch. Hey, we don't want to twist around in here too much, you'll compact the— it's getting hot, but we got done. With that, there's one more thing Beauty wants us to get done today. She's got another town day today. I don't know if they're braces or mounts for trellises or what. I hope this is easy. Well, don't be too intimidated. Hopefully they have the bolts. We took a break for lunch. It's the afternoon now. It's not hot hot, but it's gonna be hot in that high tunnel. The problem is these little bolts have come out of these poles, and if you roll it up from one side, it doesn't roll it up from the other side. So this pole has got to stay static. Compact driver— I need the drill driver. Driver, but the boys biked up Barawallow Mountain. I have no idea where that drill driver is. All right, get in. It's you and I trying to drill through metal with this. I guess it's not made for drilling through metal. Oh, is there a hole for it? This one, this one's got it here. That, that one's good. Hey, monkey man, come on. There's no hole in this already. There's no hole in this.

Really? There is no hole?

No hole. What the heck?

What, you get through it? You did it!

I did it!

Yes!

2 poles and 2 these. We're gonna try every other one and see what that looks like. We went every other pole with these V-trusses. I think Beauty has some sort of idea to not have to do our thingamajigger because I guess maybe they're so high for— hey, those are tomato strings for tomatoes to climb. It's got some sort of vision with this. It doesn't matter to me. I say yes, dear. It's the garden of peas. Soak it, bro. Just, just sprinkle. How are those V-trusses— what are they going to attach to? Okay, we got problems. Those V-trusses aren't nearly gonna reach. They're supposed to attach to the hoops way up there. It looks like there's No way that V-truss is gonna reach. Hey, we won't know till we try.

Wahoo!

That's not bad, right?

No.

All right.

Oh, other way. Look at it. Is this gonna be okay?

It is.

It's gonna be tall enough.

I thought it would be. We were a little worried.

I know you were worried. 2 and a half.

Okay, 2D trusses up, 5 to go. Beautiful One assures me gardening is going to be easier after this because we want to use these thingamajiggers for the tomatoes, and I guess best we can have a permanent wire up or something. We'll see. Let's finish this tomorrow. V-trusses and raised beds in here— not raised, you know, we'll build some garden beds in here, bring in some extra compost, build from the soil we have. Is that pasta simmering or is that dust? Look at the pathway. That's new ground right there. Grass is coming in great. My feet hurt just looking at all this bare ground. We've got to walk over all this spreading the hay. Machine can get it here and we can get it rolled. We can get the hay here, we can roll it out, but we still gotta pick it up and spread it. Hey, come back, come back! Jonah's gonna finish piling up that brush pile. He's got us a hay bale up here. Let's see if we can't spread it. There begins a long long day and a lot of steps. Got Josiah on that pile, getting on this pile, and hopefully that'll maintain the peace. I'm gonna chase this strip we rolled down the hill. I just saw Andrew come with more hay. A lot of— lots of more hay. We're gonna have enough hay now. We just gotta get it down. I wonder if there's a better way. The hay bale rolled beyond the bare ground here. I think it's going to be better to push this across the hill, maybe slightly lightly down than opposed to down. I sense that needs to be turned around. Now after talking with Joe, I'm not too worried about picking up these hay strings. We're finally getting a method here. We're rolling out the hay bales and then we're spreading it downhill. That way we're never carrying any hay uphill. We're going to start another hay right next to it. And that— see, that'll cover from there down. Jonah's got from there down to the grass. Well, that's what 3 hay bales looks like laid down. It's lunchtime. We did it by lunchtime. Sam's coming after lunch. We're recruiting some help. We've got that, which I'm gonna say is 6. Could it be 7, 8? It'd be twice, maybe 3 times. We got to pick up the pace. We're gonna get what we need out in the field, the rest under shelter, hopefully before it rains. It's April, Western North Carolina, it could rain at any moment. And you guys come help help us spread hay a little bit?

Yes.

Hey, do those tools help? Unfortunately, we're down 2. Lily is feeling under the weather. Rebecca's tending to Lily, plus has to go into town to get the flooring people some supplies. We got to keep that going. That's priority numero uno. We got Sam though. We're gonna get it done now. Are you sure? Really? That wildness runs in our blood. We got one unrolled. Sam and Jonah are spreading it. Beautiful. It's a beautiful spring day, isn't it? Come on, Henry, let's go get him some seed. We've yet to seed it all. We've seeded probably half of it. What about the seeds?

I'll go get them.

Okay. Hey, we got a little spreader for you, Henry. I wanted to work in there, but did I really? Gonna be so hot in there. Is that all we got? Yeah. What's that?

Seed. Leftover seed. Look for him.

Okay, that's enough. He'll just maybe have to grab it by hand. Henry, can you pull the trigger and spin that at the same time? Oh whoa, it's all dropping out. All right, walk while you do it. Hold the trigger, spin it, and walk. There you go. All right, are you pulling the trigger too while you do that? Okay, let's make it a bigger setting. All right, there you go. Are you boys holding that? Okay, how you boys feel? Fine, pretty good. You got Josiah now. All the hay bales are up here. Hopefully 2 more will do it. I know, let's go see if we have some more. Okay, well, we had no seed Seed. Got no more seed down there. Had to deal with some things at the house. Lily threw up. They're almost done. One more bale.

They did a ton.

I'm very impressed. Fantastic job, guys. We got it covered. We can sleep easier at night. I went a little overboard on the hay. I thought we'd need 30 bales. We needed how many? 6? Yeah, that's it.

No, we just brought 8 or 9.

Well, I mean, just for today we use 6, but I guess you can't have too much carbon. This is our home today. 5 V-trusses plus building 6 beds in here, maybe 7. Might be room for 7 in this one. All right, how's it going? Okay. Jono's with me now. He made breakfast. Josiah's cleaning it up. We've got one more pole left. We just got it dialed in and now you got to do it.

Sure.

We got it done. The 7 V-trusses. Our high tunnel has support We're gonna have an easier place to hang our tomatoes. I think we should probably get those down. I don't want to get those down, it's not sexy. I'm wanting to build the beds. I really ought to do that because otherwise I'm going to be getting those down later when we have builds built in here. Prudent thing to do is get the wire off, and I think if I got the wire off, it would just fall. See what happens. I cut it on one end. I'm wondering if it'll pull through now. Nope, it's too tight. That feels good to have gotten that off. Now we're going to detangle these and store them. That reminds me of what got me up out of bed this morning. I wanted to sleep in just a little bit more, but then I always feel bad if I do that. Sitting, I feel like I'm behind all day long. I said this phrase: give myself something now that my future self can appreciate. And I got my future self a little gift when I got out of bed. Now I can thank my past self. Now I'm gonna give my future self the gift of removing these thingamajiggers before I put in the rows. A little higher over here where the where the pigs were. What's he trying to do? Chop it out, I think. Take the high stuff from there and put it down here.

Soil right underneath it.

I mean, that's all we're doing in homesteading, isn't it? Today, building these raised beds, we're just giving our future selves a gift. All right, we're going bedtime. We'll do a foot. What happens if we don't do a foot and that's a bed? That's a bed on the edge. That's a good idea, actually. We're gonna put beds right against the wall, so to mark them and make sure we have them straight, they're 30 inches wide. Take— come 30 inches off the wall, put a stake. Now that you got that line there, pull it tight. Dig on this side of it. And put on that side. Leave room too at the end, Josiah, for a pass. Now go 72 inches, start up here, like, you know. We've got one bed composted. Took about 3 wheelbarrows. Hey, it would have took more, but look at what the chickens left us. I mean, underneath the mulch is all this. This is before compost. There's a considerable amount of soil in here. We're gonna wet this down, we're gonna compost it, shape the beds, wet it down, and then cover it with silage tarp. Don't have to do as much compost as we would have. Thanks, thankfully. Thankful for the chickens. I'm here to work all winter. And then we'll bring it up here. Okay, this end's shallow, huh? I think because it slopes. Yeah, it definitely slopes, so you have no material up here. Josiah got done shaping. I said, come help me load this wheelbarrow. He said, I'll go get the Mini X. Yeah, that's easier. Well, thankfully Jonah remembered we have to broadfork. We should have done it a few steps ago before we fine-shaped our beds. You got it backwards too. No, no. Listen, the top part doesn't need aeration. It's the bottom. It's the bottom part. Look, this aerates the soil, gives a place for the roots to go through, and also hydrates, you know, lets water come through. Hey, your future self will thank you. 7 beds! We love our future self. Putting the tarp down. We're worked so hard today, they're gonna get some extra free time. It's not that late. That is a real good feeling. I think though tomorrow we'll open it up, water it down again, and then close it up. That soil is so dry. This garden is going to jam. It's what we got to do though. We're quitting the grocery store. This is the most nutrient-dense food available. Grocery store's subpar. We need the best quality food for our family. This is going to go a long way to feed 7 people. High tunnel, summer garden, summer garden coming. 2,400 square feet of spring garden planted. We're on track for quitting that grocery store this summer. I'm so excited for this. We're gonna test the port in the pig port. Is my new invention gonna work? The idea here is we had pigs in there on deep bedding. The deep bedding increases, they manure, they urine, that mix, it's ripe for compost. Right next to our garden, so they get waste from our garden, and then the pigs with this compost feeds the garden. Instead of having to get the material out, can we remove the whole shed? If this works, this is revolutionary. Please, please work. The easiest way I can think of to make compost in place, minimal amount of work. There's 2, 4 pigs in here. 2 pigs, $3,000 worth of pork. Get our lean-to off. Oh my gosh, that side could pull it. Most of y'all could pull it, although you could borrow a tractor once or twice a year. It's not, uh, equal. There you go. Hey, Sally pulled it! Now you can access it. Pile it up and turn it into a compost pile. This is manageable by hand, but hey, we have a Mini X, so let's do that. Hey, now it's a parking shed. Move it to where we need it, and we have a compost pile. Plenty of bulk to get started, plenty of critical mass. I couldn't be more excited. I couldn't be more excited. Compost, compost, it's a pig made right next to the garden. Are you kidding me? Then we strategically placed up here so as we wheelbarrow down, it's sloped down slightly. So we thought about even slope as we plan to wheelbarrow that compost onto this garden. We're in this food growing journey for our health, so we want to make sure it aligns with our Really, for 30 days I could just eat meat. I've eaten just meat for 60 days, and we have plenty of meat from our farm. But to be honest, it was pretty miserable, and it's difficult, and it's, it's really not sustainable. We're, we're wanting to explore what's sustainable. Sustainable in the sense of a long activity for us, you know. I think we're going to go to the extreme and quit the grocery store at some point. That's good. I noticed, uh, it's going to be a lot of, uh, breaking our old habits. For instance, we set out a turkey for Turkey Devaron. Our heart is set on that, but then We don't have broccoli. It's not broccoli season, so we're ordering some broccoli today from the grocery store. But we're learning to be more thoughtful in our meal planning in that case. And that's what this Grow 30 is about. It's about pinpointing our old habits and beginning to create new ones.

So this is, um, Farm Match, and I was just looking at getting some mozzarella, sour cream, butter, cream cheese, and cheddar cheese.

Yeah.

Here and just see how that is. All right, I'm gonna see if it works for us. Um, we'll see.

I don't know. So we may have found the source for supplemental dairy. We'll be doing pretty good though because Vanilla's giving 2.5 gallons right now. Yeah, and then Honey will come in. Oh yeah, we could be having 3, 4 gallons of milk. I want to make mozzarella. We'll be making our mozzarella and sour cream. Sour cream's easy. Just leave it on the counter.

It's sour cream, it's easy. But we just need the cream.

Mom knocked it out with this turkey devon. Found a source for dairy. Where are we gonna get Bubbies?

Um, you can order it online.

They sell sauerkraut at the farmer's market.

I think so.

You just might have to let go.

Let me get a freezer full of Bubbies.

There you go, stock up. I don't think we can get a bulk order until we're over at the main house, correct? Yeah, we need some room though. I don't know if that's a good idea though. Let's wait till we get to the holler house.

Yeah, I'd buy it. You can buy it by the seeds.

Yeah, that's one more day. That's day 3, grow 30. We've made some progress, haven't we?

Did you say good?

You're bad. First she fills up the little boy's love tank. He likes to hang out with Mama for a while. All the rest of you, I had to get up and take you with me in the morning. You guys wanted to get up and go, put you on ergo and go. What do you got planned for her birthday?

I got her some flowers.

She's also a head nurse.

I didn't get it. I can see it though. I'll go back with it. Move it around.

This is stubborn eyelash, huh?

It is. Hold this like this.

Hold it up. Is this what you imagined you'd be doing on your 45th birthday? No. Doctor mom. Here's your birthday present, a hole in the— I'm digging yet another hole for you.

I know, I somehow attract holes.

You know why you're digging holes? Because it's good for you. He presented you with some flowers. To be in a pot in case that's what you want and want to plant.

I like them. I like— I just don't know where I'm not ready for them.

That's the problem.

Well, you told me 11 o'clock, which is why you want to do it.

I'm just trying to do too much in too little time, like always. Want to get your hole dug. I want to get your tomatoes planted.

2 rows, I think, and maybe a third for the cucumbers.

Okay, let's do these 3 rows. Look at all your volunteer tomatoes. I know, too bad volunteer tomatoes are not like big big boys, Aromas. They're all cherry, all of them.

They're called Matt's Wild— yeah, mini cherries or whatever, and they are prolific.

We want to cover this, all these volunteers and weeds. I mean, we could hoe, but that would just stir up more. And if we just leave this tarp on 2 more weeks, it should kill them mostly. To your happy place. This is a good job. Tomatoes, are they root bound?

No, they're not. Like, even let me show you this. This is when I looked at them a couple weeks ago, this is what they looked like.

Okay, so everything's really wanting to grow right now. It is.

Kill them doing this.

I feel like it will be a shock, but it's actually good to pot up, isn't it?

I think so. I mean, I don't want to spill that dirt everywhere. This, this one doesn't have very big root system.

Every plant means something to you.

Holding its life in my hands. I want to put it in a smaller pot.

Little preemie.

It's a little baby.

Becca spends a lot of time in here, and you can only shoot so many shots in here before it's Because it's the same. That's just a lot of what homesteading is. She takes one plant, pots it up, puts the soil in there, and then does it again 100 times.

Super boring, but very important work. These are my babies, my plant babies.

There you go, 1 minute real time. How do you like that? Real life homesteading right there. This is what you end up getting done, huh?

Yeah, so I did all— I did those tomatoes and there's 2 back, back. Okay, 2 trays out back there. I potted up my romaine, new plant to us. It is. Everyone says pick it young.

You may guess what plant that is. All you good Southerners probably know what that is. I ought to be eating this if I'm gonna be a good Southerner.

A good Southerner.

Yeah, it's okra.

I'm hoping we like it.

Well, anybody like it fried?

Well, I was gonna say, I was thinking I might try to figure out a way to, um, fry it and then freeze it and then bring it back to eat it via baking. The baking it.

Spoiler alert, we're gonna get slammed by Hurricane Helene later in this video, but that wasn't the only crazy weather that set us back and that we experienced. I hope the animals are all right. Oh my gosh, it's going to dent cars. Oh no, our car! Well, there's nothing we can do about it. We can go put a car under the shelter. Whoa, guys, not— the rhododendron flower off. Holy crap, stop! Did we shut the laundry? Okay, come on, let's go. They're going out Well, then I'll go. Shut the laundry, it's gonna flood. If you're not going, I'm going. Shoot. Okay, no, we have to, we have to do it. Okay, they're gonna, they're gonna— why are they, they want the hay. Why are they getting in it? Don't stay out there.

Oh, what the heck?

Look at these guys. The hail has stopped. Where are y'all going? There's a river coming down our creek. I hope so. I want to go check on the animals, but there's nothing we can do. Look at that flood on our road. It's coming down our driveway like Mach 10. Shall we go check on the animals?

Yeah.

Henry, you okay? You feel better in there? Did the power just go out? Okay, it came back on. Nope, it went back out. That's no surprise. There it goes. It went back off because that would be pretty crazy if it didn't. That size hail. Shoot.

Oh my gosh, come here!

Oh, he's shutting that door. I'm concerned for Rebecca. She's out on her way home. Hopefully that was just a freak show right here. Well, look at our green stock. You guys can't I can't see it through that window. Are our crops going to be destroyed? I can't tell if they're just sagging from the rain or if they've been clipped from hell. Storm's over. Power's still off. Let's go assess some damage. Well, we were going to go and then we got about 20 feet and it started raining again. We just got the Amber Alert. Little late, guys. It says National Weather Service Severe thunderstorm warning, all capital letters, in effect this area till 2:45 PM for destructive baseball-sized hail. Take shelter in a sturdy building away from windows. People and animals outdoors will be severely injured. Try this again, Gideon. Is it? How can you tell?

Because I can feel it.

Something's getting sucked through. There you go. Ditch is filled up. It's knocked our fence over in some places. Totally open. Okay, it seems like all our steers are okay. Look at this, that's melted big time. They were subject to it too. Looks like the lambs maybe got under the shelter. Mom's back. Hey, everybody's all right? Did you have to run through it?

No, look, I never hit hail or nothing.

There's some remnants. We're out of power too now. Day 6, quitting the grocery store. We're gonna have to get Chipotle. Did have a valiant effort. We were gonna do— we were gonna redeem nachos meat and have a shepherd's pie.

Yeah, I was gonna make a shepherd's pie tonight, but I can't.

I bet you the power is gonna be out for a little bit. Oh my gosh, this, this potato plant— this will, this will hurt it. I think it just knocked some over, but shoot, some it has has totally— oh boy, totally knocked those over. The onions seem okay. It looks like the bug nets have held up. Where is all this water coming from?

I don't know, it's because of the rain.

Carrots held up. Potatoes took a beating, probably lost an eighth of them maybe. How guy needs the generator, the battery charger, so battery on the generator is probably dead. This This is flooded, but I think we're on to something. It looks as if water has worn here, so I do wonder if this is overflowing or if it's broken down in there, so we're getting a lot of pressure right into here. This side's still dry, but it's seeping through. That's our root cellar. It's going to be very important that we keep that dry or it's going to mold. The power just came back on. Well, I don't know. Maybe kind of late. Everybody was getting excited for Chipotle, I think. Okay, all right, I'll start frying the meat. Hey, we're committed to the homestead here, guys. It's the next day. We're examining some things on the farm. Holy smokes, 1, 2, 3 holes in the greenhouse. Did it destroy any plants?

There's one right here. There's only 4 holes, but there's one right there.

Whoa, there's, there's a 4th hole. That was crazy storm. Let's see how the Chickshaw fared. Oh yeah, look, and he's patched it up. We got a hole in the Chickshaw. Oh, they got our pole barn roof too. Look, pummeled the pigs. All the piglets are all right though. How did the high tunnel fare? I'm afraid to look. Oh yeah. Oh, there's some damage. I'm pretty sure that's damage right there. All right, maybe a few, but not too bad. Not nearly as bad as you might expect. See the theme here? Farming, building, farming, building. Okay, more building. Wow, you're gonna not know what to do with all this room.

I just want to cry. I've never had anything like this ever.

Look at this island. You'll have this as counter space. Do you have counter space anywhere else?

This is my trash can.

Or is this all your counter?

This is my trash can. Look at this job, sir.

Wow.

I did all drawers, everything in drawers as I could, as much as I could.

They don't have much left to do. Is that a dresser?

No, that's our— that's our vanity.

So a lot of the furniture is this. Super nice. Why'd you choose the darker walnut for the bathrooms and the lighter poplar for the—

well, poplar is the paint.

Oh yeah, I guess you did do a walnut for the island.

And then I'm gonna have a, um—

what a good mix.

He's building me something that looks like this to walk into here. It's gonna look like this. I was talking, thinking about maybe having him build me something for my fireplace.

Okay, yeah.

The other thing was maybe like a seat here. Yeah, it's across to do more seating. I want to get my couch in here first to see how it flows. The other thing was maybe doing like lockers over there, although I don't know if I want to do that because I want to put my Christmas tree there.

Yeah, you can have a gigantic Christmas tree.

In here I want to do like hanging plant, and then maybe down here a plant stand. I don't know.

We got big things to do today. Yep. The door?

Yeah, we'll put the doors in here just like that.

Floor guys are coming tomorrow. Oh, I just realized something. The countertops had to put us off from today to tomorrow. What about the floor guys? Is that gonna mess them up?

Um, well, I'm hoping they can start in the office.

Painters are going to wrap up with phase 1 at lunch. We're gonna have to come in and transform this place to get ready for the wood guys. We're ready for the countertops here, and this is going to be an island bar. Isn't that gonna be grand? Look at that. Painters are gonna paint in the bathrooms today. Definitely check out that railing up in that extra bonus space loft. That was not in the plans, but But I'm glad it happened. And now more farming. I'm going to show you how you never have to clean out another chicken coop with— if you use a coop like this. Look, the perches are the floor. We got 1/2-inch wire mesh and manure falls through. You want to clean your coop? This is all you got to do. Just clean the coop.

Yay!

Premier One IntelliShock 120. Get the most powerful energizer reasonable. Energizer? Energizer. This is the Premier One poultry net, 12 meaning 12-foot between posts, 48 inches tall, 3— not sure what the 3 is. SSDP. DP is drivable post. Not sure what SS means. Drivable post means you could hammer these in.

What?

Oh, S, I bet, is a single stake as opposed to a double. I like this net because it's real easy to move if you're gonna move birds frequently, the 12-foot span is nice. It is really easy to put up. The one stakes is nice. You could drive it if you had to. Always 48-inch net for chickens. They're notorious for getting out. I've soaked the feed. One good thing about doing soaked feed out in the pasture— some is there on the ground. They'll get it, they'll get it all. We're going to encourage— continue to encourage stirring of the manure. By the way, look what the chickens did to the manure. They spread that holy cow squat love. They've eaten that fly larva. They spread the fertilizer. Thank you guys, thank you, thank you. And by the way, having them on pasture eating grass and bugs can save you 15%. So that with soaking is 30% savings. If you're going from 1/3 pound a day, that's that's what these guys need, you can cut that down to just 1/4. We got our lines up. Can you see them? 1, 2, 3, 4. We got 4 beds that need trellised. I call these the thingamajiggers.

It's a tomato, um, tomahook or something.

It's very handy because she did this new system where she thinks she'll be able to do it. Look how nervous Yes, she is.

I am, but I'm all right.

We'll hang it over it. It's where your feet are, really. So she's pulled this twine out, but see, look, I can do it.

I might be nervous, but just because you're nervous doesn't mean you can't do nothing.

And it automatically locks, so the tomato can climb this twine. It's not coming out anymore. See, you're gonna start doing this. Well, this is my project today, so—

well, if you would like to continue, I will not stop you.

Why do you make them so long? You don't have to make them so long.

I like to have length just in case I need it.

There's, there's more twine in there so that next, next year when the animals come in here, we can cut this off, and then next year just pull more out.

See, you make them too short and I make them too long.

I know. Next year this will all be up and all I have to do is pull strings down.

Exactly.

And I won't even need you.

Well, I mean, I love you and I want you, but when you're busy doing other things on the farm, I can come in here and get my high tunnel. Yeah, ready is what I'm saying.

Rebecca, you hand them to me, I'll be a little faster, and then your meeting— uh, the countertop guy will be here at 5 minutes. That feels good to get done. Every year we just do a little bit more, makes it a little easier every year. Next year all we'll have to do is pull the extra twine down. 99 plants we just trellised today. 99 plants. Freezy math, let's say there's 100 of those plants, and our family, let's say there's 7 of us, but there, let's say they're We're 5 adult equivalents. Say an adult eats a pound of vegetables a day. Let's say every plant will give about 20 pounds in produce. That's 2,000 pounds. If all that's right, that's gonna last us 400 days. So over a year's worth of veggies. And our children, guess what? They keep growing up. And our very— our oldest got his driver's license. All right, good luck. They're gonna get signed up. We're definitely gonna try to get a shot of him driving off. Oh boy, I hope he remembers to stop at railroad tracks. He's got to go over a railroad track to get out of here. Hey, don't forget to stop at this train track. Yeah, okay. Oh, you did on your way in? What do you need?

It's your license.

Well, I'm glad I brought that. I see these he's too plain, and I know it's just gonna— he's gonna be that before we know it, and like, there's gonna be nothing we can do about it. Jonah's getting more and more independent and more and more away from us, and not a thing we can do about it. I think the last time I got emotional like This was when Jonah turned 4. Just one year older than you, buddy. Now he's 16. And as annoying as this is, chasing them, chasing them around, keeping them by, it's good. And today, this afternoon, he's going away from us. All right, he's getting ready to go driving, huh? We didn't even check our turn signals.

It would show me, it would tell me if it didn't work.

Yeah, okay, he's in the car. He's gonna drive with that lady. Yeah, he's off. Hey, the, the lady he's driving with is a fan. Hey, maybe that'll help him. Don't go out! Why do you pull out? He pulled out in front of that car. I guess it wasn't too extreme. How do you feel? You getting emotional?

Yes, I'm very emotional.

I'm gonna start crying.

He's my baby. He's my first baby. This is hard.

He's gonna drive away from us this afternoon.

I don't know how I feel about that.

This is hard. Yeah. Are you emotional?

Yeah.

Oh yeah, I had my moment. I couldn't even say it. He was going to drive away this afternoon. He's taking Josiah with him. Did he come back? He's doing good. Oh, he's stopping at the railroad. Did you get it or what? Yes, let's see it. It's just a paper one. What? You just get a paper one for right now?

Yeah, they're gonna send him his real one.

Okay, how's it feel, my man? Feels good. Then more growing and harvesting. Our meat shaw has gone all the way through the net. I'm going to show you some tips and tricks for moving this entire system. The chickens will be free-range change for a minute. So it can be— it could be tricky if you don't know what you're doing. So here's what we do. First of all, your electricity— I've turned it off at the source. We're going to make sure you run your reel out to the fence and not the opposite way. That's because when you want to adjust this, whether you want to go that way, that way, that way, or that— in this case, I'm going back, I just roll my reel up. We're actually going to look at the lay of the land, go on contour. We're going to go right through there. I'm actually probably going to be all right just going to the next step. In this case, I'm moving the net from here to here. They're total free range now. They associate the meat shawl with home, so that's going to be our first priority, is to move the meat shawl over. Let's go ahead and move the food. They're always hungry. It's their first move outside the net. Don't panic, they just don't know what we want yet. Good, it's not going terribly smooth for y'all learning this. They didn't catch the minnow at all. They got into this clover. Look at that goose guarding them. Isn't that something? I'm just going in behind them. I've got that net down there. Notice we haven't taken down the whole net before we start moving people over because we're using it now as a corral. If all else fails, you could get a pick board just to be safe. Be a lot easier to herd them with. Chickens don't herd that great. They herd like cats, but we got them over We're going to try to close in the back end. They're going to tend to want to go back. As expected, everybody's ordering around the meat shaw, the snack machines, the water cooler. We're wide open down here, doesn't matter. I'm cool as a cucumber. I know nobody's gonna get out. Just relax, enjoying the cool morning. Like to hear them chirping. There's nothing like animals on new grass, guys.

That never gets old.

That one's— that one's the boss. Ready? The guts are coming out easy or hard?

Hard till just now.

You didn't bust it, did you? Try not to bust it. Take your time. No, you didn't. Yes, I did. No, you didn't. No, you better be kidding me. He hit the last one and you spend more time cleaning than gutting. It happens though. I certainly hit studs. It's a good looking dark liver right there. How y'all gonna do it without getting it dirty? Austin. Austin got a good grip on it, I don't think. Does he? They want put it all in these barrels, which there's room, there's room. Jonah wants to get in the truck all in one pallet. I would have maybe just done those, but hey, gotta let them do. Is it gonna fall over when he cuts it, John?

Yeah.

Okay, here goes. What's Austin doing? Keep— oh, you gotta keep that. Oh, see, sorry, the bone. Sam, you weren't holding anything. This guy's— Austin's getting tired. Okay, we gotta rinse that. Now we're getting it all dirty. Are you guys actually grabbing it this time? Jonah, now we're getting all the outside of the barrel. Try not to say I told you so because I let them do it. How about we get these other two barrels that are here and ready to go? Really? A couple people on each one and we'll both lift off at the same time. Oh, you want to do it? Oh, you ready?

Smarter and not harder.

You know what, come on, let's just do it. They outvoted me too, Annie. There we go. You've got to put— you got to put that in first. Try not to get it on the side of the— the— the— the— okay. Pouring rain. We got them all in the barrel. Golf ball-sized holes from that hailstorm. Look at that, we finished just in time for the rain. We did 3 steers in the time we did— well, half the time that we did one stud muffin. Crew has arrived and we are set up and ready to go. Okay, we have been butchering. I haven't had any chance to get a hold of this thing. Well, you're kind of— you're kind of in the throes of it, aren't you? Yeah, look at this. You're getting there, buddy. You got big hands to do this. So, so you get this open, you get that cavity real far open, then reach in there here. Okay. Yep, there you go. Look at those big hands, man. Okay, just 2 and a half hours later, we're done butchering 80-ish, 90, maybe 100 chickens. And our garden started to come in big time. Look, there's a big one right there. Look at that. That gum.

Look at this one. Yeah.

Potatoes are in. Peas are in. Get you a pea. Whoa! They are and look so pretty. Go rinse that off, you can eat it. We got potatoes. We've got carrots. We've got broccoli. We've got onions. We've got garlic. It's gonna need to be my job, it looks like, to make sure we actually harvest that and use that. Hey Rebecca! Broccoli, potatoes, onions, garlic, carrots. We should probably harvest the beets— or peas now because the weeds are going to take over.

I know, and we need to clear those beds so that we can tarp them so that when we get our— because I'm starting like all of the winter squash and stuff.

Hey boys, let's have a harvest. Hey, don't everybody jump up and down for joy. It's all they know. This is exciting. We didn't do this so much last year because of Jonah's injury and the remodel, but we're back. Look at this broccoli head. Goodness, you cut the broccoli? Yeah, you could. Okay, you could actually pull the whole thing because we're done. I think this is our most successful broccoli.

I know, ever.

Look at this. We're a little too late actually on this one. This one's starting to Bowl. Where are we gonna put this all? Well, eventually we're gonna— well, we'll freeze those peas.

Henry, look, only pick the ones that are really fat like this. Don't pick the ones that are skinny like— oh, this one's—

what do you want to run the cart down the aisle?

Some are really skinny, Henry. And these are the only ones. See, this one, it's skinny, only has one pea. So we had to get the ones with lots of peas.

Let's get the beets, bud. I was hoping to have a little margin before we go to town. And I gotta cook the— get the brisket going.

Bow-tato!

Look at that potato.

I found a potato, honey.

Don't need to buy beets anymore. I just got to this. That's a bushel of beets.

We have beets.

That's several weeks.

We have beets. We got months of potatoes.

Look at those potatoes though.

And then we have some Hold that big potato up, Lily.

Let's have that broccoli and those potato— that potato tonight with our carrots. They know the drill by now. You're not going all the way in. Come on, Jonah, no need to have extra stress. See, they're, they're, they're stressed out. They discover— I know, right? Sometimes you don't plan things. I mean, I didn't account for that, but it worked out perfectly. Well, they're at home, aren't they? Going right to drinking. They're gonna be in the shade. We got them some charcoal logs, got them plenty of water. I feel much better with that next to the garden. They can't get out. We've thrown them some garden scraps. From being right next to the garden. We go do our thing, pigs will be out here doing their thing, getting our work done. These pigs on deep bedding, making compost. I mean, look at what's coming in under there. Deep bedding makes compost. We end up putting it out here. The chickens help us do a finer compost by helping us mix it. They help us turn it. This is what a permaculture homestead looks like. The plants Kids and the animals are doing the work of the farm. Towards the end of the summer, we started seeing the light at the end of the tunnel for the house build. We couldn't believe it. We're going from one bathroom to— Lily has her own bathroom. Yes, let's go show them your bathroom. The smile on her face, did you see that? Fingerprint code bathroom.

Look, it feels so good.

It's been a year and a half we've been sharing bathrooms with Chidlers.

This is my favorite room.

You can even get locked in the toilet room so you can make all the noise you want, babe. Who needs to go to the sauna house?

I know, we're gonna have a sauna house here.

Ooh, and we even got— I think we learned this when we went to the sauna house first. We're gonna sauna over here, then we don't have to go anywhere for a shower. They don't have a shower right there in between, and we're like, that needs to change. Sauna, shower, cold plunge, boom.

I know. So sauna will fit in here.

Okay.

I want to run wood up to this so that it's like that's enclosed completely. Then we're gonna have to put a piece of glass right here.

Yeah, because you got to keep the sauna dry from the—

from—

or you got to get, get this platform from getting water on it, really, because it's a shower.

But I feel like that Won't be too hard.

Yes, right. No, just a glass.

How many feet? 2 feet of glass? Yeah, I need to call the glass people, ask them.

All right, this is also exciting. The boys have their own bathroom and they even have a urinal. That's gonna be a hit for the boys. We're going to 3 bathrooms up here, babe. Let's go see the other one more. I'm so very excited about this bathroom. Bathroom down here in the garden kitchen. Boom. And then no other door out there, so you can come in from the farm and go to the bathroom and not have to go to the house, not have to take off your shoes. Man, what's between us and getting in this house? The security, the electrical, finished plumbing, tile, finished tile, finished plumbing, painters, finished cabinets.

Oh my, I feel like there's something else.

The wood flooring.

To come. The appliances have to be installed. Appliances have to be installed for the cabinet people to come back. Then the backsplash guy can come back.

I think this is where people are saying, you know, it feels like you're so close, you're so far away. We're so close, but we're still so far away.

It is still so far.

All right, so we may not know exactly when we're going to get in here, but I do know this: every day were one day closer. House build was coming along fantastic, and we were starting to see unbelievable abundance. We need to get up this garlic. We got potatoes on the harvest list. We got cabbage on the harvest list. We got green beans on the harvest list. Look in here, there's so many beans. Beans. So you get over here and you open this up, and look, there's beans!

Look at all those beans.

Yeah, if you guys want to, or you could pick beans with us. I think we'll pick a row of potatoes. Okay, leave them out. Get the potato fork. I'll show you how to— how we're gonna harvest the them this time. Then I lose all my help in the beans. Here, y'all could grab this garlic too. Grab the garlic up, try to keep the stem on it. You might have to wiggle it. John, where have you been? Camp. Haven't seen you on chores in a while. Yep. Good to have you back. Mom wants us not to pierce any potatoes. You know, we've been going like this to harvest. Yeah, I'll show you. I like this, Papa. Wait there, that's good. What do I do with all these? Yeah, go from the side. You better throw it to the pigs, get rid of the evidence. The one vlog she watches. Look at this potato. What you have to do— can I show you? There it goes in. Wait, Papa, there's so many right here. You missed— can be fun too. Pull up, pull up these weeds too. Did we? That's a lot of taters. Look how much that one plant just gave. Wow, that's a bag of potatoes. That sun is rising fast. It's fixing to get real hot in here. Let's harvest these green beans before it's too crazy. You made short work of these beans. Now we got 2, 2 more sessions, 2 more harvesting sessions, maybe 3. This all the garlic? I mean, don't get me wrong, that's plenty. I just want to make sure we all have it in this cart.

Look at this potato.

That's a weird one, huh?

Yeah.

How easy it's gonna be to clean up behind these? Yeah, it's not too bad. I gotta make more room on our produce drying rack. How's that? That's better. I came back strong from that garden and even was able to build an experimental project and get back to work on the garden. We've got to make chicken chores easier. This— I got an idea— is the answer. No more watering chores. First, a 1-inch hole saw. I believe that's 1 inch into— is this a 30-gallon, 20-gallon water tank? Food grade. This could end up being one of the greatest ideas I've thought of, or a good try. Hopefully it's a great idea. We'll eliminate a a lot of time on the chores. I've got the Jobe auto-waterer with a float. Nice snug fit. A little weird, but I think that's okay. I don't think I want a hole to fit that big one. I think I can still get my washer around that. What? Oh nope, I gotta do the bigger hole saw. This is not a cute little tutorial after we figured it all out. That's not just Justin Rhodes style. We're taking you along with us. We need the hole saw big enough for this guy. Hopefully we're not already done. I think that's it right there. That one's even better. Got it. I hope that's not weird. It's always kind of weird to hole saw into a hole that's already there. Shoot, shoot, it's gonna tear up all around it. Shit, I'm gonna ruin this tank. Pretty sure that's rooms. Let's see, we're gonna be lucky if that's not. No way, this is not gonna leak. I hope I didn't just ruin a perfectly good tank. I think, uh, there's no way to tell because, uh, it's coming out this, which is— yeah, I should have it. I might have to get a cap on that. I'm definitely gonna have to get a cap on that. I got this adapter that can make this fit a water hose, which in the end we're gonna hook it up and water is going to go in. This is where the water is going to go in, but for now we can block that hole. Why is Why isn't that screwing on? Well, game might— game might be over here at the get-go. Now there it goes. We should be able to shut the— turn that in and shut that off. All right, let's see. Are we leaking? Not be leaking. Oh, we're leaking. It's pouring out. At least we know that adapters work. Adapter works. And I'm making all these mistakes so that you don't have to. I could probably do silicone, but I want to end up having plans for you guys if this works out. I don't want you to have to be doing silicone if you have— if you don't have to. I do have one other barrel, and I could order a replacement for this guy, and this guy could be used as a garbage can or something like that. We got that guy. He's a little smaller. It's got that curvature. We ought to put it right there. Water is going to be flowing in here if we go up here. I think we're gonna have to go up here. I'm afraid this one's so, so much smaller. There's too much curvature and we're gonna have a hard time sealing it. This is a pretty big attachment and it doesn't wrap around. Started back on the original. I pulled it through, I adjust the washer, made sure it was centered and covering area. I'm gonna, I'm gonna try this. Hopefully this time it'll work. Maybe I was just a little off on it. I don't think that other barrel will work. This has got to work. It's just oozing out. All right, and that's as good as I can seal it. You guys are worth it. I'm gonna ruin another barrel. It's probably too little. I'm gonna have to probably go up too high. We might get some proof of concept out of it, I don't know. That's how it's supposed to go. You have this pilot drill, right? There's a lot of curvature in this, just like I was afraid of. Let's see if I was able to get it tight enough to get those rubber gaskets tight enough. The thing about this waterer is the water is going to stay clean and we never have to clean it out. Well, you certainly don't have to clean it out every day, and you never have to fill it. This would be incredible. What a game changer. It's filling up. It's dry, it's dry. I might have gotten away with putting it down here. Probably too many curves though. We're going for it right here. 3/4 of the way full. It's the last barrel we got, guys. Imagine, we're gonna be able to hook a hose up to this, leave it on, and and then just walk away. And as the chickens drink it down, it's gonna autofill. Now, how are the chickens going to drink it down? Well, we're going to go work on that next. No, let's not do that next. Let's test the auto shut-off valve next. But things could go wrong in both those steps, so let's hope for the best. We've only got one barrel left. I've never used one of these things, although I've heard people say great things about these. The idea is water's going to come in, this floats And as soon as this sinks down, it turns this on. That would be off. It'd be floating up, right? Yep, that would be off. Okay. Hey bud, I don't know why Jonah went to his job.

You know why?

It's just not around. You did? Yeah, you saw Cybertruck?

Yeah, where? In the grocery store parking lot.

Cool. Was it cool?

Not really.

Did you go touch it?

No. What did they drink out of?

You'll see. I like the way this Jobe feels. This could change things around this farm in many ways. I have an idea for an Everflow waterer too in the winter. You don't have to worry about lines freezing. All right, okay, so there's that. You know, it just feels good. It just feels sturdy. Okay, and I am not sponsored by them. I paid for this. Okay. Oh, seems a little flexible on that tank. Yeah, I messed up, dude.

Fix it.

I messed up.

I want to use it as a crane thing for the turkey.

I think that's it. Gideon, bring this Teflon tape. Let's go try this. It's been a while since I bought this, so hopefully we have all the parts.

Is there—

oh my gosh, there's been a hose here this whole time. We could probably even drag it over here. Let's just sit on the concrete though. I guess it's better. I've been walking around around to the greenhouse into the hot sun. I'm just so excited to see if this is gonna work. Go ahead. You can test this by filling it up. We'll let some of the water out. Now we're gonna need to hook it up. Hey, let's hook it up. We'll manually take water out and see if it auto-fills. Hold on, hold on. So water comes in down there. Stop that, stop that. Now when it floats that ball all the way to the top, it should stop. I guess that's our test there. Yeah, it should. Yeah, does that— did that stop it?

Look.

Okay, let's see if it does it. Animals couldn't bother it. We have those auto shut-offs at the top, but if we put this job in the trough, they can't bother the device because it's way down under the water. Yeah, you just put your quick connect on the hose connection. We might be on to something. I think we're leaking a little here. It's just a little. I think we can prove our concept anyway. I had to set it low enough so that the balloon doesn't— it's not a balloon, it's like a plastic tube thingy— doesn't hit the lid. Hold on, don't, don't do that. Let's see if it shuts off on its own. How will we know? I guess it'll stop filling. Oh, stop, stop, stop, stop! You did it! You stopped! Stop, stop, stop!

You stopped it!

He stopped it! Okay, and we're just below— that was a lucky tie— we're just below the rim so we can put lid on it. That's working!

Look, look!

Oh wow, I think that's just because I had overage. Does that mean this is always going to be running? Well, we got problems. We got a hole in that top of the bucket. It's just gonna be always draining, so it's gonna be always filling. We have to lower the ball. All right, we got it below that hole. I don't know if this is gonna be all all together useful besides proof of concept. But maybe, maybe it'll be all right. It feels awesome. Very fast. I mean, chickens don't even drink those— those 60-some-odd chickens aren't even drinking 5 gallons, so we're probably getting— and the small turkeys and 15 gallons. Just the excitement for the day, Beefcake. Excited this is working. That means we only have one more thing. That's the chicken water nipples. What?

All right, we have one thing. What isn't that? No, it's still going.

Oh, he loves that. The apron-wearing permaculture chicken ninja master has never ever used chicken nipples. Waterer chickens in nature are going to want to bend down and drink, but I'm starting to lean towards these nipple waters because one, I could have a waterer that never needs any work. Two, it would always be clean. That said, I don't know what size bit to use. It's cone-shaped, so I imagine there's some room for error. You know what, I'm gonna practice. Oh, let's practice on this. This one. I'm glad you found a use for this already, dude.

Oh, that isn't big enough.

I can already tell you that hole's not nearly big enough. Hold this. That's the exact same size.

That one isn't going in.

I think we're missing the one that's supposed to be. Maybe that's it. What do I do, bang this in? I thought it screwed in. Looks like they might have threads for screwing in, but they may not be. They just miss— they might just be barbs. I think that works.

Action!

Get in, I'm going for it. All right. Test is to see if those leak and if the chickens all use them. Am I ready to test this thing? I'm ready to field test this thing. Chickens, look! Oh, see, look at that. Somebody forgot to undo the nipple on this. That would have been a big mistake. I'm glad I saw that. These chickens could have died. It's going to be so hot today. Okay. And this— that's not gonna happen with this. Okay, we got it turned on. Yep, they'll figure it out. They're bored. Hey, wait, watch it. I'm gonna give them one day. They still have their water. Poke around at this and then let them run it. Let them run out of water in this. Zero leaks, man. This is exciting. Really? 5-gallon vacuum water again? That's good for a very mobile situation. But they're here on this compost pile. No leaks, dude. All right, any minute, just come test it this afternoon to see if there's any leaks, but right now there's not. This is how it's gonna work. Chickens are gonna come— well, let's see if the nipples work. Yep, yep, yep, yep. All right, chickens come drink. Once it goes down to a certain level, it's not the float sinks and that engages the water and the water just fills up. Oh my gosh, let's get a lid on that, keep dirt out of it, and super low maintenance. Look, they're curious. We got the lid on. Let's put it on a time lapse. Don't tell me it's leaking. I don't see any leaks. Dadgum, there's another hole in the top.

Was that the same one?

All right, shut our water off. Oh no, the tube didn't catch it. I'm afraid our job isn't working, but I lowered the ball and we'll see. It's coming out the hole in the top. Maybe I just didn't have the ball low enough. It should not fill up over the ball. If it goes over the ball, it's not working. Hey, I think it stopped. Don't, don't, don't, don't.

Uh, it did.

It stopped?

Yeah.

All right, put the lid on it. Good night. That was a nerve-wracking moment there. It's been, uh, it's been a couple of days. Let's see if this is working. Appears to be working. Float valve is up. Water's over it a little bit. I guess that's what it takes. That water is clean. Okay, there Gotta run out of their 5-gallon vacuum-sealed water today, so they're gonna have to drink out of this. Will you drink out of it? They're congregating next to the water cooler. They'll figure it out. Later in the void. Look, guys, the chicken's drinking out of it! All right, it's working. It's been a few days. Gideon had to use our lid to cover some feed out in the the turkeys. So I just figured out to put this pan on top of it, and we just saw some chickens drinking out of it. That was our last test for success, so I'm pretty happy. We can let that water run out. I can rest knowing they'll, they'll be getting their water. Maybe a little halfway done with all our tomatoes. It's the first year we've really just gung-ho got all our tomatoes. I'm not even sure if anything's falling on the ground.

Um, I think some are falling down.

Yeah, let's pick those up.

Look, there's also one here.

Let's get the ones off the ground before Mom sees them and her heart breaks and feed them to the pigs. Wow, you guys already got them laid out. You're gonna have too many. Yeah, I think they're not even 4 inches, Jonah. So this is like 6 inches. That's like 8 inches right there. So half the spacing. If you have any extra, be more like this. That is a lot closer than I thought. Yeah, we'll get the weeds up first. So we don't have to hoe around them. That's 4 inches right there, bud. Use that as your measuring stick. Hey, hey, look who showed up! I'm here, the beautiful one. Don't look, we have casualties over here.

Oh gosh, what is that?

Some of your tomatoes have fallen on the ground. Don't cry over spilled tomatoes. Do you want me to go and, and pack those up because maybe you can't reach them? Yeah, look at this, babe. Wow, you want to go for it?

Yeah.

How many quarts are we at?

I feel like we might— so we have some crushed. Well, just estimate, uh, probably like 35, 40.

So a third of the way there. We need 100. We're thinking 2 jars a week for a year because you're gonna have chicken cacciatore. I know, we might have chicken Sunday, right?

If Jonah—

that's a tomato I've been pulling for, uh, stir fry. But if you ask Jonah what—

oh, I'm gonna ask him.

We're having having friends over, family friends over on Sunday. Always when you do that, you definitely want to include a lot of farm fresh food.

Pick all these up.

I was gonna say, we're gonna just put it in the wheelbarrow for the pigs. Nothing goes to waste on the permaculture farm. They won't eat this. This will probably be toxic to them, but they'll sift through it, eat what they can. What they don't eat ends up composting right below them in their deep bedding. Are you pruning a zucchini? Can we check our zucchini so it doesn't look crazy?

We got a bigger—

that's the biggest one we've got, and then we've got a bunch of little ones. Those baby hornworms?

I think so.

It's starting to warm up in this hot tunnel. I got one more row to do. Two-thirds done. It's starting to get hot with that sun. All right, then all our time, energy focused back on the final days, the home stretch. Of the house build. I think the only thing that's standing between us and final inspection— that's a little bit of work that Randolph's doing— is getting this special drain pipe in. You guys ever seen those before? We don't have to have it covered, but we'll cover it tomorrow. Josiah, you want to cover this? We'll cover it right now. That black corrugated pipe to white PVC pipe, it's more enduring. We're gonna have two little tire track rock slabs, something, something look nice, and the rest of this is gonna be yard, but we'll be able to back up to our deck here and unload big stuff. There you go. Today, 8 days before we hopefully move in, we get our final inspection, which gives us the legal right to move in. Inspector comes early, too early Really? It's still cold outside. Strolls around, does his thing, and we failed on two accounts. One, we needed to insulate a hole in the brick wall. Two, we need to insulate our exposed water lines underneath the house. So he sees we're working and he says, you fix those things by 3:30 today, text me pictures, I'll pass you. Make sure you use to 3/4 inch for the 3/4 inch and a half for the half. It's gonna be awful, but we can do it. It's not gonna be that bad. Oh my gosh, all hands on deck, uh, Randolph. Just the blue pipe, Jonah, in the insulation. What do we do about that? Well, then it's safe there. The inspector thought we could do this in 45 minutes.

Let's see, just get on top of this.

Now got us a ladder. Jonah's got us from right here all the way over That means that's all we've got left, guys. Here we go, let's get the picture. All right, let's go foam this, Josiah. Last thing. Oh wow, we gotta spray in this. Okay, but then we gotta fill up that hole. So eventually, once she wants that stuccoed— yeah, but for today we're gonna just do this foam just to pass inspection. Just a little bit, it expands. That's enough. Do the bottom now. Yeah, it's got to be visible. I wonder if you hold it— you got to hold it up or what? Not very sticky. It will get sticky. There you go, it's working. All right, let me do it. The cleaning ladies are here. They're the last of contractors, so I don't see what's gonna stop us now. Maybe they'll get done in 2 days. They think just 2 days.

Oh really? So we can move in on Wednesday?

Maybe even one long day today, but depends on how the floor goes. Beauty, how's it going in here?

It's going— I mean, it's a mess, but we're making it happen.

Just a little overwhelmed. How do you feel about being able to move in one day early?

That's crazy.

Are we gonna move in?

Yeah. I'm ready.

Gotta get us a blow-up mattress or something.

Yes, they're bringing stuff over in 20 minutes. So really, she said—

I told her, whoa, you're really gonna do a first round of dishes?

Yeah, yeah.

Santa's got dedication. Yeah, you're not out there on the roof, huh? Oh no, I will be.

Trust me, I've been on some you wouldn't be on yourself.

And I'm like, hey honey, you want to go in the woods with me? He said, I'm not going in the woods we did after I took him in that bushy woods. We might need the boxes to move stuff from the farmhouse. What do you think, Beck?

Yeah, don't break them down.

Well, we're getting a major head start because we didn't think we were going to be able to do this until Thursday. Cleaners are accommodating us. We're starting to set up the kitchen. Beck is trying to find every little thing. Okay, it's going. You're gonna get the other one going too? Man, you sure you don't want to do dishes over here? Yes.

No, I don't.

No matter what, dishes are still not fun. They're so nice, these people. Shawn and his family, they see this pile and they're just like, oh, we'll bring a dump trailer, man. Well, they made that easy, didn't they? Looks like you're actually enjoying your yourself?

Well, I'm a happy person.

Look at that view though.

I know, it is nice.

You can load to the right or to the left. How'd the dishwasher do?

Perfect.

You said the ice machine's working yet? Where do you get ice out of it? Oh wow, you know, we'd have nothing to worry about really if we've got a cup of cold ice water. Rebecca is going to continue working on just setting up our kitchen. Oh look, it's working good. Cleaning crew comes today, should get finished. Hence how we're moving in tomorrow. You want me to come in there? Yeah, this is gonna be your room. How'd it come? Look! Wow, I thought we were gonna do a bed that way. Yeah, and then a bed this way. It looks better if they're side by side because they're like weird curves. Hey, it looks good in there. We get a bench too.

Boing, boing. Papa, can I stay here?

Sure. Did we just eat our last meal in this house? All right, so that'll be part of the plan then. Food over there tomorrow. I want everybody to name something that they're gonna miss about this house. Everybody's tempted to be done and over this house.

I'm gonna miss—

what are you gonna miss?

Going outside to do laundry.

Come on, don't be smart. Sleeping with all my siblings.

I'm gonna miss having the baths outside with you.

Okay, you stole mine. You stole mine. You don't enjoy You take one after us.

I have to light it and, uh, start it every day.

What else? Thinking about the negatives. I really am. This is an exercise to think of the positives.

So nice, the weather, you know, it's like getting dusk and the crickets are starting to chirp.

And that has nothing to do with this house.

Yeah, because it's out there. You're enjoying it.

It's an outdoor bath.

Outdoor tub.

You stole that from me because I'm gonna miss the bath together. Literally nothing.

Well, I'll tell you what is good about over here. Electricity. Yeah, and running water. Yeah, kitchen. I like this house because it has a roof. I like it. If we didn't have this house, we would want either be one, living off farm, two, camping in an RV, or we might have even done a tent.

What are you guys missing? Miss the view from this porch. Yeah, the view from our new house is even better though. Gideon, you might miss having your chores in the yard. Oh yeah, because I don't think that— oh, there'll be chores in the yard over there too. It's hard to beat. I guess we like the bath. That's it.

One thing I like about this house is that it's a house and we were able to live here.

Yeah, I got one. We were able to experience what Grandpa Grandma. They have 5 kids in this house. You guys got to experience what Boots, your Papaw, felt like. He lived here.

He lived here.

Except I think they had a bed also in this living room. All right, well, we'll say thanks to this old house. It housed yet another family.

I'm happy that this house is here. I still don't believe I'm gonna believe it. Because, because Ashley and Ross can come live here and I can see baby Layla Moving in was awesome, but we were behind on the farm.

Again, I've got to do my chores or Beefcake is going to eat me alive. I just went over the edit with Austin where Beefcake was chasing me in the pen last Sunday. Hey, hey, you might be rightfully saying, why are you gonna keep him? Well, he's probably gonna be dog food soon. I'm gonna have mercy on Beefcake because she's in heat, and I think he just may see me as competition. Her being in heat means she's in her cycle where she can be bred, so he's just a little extra macho, a little extra protective. This could be a good thing, but kind of nerve-wracking for us, so only I'm allowed in there.

Project.

Let's harvest all the green beans in the high tunnel. We have been moving in our house, our new house, and we've neglected the garden, that's for sure. So we got some catching up to do. Lots of green beans to harvest. They're vying for me. It's been a week since that happened. She's probably out of heat, certainly out of heat. So let's see if he's still weird. Not coming after me. Wow, do you see what he just did to her? Moved her out of the way. That's probably all he's looking to do for me. Probably not trying to eat me, just wants to dominate. Clearly works. I get out of the way. Clearly. Have they been right here, Gideon? We need to get them down and then over. We'll start moving that way. There's some weak part of the pasture I want to get to. See it over there? Maybe we should go up. Have we been up?

No, we have—

yeah, let's go up and then over.

We have to get all the turkeys over there. All right, you have to move everything before you can do this. Turkey, you can buy that. Yeah, it's gonna be all the way up at the pond.

Oh, I hope not. Right now they're finding— I guess they were out of feed. What we've got to do is move these turkeys to a place in the pasture that actually needs it. We did some grading on it last year. It could use the fertility. Papa, yeah, tell me about it.

One's going to be at the pond, and one's gonna be at the barn. One's gonna be at the pretty place. One's gonna be at the pretty place. One's gonna be at the tree house. One's going to be at the horseshoe, and one's going to be at the house.

Look, I just scared him with the drone. We could hurt him with that if we had to. Turkey. Turkey. Turkey. Turkey. Turkey. Turkey. Turkey.

Turkey. Turkey. Turkey. Turkey. Turkey.

Getting. You want to tromp through there and see if we can't get creek? Sand.

Chill.

Then there's turkeys. Hey, keep your head up. Keep your head up. What'd you do, stay up late last night and watch the fight? Boys are in there sleeping, by the way, honking their shoes. Could mean 25% more growth for the turkeys. All this little gravel sediment on the bridge— rooster teeth, I call it. Turkeys or chickens don't have teeth. They put these little rocks in a muscle called a gizzard, and that gizzard works those rocks to break down food, making it easier to digest. Chickens love it. Turkeys love, love grit. They can eat some big grit. You think a chicken's chicken? No, turkey's chicken. Now they got nothing to do today but find that grit and eat it. Grab me that bucket. Anything else you want to clean? Come on, guys. I'm not gonna let you stay up and watch the fight again. Can't keep your head up. Uh-oh, look who got out. And this is bad because if Beefcake gets out, then we got problems. Come on, come on, come on, come on. Here, let me get you. Let me get you. Hey, let me get you right here, right here.

Right here.

Oh, that was lucky. We'll get this done in no time. Look at there, we got a whole 5-gallon bucket of green beans and tomatoes. Green tomatoes I actually cut when I was trimming back the tomatoes. And then the unthinkable happened. Hurricane Helene. The wind, 22 inches of rain in 2 days, and 15 days without power. Everything that we worked so hard for is floating away.

Oh, look at that!

There goes the container.

Look at that, the pond.

Our whole pond is overflowed. There went the bees. We needed There goes the power pole. It's washed away concrete. We don't even have a driveway anymore.

How do you come back from this?

How many years is this flood going to reset us?

I'm so afraid it's going to break, but the water is already up to the high table.

Hey, watch your back too. Watch your back. Okay, just leave the chickens that won't come. Come back right here. It's too deep right there.

I've never seen it like this. Like, it's insane. Like, it's what you see on the news. We've got river, river.

Not worth it. Oh, look at that! Okay, that's a good thing we did not go. Oh, there goes the container. There it goes. High tunnels flooded. Going after our sweet potatoes next.

I don't think we could have ever prepared for this, ever.

This floats up during a rain event. It doesn't drain good. Right here.

This is good.

It's not getting up to the house. It's coming Down through here. We're gonna lose the high tunnel. Maybe the 3 pigs is so dangerous to get out there.

Justin, do you see the goose? The goose is loving it right here.

It was. Right up to there. So it's actually receding or just dug out the earth more. Yeah, it might be carving away. There goes that tree.

There goes—

there goes the power pole. Oh my gosh, that's what's happening. It's washed away concrete. Be careful, babe. It has taken concrete.

The chickens came out, so we felt like— Jess and I were just saying we felt like it had calmed. This has chilled considerably. We didn't have to let the Three Little Pigs go. Water still coming down pretty steadily.

Huge trees down right there, just 100 feet off our property line. We're going to clear our main, our main road. This water got so high it got up over this road. It's like 10, 10, 12 feet. Look at this road warp. Water's come up so high it almost took away the road.

So this is always our driveway. This is quite the drop now. Obviously we're gonna have to fix it. It's just been, you know, demolished. And then you can see down there the big river.

We're thinking this is our best way to go check on Grandma. Josiah made it. All right, look at that. Fell over there. Let's go this way, Johnna. When do you think they'll have power back? 2 weeks. 2 weeks? We did lose several years of our effort, including the bees, the high tunnel. Hey, corners of our pole barn, bridges, and the pasture. And if that wasn't enough, soon after Hurricane Helene, just getting through recovery, Grandma Els, after a long battle with ALS, Rebecca's mom, and begins to fade, goes into end-of-life care and begins to die. We arrived to the Elizabeth House and go in. I'm thankful that Henry had shoes on. We go into the room, visit with Rebecca, Beth, and niece Faith, get our hugs before we leave. We all miss Mama. She's gone all day long and we really miss her.

What?

I just got a text from Grandma. Says, thank you for loving my daughter. See you on the other side. You did a fin— You did a fantastic job raising her. I'm blessed to have her in your— and your family. Yep, see you later.

The EMS people are here to take you.

She's leaving her holler, okay? Big Daddy's staying.

1, 2, 3.

Good job.

It's okay, Mom, we're taking you to the Elizabeth House.

Yeah, remember? Okay, we talked about that.

All right, Miss Beth, we're gonna sit you up real quick, okay? All right, you ready? We're just gonna sit you up. I knew that it was coming, but it's so hard. Yeah, I'm crying. I'm sad. Mom, be happy.

There goes Grandma, her body never to return to Broholler. She'll come back in ashes and we'll bury her in the family graveyard. She's in a very thoughtful, pensive position right now. She's in the thinking mode.

So, we'll be back in the morning.

I'm proud of you. You're gonna sleep good tonight.

I'm happy for you. Do you have any discomfort?

And at hospice, Rebecca was there with her day after day after day.

Mom, everyone's here. All the grandkids and just Rachel. Rachel and Dad. We're all here. Aw, she moved.

So we balance hurricane recovery with processing and dealing and going through Grandma's death. Oh, I think that's a good mix, Rich. It's a perfect slump. Not too wet, not too dry. He's going to mix up one more bag. We're going to see where we're at.

Let's see where it is.

Huh? Can't.

Why?

There's a slab, concrete slab. You can move it. Needs to go that way, and it's on an angle. Oh, thank goodness it's the same as that one. This pole barn is so much for our health journey because it's our total winter housing situation for the pigs in the summer and then the cows and the sheep in the, in the winter. And that's our, that's our lamb, that's our beef, that's our dairy. Because we do deep bedding method, they're mixing their manure with those wood chips. It's our soil fertility program, so we, you know, we capture all those nutrients in the winter when otherwise it'd be lost if they were out in the pasture.

Or less than an hour, 5 hours, you know, that's pretty good.

That's pretty good for that much concrete for all this work. We made it. We're done. Everything went off without a hitch.

Thank goodness you're so tall, Jimmy. You're a giant.

Look at this guy.

Are you cheating?

You might be cheating.

No, I'm not. I'm not. I'm flat on the ground. Don't make me wear heels. Remember the fireworks?

Surely not.

Yeah, remember?

You guys knocked over the stands. Oh, there was fireworks, man. I forgot about that.

And you guys were running this way, and I'm like, is this part of the plan? No. I'm like, why are we running?

I am Justin Rhodes. I am Beth's favorite son. For those of you know her, you know she didn't have a birth son, but I did marry her lovely daughter and she adopted me as her own. She is with you. In fact, she's experiencing things we could only dream about because she's in the presence of Jesus. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. But life goes on. We still got to eat. The farm work continues with fall animal harvests. I need to get rid of that nervous energy.

Aim a little more down.

Ready? Let's go! Jeez, their noses are wet in blood. All right.

Oh, that thing's dead!

He wants to put him in the thing. We have to put him in the scalding. I know, Paul, but let's just hang him here. Let's just— y'all voted me. Well, they want to hang him here. I want to move him over to the scalding and then hang him up there. The reason I don't want to hang him here is the bucket's way up and they're driving across the farm and he looks like he's cold. Dramatic. Pig killed, went great. Pre-game jitters gone, at least until the second kill. And it's Jonah's turn to kill. I feel like this is not a great skull. No, I think it was too much. It's not just coming off like, uh, scraping butter or something. I mean, you can just touch it and it fall off to get it right. Jonah wants to kill the next one, and then we'll get Jonah eviscerating and we'll go scrape, and things will really start moving along. They really need to, or we're gonna be out here all day. Nervous? Yeah. Why are you nervous? Last time I shot the pig, it didn't go so well. I missed. Yeah, I just don't want to miss. Here you go, you got it. Really? All right, get it. Thank you. The third and final one, we really got no groove. Must be 1 o'clock, maybe. Pulled the trigger near 7:30. This will be the hardest Notice the butchering days this fall. Barrels, something for the pigs when you're done. What do we have? We bought some ice. Ice maker is not up and running yet. What do we do? 4 bags per pig. Hey, that's enough. We get these big plastic food-grade bags that we put the pigs in first, then put them in the barrels, then put them on a pallet and put them in the—

wait, this is the other thing.

You know you're gonna have to strap them together. And that's a wrap. You take their legs away and it's over. There you go. Picking beef of these, then cut the legs, but you circumcise this so you still have this to hold on to. Excited or nervous or what?

Nervous.

Okay, one hand.

I don't know. Okay, good.

Perfect. Good job, kiddo. Feel weird?

No, that one's dead.

Sad? Nervous?

No. Yes, sort of. I don't want to mess up.

This is your first time?

Yeah.

Ready? Who's killing the next one? Austin? Yep.

I'll see how good Austin is.

Perfect.

Oh, that was the best one.

Good job. Hard for you, Austin? No, I think there's just no— it's not like I put in the work with these guys. Yeah, slicing, cutting. Really hard. You did it. Then one of the biggest windfalls after the hurricane was Farmer Friends saw what happened to us, saw that we lost our hurricane, and they stood— they stepped up to the plate, not only donated us a new high tunnel but installed it. Check-in, 3 hours to go. How you doing? We are probably 30 minutes away from getting ready to— from starting to put plastic on. So you're ahead of time. Jonah, what's your duty? Do whatever they need to be done. What is your duty right now? What are you doing? It's crazy. What's your duty? I have no idea what this is. They're getting some plastic up. How long is it? How long is it for a 96-foot tunnel? How long is the plastic got to be? This one's probably 103. Whoa, he's climbing. It pays to be a thin, healthy guy, young guy. Greenhouse Classic is going up. Look at that, it's going up! Dang, dang! Oh, come on now, come on, you got this, come on! Oh, there it is! This nice comes in handy being Tarzan. There it is. After the high tunnel, after clearing trees, we rented a wood chipper to chip the leftover brush and to start building back our soil. Hey, there's electric Mini X. It's a little tiny Mini X. Here it is, Josiah. Your new best friend. We're here. Good brand. He said this is a $40,000 model. That's what's interesting about it. You think we can get a ball hitch like that for the tractor? Yeah, just turn the key.

All right, here, Robert, you got a copy?

This will engage. Try your best not to hit this.

This is like an e-stop.

If you hit it, it will shut the machine off. It's like a safety switch. Hey, we got us a wood chipper! The guy said go get them, we're gonna go get them. Does that machine feel heavy on there? Yeah, it's not as big of a machine as I thought. That's good and bad. Good because maybe it won't kill us as quickly. Bad is it may not get the work done as quickly as we were thinking. Home sweet home. All right, drop yourself off here, you get the Mini X warming up, get the bucket switched out. That's how we're gonna stay safe. I have no idea how long this is gonna take. Hopefully not long. We want to chip it all in a day if we can. Got to lift up the stand. I just put up the stand. Okay, one reason I got insurance on this thing— tree accidentally falls on it or gets crushed, max liability is $500. I didn't ask how to get open. How do I open this? Are you serious? All right, you better stick around and help me then. This is a safety shut-off, so if some reason you were to get dragged in there, we need an emergency shut-off. What kind of branches you reckon this is? Small, medium, or large? You kind of have to save the largest. Save the largest, set them aside or something, and we'll have to set them on a different setting. Okay, okay, it's on medium. Where are we gonna have the wood chips go? I was thinking over there. It's not moving. Let that thing be spinning. It's going now. We got wind shift. I'm gonna need some air.

Looks like you could use an assistant.

We made our own wood chips. I know, turned a problem into a solution. This. I'm like, is that a honeybee? Are any bears are leaving somewhere out on this warm day? These are great wood chips too. They are, they're fine. Got it pulled up. You can sift through that pretty quickly though, I think. One little pile down. This is taking longer, but we are getting with it. Between the house build, the hurricane, and Grandma's death, as you can imagine, that kind of put a fork in us completely quitting the grocery store as a family, and we were okay with that for our sanity. However, at the very end of the year, I got feeling saucy and I challenged myself to 10 days of living off the land. And for 10 days, I ate 98% plus off the land and really didn't suffer. Did very well. There was a lot, huge variety. It's a testament to some of the things we grew in our systems, our meat systems, that in our milk systems that we long had in place, plus the bounty that we received from the garden that maybe wouldn't have in the past, you know, the the sweet potatoes, the squashes, the broccoli that we harvested and froze. My dad grew up in this little house with his 4 brothers and sisters in the '30s and '40s. They sustenance homesteaded on this very property that we're on. Dad would often say, if they didn't grow it, they didn't eat it. Over the next 10 days I'm gonna try this. I'm gonna see if this is still possible in 2024 to eat the overwhelming majority of my diet from the farm. If I didn't grow it, I don't eat it. Day 1 of 10. Can we do this for 10 days? When the old-timers said we didn't grow it, they didn't eat it, they had salt, they had coffee. They had sugar. I'm not gonna do sugar. Health reasons. So they did have supplements to their food. Not like we do today though. So I will allow some supplemental foods like salt, spices. Jonah was saying maybe we should have some fried chicken. I know they had some fried chicken. So they must have bought flour. Grandpa worked at a dairy, so what they didn't get in their own milk. I'm sure you could get from the dairy. So we're going to be having our own milk, having our own cream butter. We're going to do that now. We'll supplement with a little bit of cheese since Grandpa would have had that. Take inventory of what I got, baby. Apples. Am I allowed apples since they were local?

Yeah.

I think Boots probably would have had some apples in the fall and the winter. Would they have had honey? Well, they would have had sugar. I'm not gonna do sugar, so I'll allow a little bit of honey. Tomato sauce. Oh, I was hoping we'd have these. Oh, Becky, yeah, our preserved blueberries. You know, I'm so excited. Yeah, cannot eat chocolate. I know they didn't have chocolate, but maybe once a year at Christmas. Yeah, salsa, maybe I could have that on some eggs. Sweet potatoes, onions, that's good. I love onions. Homegrown garlic. This is where another modernity gives us an advantage. This is lamb and beef. Peaches, those were local. Green beans, I don't want to eat those. Corn, I don't want to eat that. I will try to incorporate the zucchini. Hey, wait, weren't there some— there's got to be some acorn squash out there and butternut squash.

There was butternut. I don't think we have any acorn, but there was butternut underneath.

All right, beets are fine. Broccoli, there's some broccoli. Let's go see all the things I'm not going to be eating for 10 days. You're gonna have to pass this section up for me. Chocolate. Well, 1, 2, 3 boxes of things I'm not gonna eat. 5 exceptions because my folks probably lived 90-95% off the land. I can have a bit of tea. They probably had dry goods like tea or coffee. A little bit of honey because I know they did sugar, but I'm not gonna do sugar. I'll do honey. Spices and salt. A holiday meal. New Year's Eve is coming up. Sauces? Yeah, sauces. Does that count? And spices and salt. Anyway, there we go. Sweet potatoes, dark meat chicken, lamb chops. I should probably eat that fat too, huh? It'll help me not crave the chocolate so much later. Day 2 living off the land. I fast too, intermittent fast today. I rarely eat breakfast. I miss eggs every once in a while. I get so hungry by lunch, I even eat them cold. Lamb from the farm, sweet potatoes, and rice. I'm opting out of the rice for this challenge. You see the family? Easily 75% off the lamb. I think I'm seeing just how much we already eat off the lamb. Homegrown butter. Passing up that rice. Eh, it's not that great for you anyway. But what I am missing is a little bit of that Bubbie's sauerkraut. That's still at 95%. I guess that's the rule. I'm doing 95% because my people— I'm feeling the heritage, you know, feeling the heritage of my people. If they didn't grow it, they didn't eat it. But they did have some supplements. You really just leave that right there?

Well, I was eating it and then he called me.

Chocolate and peanut butter combo. You did give me a nice little history lesson. I am I sort of knew this but didn't make the connection. There was a store called Good Luck about 2 miles away. That's probably where they got their flour, sugar, coffee. So if I'm gonna drink tea, have a little bit of honey, have some sauerkraut, have these little cheats, I'm gonna walk to the store and back. I can't have chocolate and peanut butter, but I can have this yogurt, blueberries. I think just that. I know it's healthier option. I actually Actually, everybody's off the land tonight. Potatoes, green beans, everybody's off the land tonight. Grandpa Henry would be proud. Even the butter, guys. The onions is from the land, the eggs in this, the ketchup. You're gonna have to walk to the general store tomorrow.

I could have made ketchup.

I love the meat, Beck. You did a fantastic job. Third day of living off the land. For that 5% that I'm eating off the land, salt, spices, sauerkraut, a holiday meal. During this time, I'm gonna pay for it. I'm gonna do my, like, my relatives and walk to the general store. Hey, you need anything at the store? No, I think I'm good. I can't pick up much. I'll be all right. Yep. See you in 2 hours. See ya. What are these strange things with wheels and loudness? Whoa, that's so fast! It's quiet.

It's slow.

It's a slower lifestyle. Right around the corner. This has been special. I feel like I'm walked back into history. But it gets crowded, it gets busy down here. It gets good luck. Hey, how do you feel? You gonna make it? Maybe. Halfway there. We gotta make it home now with our load of goods. Mama, things have changed. We are walking home. I think I just saw a Rivian van, Amazon van, electric, probably going to our home. How much energy for that? Oh, I worked for this, buddy. I brought you the goods, dar. Okay, got you some flour, got you some ketchup. Although we could have made that.

Pecans, salt, ketchup.

Spices, sauces, meat and sauces, uh, rice. Awesome, Josiah, we earned this, buddy. Yeah, hey, y'all are welcome. We all— Josiah and I, 5 miles round trip to the general store. That's why we have rice. That's why none of my relatives were fat. Welcome to day 4 of living off the land. Killing me small, killing me small. Okay, one holiday meal is one thing. I walked all the way to the general store to get it. For yesterday's meal, but I'm gonna suffer today. I'm going to suffer. I shouldn't say suffer because, gee, I'm gonna get the chicken and steak. Ham turned out nice, potatoes turned out nice, cornbread, collards. We grew those. We did not grow the black eyes, but we did grow the ham hock.

I wish.

Flavoring it. So I'm gonna highlight the amazingness of eating off the farm. I will be eating this amazing ham. It was a little dry, so I put a lot of our butter into it and the sweet potatoes. I could eat these. I don't want to eat greens. We're trying to kill you. Fifth day of eating off the land. Look for a quick on-farm snack that would work. You know you're hungry if you eat cold eggs and enjoy it. Ham. From last night, cold. Lamb from the land, 2 legs. Hopefully we'll have some leftovers. Broccoli from the land. Kids are supplementing with some rice. I'm skipping it, going hardcore off the land as much as I can, probably 98%. That's our butter, a little bit of supplemental cheese and some salt, and that's the only thing off farm. Day 6 of living off the land. One thing I'm noticing is it's a healthier I mean, we already eat pretty healthy, but for example, last night my family ate rice and I opted out. That would have been harder to come by for my heritage family, and, um, it's better for me. I mean, less carbs is better for me. I'm gonna do some leftover ham, potato, mashed potatoes. That's good after a ride. Carb up. Nice supper. Burgers from the land because tonight is Fishy Friday. I do miss that. I do kind of wish I I could have some fish, but I'm eating off the land. I could eat the green beans. I'm gonna do some grass-fed burgers. And I found some sweet potatoes this morning. Some eggs from the land. I suddenly like eggs under easy, so I'm just gonna barely cook those. All right, this egg's still clucking.

Oh yeah, it's not good to have the whites raw.

Really? That's not healthy. Light, light. Lunch on this Saturday. Hey, I'm not exerting a lot of calories. I don't need a lot of calories. I'm happy with a little leftover thigh and a little leftover lamb chop. Maybe you want to add a little bit of acorn squash butter on top of everything. Evening meal, kids are having some bratwurst. Mama and bratwurst and rice. We do have onions and peppers from the land. This is day 7 living off the land. I made some glorious this burger, so I'm not gonna eat the bratwurst. A little of those fried peppers on you. It's the 8th day living off the land. 8 days in, I found I have successfully done it. We have food systems in place that if we don't grow it, we don't eat it. And we could do that in January and live a pretty good life. Quick breakfast off the land. Thank you, Lily, for scrambling some eggs. And cold chicken works for me. I gotta show you this, this, this meal they're having. Chicken, corn, and collards. Y'all are all from the land. We just live off the land, babe. That's what this is showing me. I think I'm okay without the rice. I do want some chocolate and peanut butter back in my life. But I am learning I should eat more yogurt and blueberry desserts as a dessert and have less chocolate, or maybe every other day. Learning a lot on this, uh, living off the land journey. Just 2 more days. Happy 9th day of living off the land. Oh, I had some hard cravings last night. Craving peanut butter and chocolate last night. Nothing was hitting it. I ate like 2 bowls of yogurt and blueberry preserves Day 9 eating. Let's do it right, right, right? You guys don't want to see me just eat burgers all the time, although I wouldn't mind. Let's eat potatoes from the land. Brunch. Eggs we just harvested, mostly from the farm. Yeah, so I'm gonna go heavy on the broth and the meat and potatoes. Yeah. Oh, onions, garlic, tomato sauce. Happy 10th and final day of eating off the land. Hasn't been that all, all that difficult. We've got our systems in place that we certainly could save spices and salts, some sauces. You don't have to have sauces. You can make sauces from the land. Hey, are you eating off the land diet? Is that what you're on? Meat, cheese? That's gonna look like my plate. Meat, salsa from the land. It's the last, last meal of the 10 days. All right, happy day. I came to discover that already— I think we take it for granted because it's become our norm after doing this so long— our family is growing and eating like 75% of our own food easy. And with just a little bit more of a stretch, you know, maybe resisting rice or, uh, bought ice cream or coffee every day, we're 98% off the land. So in a pinch, we could not only survive but thrive. Now, the beautiful one has a special word for 2025. She can only have one word for it. It's recovery. So I say let's recover and make 2025 our best year yet.