What I Do When I Don’t Feel Like Working So Hard

Rebecca's raised bed. This is raised bed number 1. Look, it's different. Remember, there used to be a cucumber trellis here and lots and lots of lettuce? Well, she cleaned it out, gave it to the chickens, and started over again. Looks like with green beans, transplants from the greenhouse, and looks like some semi-hard— summer hardy lettuce. As far as I know No chick escaped yesterday. Further clipping of the wings must have really helped. They must have been jumping up and out. They jump up this high and then get out through there. I must have something against water filling up waterers. It's— I guess it's a pain, and I guess it takes up a lot of your day because, you know, I'm gonna fill this water up. The ship's in really spotty, but I'm thinking Let's get the Everflow water here as soon as possible. Let's put that on the list of projects. It's time, ladies and gentlemen, for the question of the day. Why do I keep chickens right next to the garden? Well, it all begins right here. Let's come out of our house. To what you would call a kitchen garden. So close, so easy. Some stuff that just— you just kind of pick. You just kind of pick a little bit. Cucumber here, cucumber tomorrow, uh, a zucchini the next day. But you come out and you work in your garden and you do some weeding. Rebecca did that yesterday. What do you do with the weeds? What do you do with the weeds? That's what you do with the weeds. You turn them— you turn that problem into a solution by feeding it to your chickens. They have eaten most of it from yesterday. Those guys are going at it. I like it. They're eating some of the old stuff. And what happens to this stuff that they don't eat? Well, they shred. They stay busy scratching, tilling. And because we have them on deep bedding— carbonaceous diaper, as Joel Salatin likes to call it— it's turning this carbon, this wood chips, as they turn it into compost. This that they don't eat will be shredded and turned into compost. Then you rake off the deep bedding, the mulch, and at the bottom is where that compost lies. You harvest it, you run it through a sifter to weed out any big chunks of wood chips, and you put it in your garden. That, my friend, is why I would always, always have chickens in gardens. They're very close relationship. Hey, you want to go with? Check on the boys?

Yes, but I can't because I'm wet. I can't.

So, so fragile in the morning. Give him the afternoon, you can't contain this boy. Be in underwear by the afternoon, won't you? How's everything out here, my man?

Good.

It looks good. Everybody's in. You got rooster— you got plenty of rooster teeth, plenty of feed. Good job. Got my helper here. Got about an hour to work on the pigs' water line. You got it. I'm wondering if the pigs have stayed in.

We'll see.

Aha, look who's still in! There's our long line. It goes way down through there. It worked, no snags. What also worked was our pigs. They were getting out of our sheep net. I think the webbing on it was too big. We switched it out for this piglet net. So far so good. Get in, get in! Oh, there he is. What are you doing? I hear Teddy barking. I thought the boys had— it's probably at the door barking. All right, let's go get Teddy, then we'll start. Teddy, come on, my man. Come on, going with me has got to be better than sitting at the door and barking. Come on. We got our water supplies yesterday.

Daddy wants to drive.

You want to drive? So I've got enough to do this water line, but we're out of gas. We got Sally filled up, but Rebecca's calling. Rebecca? Rebecca? Turns out Mom had a bunch of bug bites. Just wanted me to check them out, help her out with them a little bit. And now that she says that, that explains this crazy itch I have on my knee. I can't imagine what she's going through. I want to— it's driving me crazy. But anyway, we got it taken care of. We're going to the pigs' water.

Oh my, what they got, Sue?

Mr. Brown, since you have no shoes on, you wait right here. I'm gonna come to right here. This is gonna be my next tee. The, the end of the line currently is way out there, so we're gonna come over on contour to right here. You wished you had your camera. Yeah, you're— I wish you did too, now that I think about it. So to get in, I'm gonna go get the line. It's the temporary line, is going up through there to the pigs. I'm gonna go grab some of it and bring— see how far I can get. Really? Really? Oh, maybe we're at the end. Yeah, that's the end of that line. Uh-oh, they let Teddy go. Good job, you caught him. All right, keep him in Sally. All right, here's our line we dragged over. If I grab this end, the other end's up there about where I'm gonna need to make a connection. See if we can bring this up. And then over to our line. All right, I got it through the fence, trying to go along contour as best as possible. Snagged. Hey Lily, can you unsnag me? There's probably hose clamps on that T-post. Thank you. Wait, is that not where I'm snagged? Okay, go down and snag me if it's down there. Go down there. You'll have to go down there, honey. Oh, you got it. Thank you. All right, we made it. Let's go get us a— what do we need? We need the torch, the nail to nail, the socket. Get in! Teddy escaped again. You've got to be kidding me. I put it right here. I thought I put it right here, my kit for the, for the water line. I have water line but not my tools and attachments. All right guys, let's go back. Oh look, I was kind of up here to turn around and there's all my stuff. Okay, I'm not crazy. We came here and turned around and it all fell off. I was starting to feel really down about myself. Okay, this makes me feel much better. I was about to think of something positive, trying to find positive in this situation, thinking, well, we got hose over here, we got it lined up on contour, something's better than nothing. But no, this excites me. I'm gonna at least make that connection. We have about 10 minutes, and technically I would have— what?

This is better than going home.

Yes, it is, because technically then we would have put two lines together and gone 200 feet. All right, I think I have everything I need in this little bucket. All right, well, that only took a couple of minutes. We got a few more minutes. Let's put a tee on. Let's put a tee on and get a bonus in. All right, I did it. I got us a tee on there. Now we'll come out later with a 90 and then start heading that way. What, 200 feet maybe? 9 o'clock, milking time. Let's go home. boys. Went ahead and moved the cows this morning. We got everybody over here. This is the most convenient paddock for the stanchion. Look, it's right there. All right, let me in. I'll shoo them away so we can get flossy and not these guys. Come on. No, we're not going. Come on, come on, come on. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is the one paddock. They have access to the creek for one day. I don't know, just let them get their feet wet in the creek a little bit. It won't hurt. Pick up some minerals. You just don't want cows in the creek all the time. They erode the bank, they poop in it, it gets nasty. Lily, will you go get some kale, honey? Yeah, fill that up to the brim. You want some? You want something to cut it with?

No.

You sure?

I already have something to cut it with.

All right. Oh, your hands. Okay, good job, Lily. All right, now will you shred it and then wash it for me? In today's episode of Burn It Up Cooking Show, Pacific cod. I've been craving fish and I've been craving butter, so why not? Let's cut it up. You don't have to, but it's going to get more butter on around it if you cut it up. Next step, copious amounts of butter. So I've got everybody separated in the pan to try to get full penetration. It's kind of soft and breaks up, so I'm trying to let one side cook before I flip it. All right, let's— it's been a few minutes, let's see how it's doing. I guess we'll flip one. It's firming up. I want it to brown. It's been 20 minutes total. Well, we're starting to burn it up, folks. We're starting to burn it up. I think I'm gonna call it on that one side. Oh yeah, it worked right there, guys. Look, golden brown. That's what I'm looking for. Since that turned out so nice, I'm gonna give it one more time. I was giving up. I'm getting hungry, but it's showing that it's gonna work. I want that to happen to others. I guess just cook it until you brown it up enough or your hunger takes over. I think that's a good mix right here. I'm so hungry. Sure, I'd like it a little browner, but I'm hungry. Let's do this. And the cod is part of your complete breakfast: eggs, kale, beef broth, and bacon cheeseburgers. What do you think, Mr. Brown?

Good, good.

Yeah, you got mud all over you, man. Why are you getting muddy before brunch? You liked a lot of codfish. Just get in.

It's yummy. I don't know if I saw that. I said it was yummy.

Just wrapping up the edit. Look at there, raindrops be falling on our dock. This is much needed. Happy about that. Little supper prep right now. These are short ribs, Rebecca. Now this is going to be the Barn at Our Cooking Show because we're I don't even know what it's called, but we're doing it nice and brown. Searing. Thank you, Beck. You are in here making— you can come see if this is a good sear. Oh, she's watching them along and she's got the headphones on, and she's— she just can't stomach cooking meat right now. She can eat it, but I don't know, she's a veggie lover. I'm a meat lover. Do you see why I call it the Burn It Up Cooking Show? Do you see the haze in here? We burn it up. Half water, half beef broth, halfway up in my Dutch oven, and just putting in the oven, 350. For 2 hours. Just come back in when it's time to eat and eat. Look at this guy, Jonah. I'm gonna go do the chores. He's— he just harvested potatoes. He's cutting up fries. I said to everybody, I'll cook the meat. We already got lettuce cut up. We'll just have us some meat and salad. If you want anything else, you got to do it.

So I did it.

So you did it. You're making fries. Once you get those cut up, you'll probably need all this avocado oil. Put about that much in a pan. Look. Okay, put it on medium heat and just put them in, and then just, just fry. You might have to get Mom to help you figure out when it's done.

I think I'll know when it's done. I've seen french fries done.

Well, I've seen them done, but Sometimes the inside is maybe still hard. Yeah, and everybody is staying in. I think we've conquered it. Josiah, let's do the afternoon chores real quick. Thanks to you and Jonah for moving the animals this morning. We don't have to move them tonight— I mean, this afternoon. The luchadors, more than just one move over. We're at the dead end here. To keep going, we got to pull them right there, and it's just so much easier with Sally. Just parked the mower and look at this, Josiah. Serious? Yeah, look how big. I know. Here, take it back. Have you been over here munching already? We don't need to be on no fruit right now. Got mucho. Honey, I'm home. Oh my, he did good with those french fries. All right, I just pulled this out of the oven. Let's look at it together. Oh, it turned out beautiful. Hey Mom, did you see Jonah's fries? I did. Are they— do they pass the beautiful one standard? They do. You're gonna have some?

Uh-huh.

You think you would have been gone for days?

I know, I was gone for like 20 minutes.

Here we go. Hey, you helped out make the mailman. Good job. Let's see that. Whoa, 100% from the land. Save the salt. Yeah, we're not gonna get that technical, are we? This is 100% from the land.

You told me to get the milk and you got—

so they got the milk later, you got to get the cups. Will you go get the cups?

Milk. I did that. We could have cucumbers in the salad. Look, milk. We could have put some carrots, put onions in.

Yeah, we could have more. It's been kind of nice eating out here lately. Look at that view. The weather's been nice in the evening.