In this vlog, a parent narrates a day on a family homestead as a stomach bug spreads through the household. The episode interweaves personal health updates (vomiting, nausea, dehydration) with farm chores: testing a gravity‑fed water line for the cows, milking a cow, separating cream, and feeding the resulting skim milk to pigs—a practice that enables year‑round pig rearing. The narrator explains the often‑overlooked labor behind homesteading, such as cleaning milking equipment, managing root cellar placement, and counting canned tomato jars for storage. Children are shown helping with tasks, from carrying water to counting jars, while the family discusses design principles like proximity of the root cellar to processing areas. The tone is informal, conversational, and occasionally anxious due to illness, but also reflective about the hidden work that makes homesteading sustainable.
Chapters
Good morning, little bro. Happy day. I have a special day with him because the beautiful one has gotten this bug. Started with Jonah. He got it a little bit yesterday. Thankfully you didn't throw up. Mom hadn't thrown up yet, and thankfully it's only lasted about a day and a half. You threw up? Yeah. I hope not. I did. You did? Yeah. Hopefully you got it somehow. You might have started it. He was feeling a little bad when I was on our bike trip. So did Jonah got it? He never threw up. Here, you want some ice in your tea? Yeah. Okay, he said he's a very slow start. I'm a little anxious. The cows are gonna need that gravity water today. I never got to test it yet. Come on, Henry. If it's not, we're going back up the mountain and having to figure this out. We have to. There's your tea, okay? While he does that, we need to make room for some milk. Let's do some cream separating. Gideon's asking for— Mama? This chocolate on rice crackers. We actually have some homemade chocolate syrup. I don't have it in me to say no right now. He doesn't get the memo that Mama's nauseous and feels like throwing up. He wants the one with strawberries on it. Chocolate? Yeah. Bananas and strawberries? Yeah. Come here, honey, try it. Try it with your untried tea. Is that good? Done out. Looks like all our cans popped. Add it to the collection, plus more down at the root cellar. You just asked me to read this book. I got so much more to do. It's not time to read books. All right, let me see the book. Digga-saurus Explore. Digga-saurus are roaring. We might find gold or something old. We love to go exploring. Hey, don't get too involved. We'll go soon. Okay, did the gravity-fed water work? I guess so. Where'd you get water from? I, I just used it. It must be working. You got it from the line? Yeah, up top along the access road. Oh no, where'd you get it from? We didn't need to today. Oh, you're still on the well? But tomorrow, yes, yes, we'll do. Okay, okay, well I have to check it today. One of the great things about a permaculture farm, a diverse farm, is this byproduct of this, of cream, is all this skim. More skim than cream. Great food for the pigs. Great food for the pigs. And in fact, it's one reason we went all year round with pigs. We used to just buy feeder pigs in the spring, kill them in the fall. We now do it all year round because now we have always something to do with our skim milk. I should point out that milking a cow isn't just milking a cow and, you know, harvesting the produce from them, cleaning the jars, cleaning the pails, which are just put in the dishwasher. It's getting the pails ready in the morning, moving the cows, making sure they have water, milking, and acting milk. It's just the tip of the iceberg of the work. A lot of times in homesteading, we think of just the cool actions, the harvest. There's so much in between. It's largely underrated and overlooked and can be overwhelming. You probably don't see it enough here in the vlog— vlog— because it's boring. These are not ready to go in the dishwasher, but I'm going to rinse it now while the milk's fresh or it sticks to the jars. Do we talk about this? We got to get the skim milk down to the pigs. All right, 3 hours after waking, we're finally getting out. Okay, you want to carry that? Hey, we can. It's, it's glamorous, sexy, right? Well, you got to get it down there to the storage. That's part of it. I'm feeling a little funny. I'm hoping that's not the onset of the sickness. I'm usually— I usually am the last one to get it. Drink a little bit of water, take my morning pill. It will help when the root cellar— come on, come in. Well, we would have done this in the garden kitchen. The root cellar would be right next to where we're processing it. That's a big part of this, guys, just planning and design. You have to walk 150 feet to your root cellar? That's a bad idea. Put the root cellar in your basement. Let me show you some smart design. The crop garden harvest— why didn't we put it right here? Well, we didn't want the shade of the house. That's the south. We don't want to shade the house on our garden in the winter. Drain field is in here. This is our future. The veggies processed in here And then stored right in here. It's all thought through. It's all designed. Proximity, proximity, proximity. It's 1, 2, 3, 4, I'd say 5, 6, 2 more at the house, 7, 8. 8 dozen? 80? No. Is this right? 3, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12. Yes. 1 dozen, 2 dozen, 3 dozen, 4 dozen, 5 dozen, 7, 8. Holy moly, that 96— am I calculating wrong? 96. What? 2 jars a week for a year if we get to 100. Just keep counting this, make sure. 1, 2, 3. I believe that's more than everybody thought, and I believe that means The beautiful one's gonna get to make salsa. Annie, guess how many tomato cans we have? Jars? Sauce? Yeah. Of just sauce? Just sauce. Just over 50. 96. No, you can't. That's what I said. No, come on. Uh-oh. I've been packing them in here. Oh, are we trying to— we just tell everybody it's all sauce. Yeah, yeah. So there's 12 in a container, right? Right, but then this is juice. I know, but okay. Right, so that's juice and that's crushed. So this is all sauce. Well, I'm counting crushed at least. Oh, that's not even a full jar. Let's get these filled up. Okay, recount. 1, 2— those are all juice, we won't count those. 4— that's okay, we're counting crushed. Crushed or sauce. There's 6 at the house, or 2 more at the house. So 5, 6. So 6 times 12, 72. It's still pretty good. Internet math. I'm afraid. What's wrong, Josiah? A man's got to hoe his corn. Go through. Where you couldn't get next to this with the hoe, you could actually take this hand hoe, get it. All right, proximity crop garden, Pigport. Almost makes it worth it. Give these pigs their weed. Didn't turn that on. If that works, our trick yesterday worked and it's clear. That should be running better than that. Dang it. Uh, there's a chance this water line isn't turned on. I hope that's the case because this is our water source tomorrow and we're gonna have to figure this out today and I'm, I'm not feeling— I'm starting— I'm not feeling good. Was it closed just high? Yeah. Oh, oh wait, you still got it closed. Hey. All right, let's go make sure it's not closed anywhere else. Closed right here at the top. Let that dirty water run out. All that silt coming off the mountain. Slowing down. Barely coming out now. All right, shut it off. Try it here. That's something. I'm starting to feel sick and I'm not going to be able to hydrate because I'll throw it up. Probably we might be having to climb the mountain to figure out why this is not coming down hard. It's dirty. Oh, that helps a lot. Look at this. I think we have enough pressure to get the cows water tomorrow. I don't think the well will get water to them tomorrow. It's too much, it's too far away, too high elevations, too much strain on the well. I was going to mark a trail for Josiah to build Eventually we're gonna have an access road like this up to the top, but I definitely, I definitely got it now. I definitely got the bug. You're not allowed to do any more work. All right, well, thank you. She's worried about me because I didn't take care of myself when I got the stab wound in my elbow, and then it went, got infected. Now I'm dehydrated. I'm probably not going to be able to hydrate. I'm joining you. I'm sick too. It's rare that both the mom and dad are sick at the same time. That's, that's a blessing, but sometimes it happens. But then Lily, she's feeling strong. She's already been through it. Hope to get over by Friday for the bride. Oh, I think we will. Do you need anything? Oh, thank you. Applesauce if we have it. Get Mom some applesauce. Look at this boy, he's helping so much. Been like this all afternoon. I think I'm getting worse. Are you getting any better? You're 7 hours ahead of me. I am feeling better. I still feel like we, you know like you still got hit by a truck. Sorry. That means I'm gonna feel better in the morning. Yeah, I think you will. We're gonna take a bath. The kids are taking fantastic care of us. Happy day. Let's hope for the best tomorrow.
