In this vlog, the primary speaker (Speaker A) updates viewers on a weekend marked by the ups and downs of his chronic reactive arthritis, describing recent ozone therapy, the prospect of systemic steroids, and the emotional shift toward acceptance despite lingering pain. Interwoven with his health narrative are detailed accounts of daily farm tasks: checking ducks, managing watermelons, feeding pigs, reseeding pastures, and implementing rotational grazing as part of a regenerative, mixed‑species approach. The family—Rebecca, children Jonah, Gideon, and Josiah—and community helper Arun are highlighted as essential support, stepping in to keep the farm running. The speaker reflects on a book, Pastoral Song, which reinforces his belief in diversified small‑scale farming over conventional specialization, and he articulates a broader vision of a market farm that supplies food sustainably while teaching others. The vlog balances moments of frustration (pain, a failed watermelon) with optimism (healthy ducks, successful pasture regeneration) and ends on a hopeful note about future harvests.
Chapters
Well, we made my walker cooler. Abundance Plus sticker. Pigs for everyone. Homestead Mama. The Great American Farm Tour. Now let's give you guys an update. It's been an up and down weekend with my reactive arthritis. Good days, bad days. I got an ozone treatment on Thursday. I felt great Thursday afternoon, more than likely because of the result of it. I could walk better, had more energy. But Friday went down. Saturday was pretty bad. Feet super sore. Knee not as bad Friday and Saturday. Able to walk it, able to stretch it out. Went to ozone on Saturday, and after a few hours it did, it did help me. Gave me energy. Some of the problem is it gives me energy, but, and it helps my body some, but my body doesn't follow along as quickly as my heart, or that energy level, whatever you want to call that, spirit. Last night I almost took a pain medicine because I woke up and it was, uh, my knee was hurting. I couldn't move it, period, without hurting. And my right ankle, it's just, this is the craziest thing, this reactive arthritis, and it's lasting so long. I think our spirit at this point is Acceptance. It's gone on 2 months, supposed to be 3 to 5 months, so I don't know why it's acceptance because we should still have hope because we're not, we're not out of this window yet. It is to the point where our main doctor, our guide in this, is saying let's try the steroids. This is a case for a steroid because this is systematic, like this is my entire body, so we're gonna do a pill steroid. Uh, not injection-specific places, because where are you gonna go? You're gonna go in this finger, that finger, my wrist, this wrist, this finger, my left toe, my— both my ankles, my knee. Then, then what's gonna be? It's gonna be my right knee. Our hope at this point is in that next week. That's just supposed to calm down the inflammation so my body can say, okay, you can chill, we've got this, you've already got the Campylobacter a long time ago, relax. It's over. But the way Rebecca and I are, we're kind of like, well, let's kind of think of Plan C just in case it doesn't. That'd be kind of depressing to count on that did not work. I have to put my foot out right there. It's too much of a bend to put it inside. Come on, get in. Jonah, you load that with our milking supplies. I'll go get the, uh, let's check the ducks, Lily. I think they need to go out this week. All right, yeah, uh, we need to clean that water water out, put some shavings. It looks like they did do them. They got plenty of feed, they got grit. Happy ducks getting big. Yeah, they're ready to go out. Dump that water out. All right, there you go, there you go. That's good, that's good. We don't want to dump a lot of it out. There you go, good. Now gently put a little more shavings right there. This vlog, this season, has turned into a story about perseverance, surviving, pushing through, hanging on, chronic illness, family stepping it up, being amazing, helpers like Arun stepping it up, being amazing, community coming together to help. Gideon! It's been a while since I've checked on chores. Insisting on it today. Cheesecake, you all right? You gonna make it? She's gonna make it. Jonah, can you run in there and check her water? Well, don't go in there, climb around it. You know what I mean. Jonah's saying one of our watermelons is coming in nicely. I could go across there. I don't know if I should, you know, I don't know how much I should walk. It's one of those things. Do I push through it? Do I rest it?
That's my hand. It's pretty big. I can't tell if it's ready to be picked or not. I mean, that stem is sort of starting to die off.
That's my hand, but it's so big. What's the tinder like though? I didn't see a shot of that.
See if we can find the tinder. Oh my, there it is! It is dead right there. It's a tendril.
Oh yeah, that's dead. All right, y'all want to risk it or wait a few days?
I think we should. Well, I think we should get it. Yeah, yeah, let's get it.
Okay, we've only grown one watermelon in there. Y'all want to risk it?
Yeah, I think so. Okay, you cut it?
Yep.
Okay.
Oh my word, that's probably a good call.
It's my oversized baby.
Wow, that's like four of your hands. Okay, we're gonna put it— the creek's not that cold right now. You want to get a—
I'm a truck. A truck?
A— I was gonna say a cooler full of ice. Man, this looks good, Jonah. You got this looking good. He's got his white Premier One fence up. These fat hands are getting fat.
Popeye shot my watermelon in.
Nice, I like it.
They're feeding the trough.
Are you sure?
I gave them a full half bucket.
Okay, I can see the red.
It's got grit.
You got grit, and I can see the shadow, and the water's working. Yeah, I, I want to see food though. I don't— I can't, I can't tell. We don't ever want them to run out. We harvest them this weekend. Oh wow. Let's, uh, let's feed them up the hill because now that's all up in their mud and against this fence. We've had some rains, which is a good thing because look, look how they've been able to till. This is good. Wait, wait, wait, they're tearing up your pasture! Well, yes, yes, they're tearing up our pasture because this is— this was not a great pasture and we're gonna reseed it. They're digging up Ancient grass seed, and they're gonna make it better. They're gonna make it like that pasture right there. That's where pigs were before. Right behind them, no pigs. Right here under this tree, pigs. They need 2 feed pans. Yep, they didn't get enough. Apparently this is Josiah's job, not Jonah's, so he's getting the brunt. Wait, let's see if it works and kind of hose the hose off. It's gonna be a struggle for me to get feed. But you can stay here if you want. Don't feed it up too much then because we are going to tip it tomorrow. We went back and got more feed, another pan. I love how timid they are of this fence though, but I do hate that it got poured right there because they're going to be tempted all day spinning out. Yeah, we put it— I want them to put it way up there. There's a little ledge and they're going to nudge it and it's going to go downhill, but it's going to take a long time before it gets to here. One of those is our, our our other female for breeding stock. Cheesecake couldn't do it. She had 2 babies and they both were— so that's slowing us down on our little, uh, market farm project. I'm reading this book called Pastoral Song. Great book. A guy who is living in England, grew up in England, working with his granddad on a small, what they call mixed farm. Mixed farm is like this, it's different things, they're not a specialist in anything. But then as time progressed and farming progressed, they felt pressure and were led into more conventional way. Going down that road though wasn't satisfying, and they saw some major problems with it. And basically the story now, we're getting into him returning to the how to make this small farm work. It's confirming because I'm doing the right thing. We have a very diverse farm, very mixed farm. 4 species of birds, cows, sheep, pigs. We are the Old MacDonald E-I-E-O farm. And the other thing is we're actually leaving the farm a better place because the cows were in here today, and look at this manure, look at this mow job, look at this disturbance. And but they're done here. They're gonna go in there. They're actually gonna go into a yard, a yard. We converted this, our cabin yard, to a pasture, and they will go in there. This land not only got this nutrients from their hind end, because cows are very inefficient, which is a good thing because they put it, they put back onto the land. So this land gets rest, but then the cows are moved out from potential parasites, and it's all kinds of good things. As a result of this rotational grazing regenerative agriculture approach, permaculture approach, the land is actually getting better because we're here and because the animals are here, not worse. That's confirming, but it's also encouraging and/or inspiring in the sense of farming, as in people getting food from these types of farms is the— is another answer. A major answer is people growing their own food, and that's what we do. We inspire and teach people to do that. If we want to do another thing in this battle for creating a better world for our grandchildren, then we would also market farm so that then people can source food from a place like this instead of a factory farm that's leaving the earth worse than when they found it. And the struggle is I get pumped up and excited, and I'm on the ozone and I'm feeling good, and I'm like, oh, we'll do the meat shaw, we'll go ahead and line us up another, uh, gilt to raise that pig up to be a sow so that we can get going on this pork, pork business a little quicker. But, and then you wake up in the morning and your, your knee won't move, and, and your feet— my feet feel like They've been crushed in a car accident or something. Hopefully this is going to be the happy ending to the vlog. This is y'all's watermelon.
Yeah.
We haven't had the best luck with watermelon.
Cross your fingers.
Ready?
It's good.
Rebecca had a good time. It's the moment of truth. 'Cause we want to keep these seeds. 'Cause this watermelon made it out of all the rest of them. Uh-oh.
Ah, darn.
Should have went longer.
It's not ripe.
It would have been even bigger.
Gosh.
Wow. You gotta let that tendril be done.
Can I try it? I'll try some.
Let him try it and see if it's edible. That's awful.
That's not bad. That's kind of the best.
It's kind of the best.
It's not too bad.
Well, the happy ending here is we weren't gonna get anything out of that garden, and we've got 20 more coming on in the good garden, and the kids seem to like this anyway.
