When It’s Too Much

What is going on? What is going on?

We're working on our GoPro.

What are you working on?

Trying to pry this off.

Gonna make a chain shorter?

No, I gotta get this for our other chain.

What's going on over here?

Trying to get the brake working.

Did you guys see? They built their own go-kart. They steer with their feet. Give us a little tour of this thing, Jonah. Is it propped up? Why is it propped up? Oh, you're putting the chain on it. This is not for steering, this is just hanging on to— yeah, and brakes and throttle. Yeah, look at that. How old are you boys?

I'm 14 and just size 12.

14 and 12. You guys gonna get this going today? Yeah, guys, I want everybody to come with me to check on the chores. How's little dude?

Good.

Little dude in his pink bandana. Have you fed him this morning? Yeah. Well, you gonna be able to harvest that guy when it comes time?

Yeah.

It's gonna be hard, probably. Gideon, get me a scoop of grit, please. You might wonder, do I ever run out of content?

But I'm gonna go do that right now.

Do I ever run out of problems? This is supposed to mount to the back of this. These little tap screws just weren't enough to really hold it on there. The second problem with that being gone is this becomes terribly wobbly. Y'all made it yet? Beefcake's got him a new girlfriend. Of course, she has to be in heat for it to happen, so I don't know.

Some Maple keeps getting out.

That cow's about to get out. We're gonna catch her in the act. Oh darn it, did you fix it?

She pushes herself here and then tries to get out and it moves the trash can around. And then she comes out.

She climbs over the trash can?

Yeah, pretty much.

All I gotta do is move this wall over.

That's what we need to do.

That's another problem for another day. How are you, Polly? How are you? Water's good. Hey, Max, uh, do you need some hay? The boys just want to get done with chores so they could do their go-kart. I just want to get done with chores so I can do that project. Did you guys feed the luchadors?

Hey, are we missing a wheel?

We're missing a wheel. Hey, why didn't y'all feed the the heifers?

I did.

They're out of hay.

Oh, well, let's feed them more.

There's been something on my mind lately. One of the most popular questions I get is, where do I start? And it's not just beginners asking that question. It's people like me who are, uh, more advanced and just progressing. Where, like, where do I start this year? Well, it comes from two different places. It could come from overwhelm or just, I'm so excited, let's get going. So just this excess energy. The place to start, no matter How much experience? No matter if you're overwhelmed or overly excited, there's a couple of answers and they're very much the same. Start right outside your door. And by outside the door, I mean, I mean physically and emotionally, literally right outside your door, but also outside the door of your heart. Let me explain. The cows and sheep, the chores I just did, that's their barn right here. There, there's my bedroom. There's the kids' bedroom. This is literally outside my door 4 or 5 months of the year. As you probably know by now, cows are also close to my heart. I mean, I love them. We, we love to eat them. The milk, the beef, everything about it. Walk up to my door for a second. My door, my literal door. And right outside it is one of the most— no, the most intensively managed 1,300 square feet on my property. 6, 7 raised beds, a chicken run for 40 persimmons, strawberries, and herbs. Literally, literally right outside my door. And in that space, we'll also grow things that we love. Here, come, let's walk and talk. Uh, for me, chickens and their eggs. For Rebecca, the seasonal veggies that you just walk out and pick and go right back in and cook. Let's see, Dan, my editor— Dan, do we have any footage of that in its prime? If so, let's show that now. If so— if not, completely cut this and nobody will ever see it.

We've got yarrow. I planted— well, I actually planted the yarrow, um, the last couple of years. That's throughout this whole thing. I'm actually going to rip a bunch of it out because it's very prolific. Um, lemon balm— I did not plant this. This was planted several years ago, and obviously Hopefully it's grown nice. The calendula is self-seeded. The dill— these are muncher cucumbers. I believe they're called munchers. I don't know, they're like, um, a smooth skin, so we'll be eating those fresh. We won't be pickling those. Then we've got a good variety of lettuce down here. This is cilantro, which is going to seed. I need to get starting cilantro in my greenhouse, maybe today. Um, then I have peas growing on this trellis with some cucumbers. I have my marigolds.

And if you've got some experience and maybe you feel some overwhelm but you want to know where to start, well, and you've already started, we'll just re-examine and say, have I gone way out there? And, and, and, and that's a lot. That's a long way to walk. That's a long way to travel. And have I overlooked what's in my front yard? Can I bring what I'm doing further away closer? And as for starting close to your heart, if you're more experienced and, or maybe you're feeling burnout, then you've got to look and say Am I growing what I love? Where's the alfalfa?

Right there.

What happened to Jonah?

He's wearing Mama's shoes and Mom wants his shoe.

That's close to our heart. That was worth it, right, Lily? Every 2-3 hours come out and milk that thing because we love to eat lamb. We eat 5 pounds a week times 50 weeks, 250 pounds plus a year of lamb. Here's another example. Just yesterday, Rebecca made our order with, um, Murray Hatchery. She ordered ducklings, chicks, and poults. Notice I didn't say gosling.

Did we get any geese?

I know we did not get any geese because I said, Rebecca, are we still into that? We still into the Christmas goose? Yeah. No, I'm thinking I'm not really either. And it's this whole other management thing. Uh, yeah, let's not do it. So at one time, the Christmas goose was really exciting to us. Now we're like, oh, we may— we could maybe have a Boston butt, which is pork. It's okay, things change. And oftentimes we don't examine and say, is this still close to my heart? Do I still want to grow this thing? Oftentimes overwhelm can be solved by just cutting down. You excited, Henry? Well, anyway, that's a couple of rules for success at the Rooted Life. There's a couple more. They're in my chapter 2 of my book, The Rooted Life, which if you preorder now, I'm giving away chapter 2 plus a video companion, masterclass companion on starting smart. Now it's the time of the year to plan, think about these things. I encourage you preorder, link is down in the description, or you can go to therootedlife.com and you can get these bonuses up until Sunday. Plus we're gonna have a live show where I do an intro to permaculture, which is teaching you how to design your homestead. We'll do that Sunday at 3 PM, so you want to sign up before then. Info down in the description. Day 2 of Mastic Oil. Looky here, Redmond sent us a goodie box. Some things I asked for, some things bonuses. These though.

Yeah, these, those are very nice to have.

You ever go somewhere, a restaurant or somebody's house, and you don't want to be rude but you want to add more salt? Want to have a little salt in your glove department? These things are a game changer. Put them in your pocket, sneak it out, put a little on your food. They're cute. What else we get?

Toothpaste.

Rebecca would be excited about that.

Well, this is what the kids use.

Yeah, they love the lemon. They don't like the wintergreen. They said it's too spicy.

Yeah, I know.

It's a gift set.

Some Relight.

I need that. I'm totally out of my Relight, which is a— it's a— why am I blanking on this word, Rebecca?

Uh, electrolyte?

Yes, it's an electrolyte.

They gave us more salt.

Okay, cool.

Some seasoning, salt.

Sweet.

More toothpaste because the kids go through it like crazy, and more Relight. This is mango.

And I guess that's a refill. I could use that.

No, this one is a— these are like individual packs that, um, so there's 30 stick packs. So like when you travel, yeah, you don't have to bring this. Okay, you just bring like however many packs you need.

Nice. Well, Henry fell asleep, so I'm on my own on this one. I think I found a good end. That should probably do it. How's it going?

Going good.

Did you get that chain on?

Yeah, we just gotta— we just gotta connect.

Man, good job. Okay, that's Fast enough. It's so good for them. They wanted a bike cart. I said no. Then they had the idea to build one. I said, ah, then you're learning. I like it. Now they're building themselves, and they did it. I did it! Look at this, it even created some security this way. We'll still put a brace there, maybe tomorrow, maybe another day. Yep, beautiful eggs. We even got somebody in there. Watch. Oh, she's doing her duty.