When Permaculture Doesn't Work

He's on his— he's— you get on their side and they get bloated. Is it like rolling its eyes? Looks like we're trying to move him over. You got to get it on its— you got to get to lay on its feet. His legs to the side.

There we go.

You're up right now, Ellie. Well, he's busy. Pay me no mind. You ready?

Yeah.

You ready? You had your tea?

You got banana on your shorts?

We got windows. They're foggy. Don't touch them though, they get greasy. Today we are gonna turn this compost pile for the first time. Cannot wait to see what's under there, how it's doing. Chickens have definitely helped us on the surface, but we got to do a deep turn. Did you notice something? I have no bandage on my nose. It's been a week since surgery. How's it look, Miss Trey? Wait, much better. It's much better. Yeah. How does it look? Oh.

It looks straight.

How you doing, my man? Good. Hey, the question is, do we still have a broody hen after yesterday's cold plunge? Nope, that's a different one. We got another broody one?

Yeah. No, no, we don't.

The black one, she's just in there laying an egg. Okay, is she broody?

Yeah.

No, no, we don't.

Here, see if she— yeah, that's broody. Henry, how old are you? What do you think, they need another day?

Yeah.

A cold plunge for the skin. Is that all we got, bro? 8 eggs. Oh boy, we're cutting it close. Old school, Henry. Both side-by-sides are being used. This is how I used to do. You remember this, Gideon? Can you wash those out while I go get the scale? Yeah. The sea monsters are 6 weeks old today, have been having trouble putting on weight. We're gonna measure them and see where they're at. Let me get this set up. Fresh ground for the sea monsters. Let's weigh them. 3— wow, I'm gonna say 3.5 pounds. 3.5. That seems underweight for, uh, 6 weeks. They need to get 6 pounds to have a 4-pound carcass in just 8 weeks, so 2 more weeks. So I bet we're gonna have to go along with them. Kitty, come hold this scale. I want to show the people how it works. This is really nice. I just On Amazon. I'll leave the link in the description if you guys are interested. You adjust it to zero. I did that with the bucket on there, and that tears it out. There you go. Look at this! How are you doing? You make it through the night? Wow! Rebecca has officially named that calf. We are naming it Harrietta because it might be a keeper for us. It might be a milk cow for us in 2 and a half years. What did I say the name was? Harrietta. Harriet, after her grandmother, her late grandmother. Lily, why aren't we going a little closer to the creek this time? Honey, you're not going. You get milked. It's not Honey's first calf, but it is her first calf on our farm. You want to put up the dominant cow first. They're kind of spastic when they first have a baby, and she's out of routine. See, she's like, oh wait, I'm supposed to go over there and I'm not. She's coming. Come on, you are out of practice. There you go. Can we catch this calf? Good catch right here. Now watch this, here we go. Okay, Henry's not interested. I must let this poor calf go.

Hey, you're late!

Oh my word, we're gonna be in so much milk. He's gonna have colostrum. We're gonna be in so much colostrum custard. What happened? The belt keeps coming off. This is happening. Well, you hit something. What did you hit?

Oh, I hit nothing.

I hit a rock. What do you need me to do? The blade belt? Yes, it's this one. That belt is stretched. Put the covers back on it, and then we'll get Mark out here. Where's your other shoe? Oh yeah, get in. Your, your job is to find his other shoe. How's it going over there? Okay, we got to get on this because she woofs this stuff off. Well, I don't think we'll be having any colostrum custard.

Keep holding that cup. I guarantee you, maybe a half a cup.

Feeling better? Yeah.

6 AM, I did not feel good. I think I might have had low blood sugar. I don't know. I just didn't feel good, and I've got this wonderful summer cold.

How old are you? Dad.

He won't say.

How old are you? 5. 5? No, he'll say 2.

Are you 2?

Dad. Hey, wait. Henry, how old are you?

2.

Yay! He did it. We cooped the chickens up of a morning, but They're getting so iffy on their eggs. I don't want to stress them out leaving them in the coop in the morning. We're gonna get them out in the sacrifice area and the machine can have at it. We got the temporary fence up for them. Look, it's working. They just like to be near their coop. All right, get out of here. Yeah, this is getting so compacted. Turning is going to be so good. Let's see what this pile got up to. I want it to be 140, ideally 120 to 140. It's basically perfect compost temperature. We're gonna stir it Now that we have a 6-foot-tall pile and a Mini X, we're going to turn it with the Mini X. You want to bring it all out, and then we're going to push it all back in so it totally flips. Okay, there you go. Pull all that out. Whoa. All right, that's good. Straight down. That's perfect. I've been wanting to keep the material under this shed because it's just more controlled, but we're unable to get all the way in these, these corners, and that stuff's just never gonna break down fast enough. It's good to have it under here because then it just— it doesn't get too wet in a rain event. But it's not supposed to rain for like 10 days. I'm kind of thinking, what if we get it out with the track loader? We can get it all out and we make our compost pile here. We'll have the residue that we can't get up, you know, we won't be able to get all of it up, and it'll build up our sacrifice garden area better. Because right now, look, plants don't do good in it. I I don't know. Too much topsoil here. Too compacted. Did I just say too much topsoil? No, you can't have that. Too much field dirt. This thing gets it. Watch your tail end. Good Lord, how much do we have this time? Oh my gosh.

Woo!

Probably 8-foot compost pile. The carpenters, they need some lumber. You guys ready for a man trip? Real quick trip to Lowe's. Ran out of battery at Lowe's, but we got the lumber to the guys. Just starting to do office work after cleaning up from lunch. It's almost 3 o'clock. Forget the office work. The word on the creek is we've got animals out. Just as we got things calmed down, I guess the big cows were out, the sheep saw the big cows, and they jumped out. I feel like there's some more to do here, but not really, and they're already kind of herded over there. We could just put them right back behind the cows. That seems what they— that's what they want to do. It's like they've been antsy in this brush job. Where's Nacho?

He's there with him.

Well, he's living the high life now, isn't he? They want to be out in the pasture behind the cows. You definitely have to take permaculture concepts individually to your— into your situation, you know. We want to— we want to use the animals to graze the bank and do this and that, but they have different ideas. So we're going to continue this permaculture concept, which the cows and the sheep complement each other. They're eating each other's parasites. The sheep are eating what the cows didn't eat. Like, look at all this that the cows left. Look at all this multiflora rose. Them, their sheep shaw. Jenna, you're gonna have to give, um, Rebecca a word of encouragement. So what's your biggest piece of advice for somebody staying strong? Oh gosh, I feel like she took 2 days off of it and she feels a lot better. It all worked out, she said.

Oh, that was you!

I came to get Henry because Mom's got this meeting. Lily?

Yes?

You've been cooking up a storm in that apron. Checking out the new framing. They finished the wall framing today. Are you casting that vision? You guys gonna have an attic up there?

What if one of us gets crippled again?

Well, then you'll have to sleep down here. The boys are gonna have an attic. And the teenagers upstairs and the little kids downstairs. And you want a bunk bed or you want a flat bed?

I want a flat bed.

We're gonna do singles. Singles up there.

Do they fold into the wall?

Walls, kind of like trundle.

Okay, yeah, come in here. That's gonna be some view, isn't it? Hey, hey, I got a tractor.

Yeah.

Oh, more. You're gonna be in tomato heaven pretty soon, babe. Leave it to the raised beds to kick butt.