In this informal farm vlog, the crew walks through a hectic day of preparing for winter food security. They start by checking egg quality using floating and shaking tests, confirming a broody hen has been successfully broken, and swapping an old Chickshaw Mini for a new design to transport animals. The team discusses the urgency of processing milk before it spoils, juggling hay delivery, and figuring out where to store the incoming round bales in the pole barn. They coordinate the stacking of hay bales with a track loader, assess load limits, and plan space for 30‑plus bales while also handling compost that’s ready for use. Throughout, they juggle moving sheep, pigs, and chickens, clearing brush for power lines, and managing various tools and supplies. The vlog captures the logistical challenges, quick problem‑solving, and collaborative effort required to secure feed and maintain farm operations through the winter.
Chapters
Oh my, it's actually working. We found these on a nest we hadn't checked in a long time. This one's floating. It's bad. They all passed the floating test. The shaking test— I feel something flopping around in here. Does that mean it's bad? This one not flopping around. No flopping around. Okay, okay, so that's not a test, that's just fine. All right, doesn't seem to matter if you shake it around, if something's bouncing around in there. It could still be good.
I couldn't tell me sports.
Thanks, my man. Where are your shoes?
At the house.
Okay. Whoops, forgot to shut the door. There you go. Grab the eggs, please. By the way, our compost pile is done. It's hanging about 120, not getting any warmer. It's just done. Just needs to be moved. That is a difficult hen to break.
No, that's a different—
Oh, it is? Okay, well maybe we did that.
That's the hen right there. That's the hen right there.
Is she still broody? No. It worked. The broody breaker worked. I've got to switch the Chickshaw Mini. This is the old one. It keeps doing willies. I gotta get the new Mini Shaw in here. No willies for this one with the new design and the legs up out here towards the front. You're gonna have to hang in the back and hold that one, you and Lily. Okay, we gotta go up Grandma's hill.
Tie ourselves to it.
We don't want to do that, it might pull you out of the truck.
Tied to the truck.
Okay, then you drive and I'll hold it. That's probably a better idea. Okay, this is hit grounding out right there. It's too steep of an angle. I'm gonna have to sit here and hold this. These old ones don't have a hitch design either. Thank you, Lily, most excellent driving. We'll get this back to Grandma before she even knows it. Well, She watches the vlog, so— Sorry, Grandma. Now let's rig up her fence. No, we're not going to get our chickens yet because they're still out of town. How's your diet going, Cheesecake? She can't even stand to eat. She's got to be bred here in about 3 weeks, so she's got to get trimmed. What's going on? We're just piling up the sawdust. It's about time. I almost lit a firecracker on the boat. Do not. I know that could light on fire. I'm glad you had better judgment. That would be fun to see that explode, but that needs to happen outside. Yeah, on a nut— no, where there's no burnable houses. They have this problem. I think this is a good problem to have. Look at all that. Oh my God, I need to process that milk. I've been putting it off because of the locusts, and now I think I need to put it off because of the hay that's coming today. In the shed though, we've got to get 30-something-odd round bales in here, and we're gonna need this whole space for our hay this winter. Plumbing stuff, feed, old pallets, old hoses, fencing supplies, random stuff, minerals, more minerals, hides we should have sent off 8 months ago, and mucho tools. But if you don't do the milk It could go rotten. But the hay guy is coming today. And where are you gonna put the hay? You gonna put the hay outside? And then what if it rains? And if it goes rotten, what's the point of all of this? Because don't you want milk, yogurt, and butter? And if you do leave it outside and move it soon, but then you're moving it twice. You're gonna move it twice? You've been putting this off for like 3 days. I think you were supposed to do this like Monday. It's Thursday. If you don't do it today, What's going to be the distraction tomorrow? You're going to have to move the sheep. The pigs are due for a move. The chickens are due for a move. 3 sets of animals are all up for a move. When you gonna do this? You've been putting this off for weeks. You're just putting the milk off for a few days. I think it'll be okay. Are you even gonna have room in there?
I don't think so.
I think you can do it. Squeeze it in there. Let's put the eggs up and check on Henry. Come take these eggs before they fall off the couch. Hey, you coming with? What?
Almost said you were saying Gideon.
Oh, you were looking for Gideon? Yeah. Okay, power company's here, clear brush from the power lines. That means we should be getting some wood chips.
I go make ice cream.
I love it, I love the request. Let's milk and then you can do that.
Okay, why can't the boys do it and we clean out the pole barn?
Well, because they are wrapping trees. Well, maybe they could finish the couch or we just go milk and then we leave? Can you guys finish the couch or if we just go milk? Hey, he's coming today. I know, right? This could be a 2-hour project or 4-hour project, or God forbid, like a 6-hour project. Oh my God, I hope not. You just don't know. Jonah, she's so fat! Look who's here in overalls and everything, asking me what to do. So we gotta go milk. This is kind of one of those situations where I know what to do with most of these things. You could unbury all these pallets and pile all this hay in a, in a pile. Actually, let me grab y'all's legs. You see me milk all the time, so let's put a time lapse up on these guys. What are you gonna do with this? Because there's like rocks in it and stuff. Oh, so scrape your rocks, most of them, back onto the gravel, Rebecca. You'll get some dirt in it, that's fine. And then scrape your organic material up in another pile. Back, the calf's got over, so we don't have such a big chore. And we have so much milk. Put me to work. I think I'm gonna go up to the low-hanging fruit first. If I remove all these water lines, that's easy, and it feels like I've done a lot because it's covering a lot of area. I could move this trailer out and boom. Hey, grab one of those while you're sitting on it. Put these out beside the container again. Next, I'm gonna put things in categories on pallets, and we can move it with a track loader. That sound good? Like all these feeders that go to the brooder. Everything is on pallets. I don't think they cleaned this out enough. We'll see. Maybe that's coming to our fence stall here. Moving Sally out of the way for Gemma to get through. I feel like it's important that we get this done before lunch. One, we got other stuff to do. We got office work to do. Now I'm out of the way too. But also, the hay could come. Really? 10:45 at check-in. We have till 12. We lost Rebecca and Lily. Josiah, you coming back? They gotta go to horse lessons. I think this is doable though. Big old snake in there. I bet he's been eating our mice. Woo! Woo! Agile guy. I am not kidding. 8 minutes left until we have to eat. We just got a little bit of sweeping to do. What would we do without that machine? I'll be honest, I didn't know if that was possible, but it's possible. Pays to have the right tools for the right job. Good job, my man. Make sure I was not— I didn't put anything in here. Henry is helping Jonah clear the gravel. Does not surprise me. You'll be the biggest operator we got. Proud mama? Yes, he's doing so good. Okay, all right. I just heard from the hay guy and he was like not even an hour away, and it's like it's 3 hours from us. And that was at 3 o'clock. This is gonna— this could be arriving after dark. Did you hear that? The thunder's coming in. It's almost getting dark. Thankfully, I got a call from my truck driver. He started too late. He's gonna sleep over at the hay place and come tomorrow. That's better for me. We're gonna be unloading in the daylight. Super happy about that. Saturday morning and we actually have no idea where our truck driver is, so hopefully he gets in contact with us today and the hay could very well come today. I just heard air brakes! The hay is here! Josiah, bring it on! Any troubles getting here? No, it just takes forever to get from down there to up here.
You ever been down there?
No, I haven't. How much weight you got on this truck right now?
Uh, probably, uh, I'd say These are probably 600 apiece, maybe.
So do the math. 6x4 is 20. Not quite, so 20.
We're probably somewhere in the low 20s.
Eric's going to show us some tricks on how to stack this. He's showing them. Okay, well, that's easy.
We're only going to be able to stack them 2 high.
2 high. Yes. Track loader won't go that far. The top one you just put on normal. You can or cannot?
That's the reason I did them both, so you can do either one. So like, if you want to get them 3 high, you'll have to stack them. See how much taller— it's a little bit taller, the one on the right is. So if you want to get them 3 high, you have to stack them like that. Then you could put another one on top of them.
Jonah's driving. He's going as fast as you were almost anyway. He's doing good. Yeah, he's doing great. What'd Jonah learn in school today? How to unload a trailer from one side with his track loader. Oh, and he learned how to stack them. See you, bud. Jonah's going to load it. You see we're missing something? No more compost. It was finished. Let me show you where it is. Some of it is there. It's gonna go in the high tunnel, and some of it's over there. We just have to buy dump truck load of compost, and we had them dump it there, and that's probably more than we could buy. Plus we have that left over, and we have 2 more bays of equal size to make it a compost. We'll spread that out in our fields. That is a great feeling, a pole barn full of hay. We are ready for the winter. Bring it on. We actually could even put 3 more here and 3 more there. It's like 38 round bells.
