You Can't Get This at the Grocery Store | I'm Building a PIG PORT

About to go grocery shopping. Yeah, this is not your typical grocery store. We're gonna get our meats for this week. You think they're here? Yeah. Hey, during our remodel, we have our freezers at Grandma's house. Have you guys ever noticed how you can only get organic bacon and sausage at the grocery store? We got pork chops, pork tenderloin, fatback, hams. I need the hams. Brown pork. That's all stuff you cannot find at the grocery store for whatever reason. Pig feet, Winnie loves those. More tenderloin. What's in this section? We got more pork. We got more pork coming down the line. Nope, this is Aunt Flossie and turkey. Pork fat for making lard and skins. Josiah, wait. Yeah, should we make some pork rinds? Okay, you're definitely not finding organic pork ribs in the store. And we still haven't gotten our chicken yet. One— that's a pork lard. Is that 4? So basically, if we're gonna get other things besides organic bacon— sometimes organic sausage is not always available— we're just gonna have to grow it ourselves, and we're gonna need us a pig fork. Good job, Lily! Accompanied by homegrown eggs. Anything else homegrown? Homegrown milk, honey, hopefully next year. Well, next year we can have a horse and buggy too. Butter.

We could use a horse and wagon instead of a side-by-side. Yeah, the wagon, and we could put everything in the wagon, and it might not break down like Sully's broke down right now. Well, it depends. Wagons and— well, horses can get hurt. Yeah, like sprain their leg or get a— or get a big rock in their hoof.

Yeah, these cherry tomatoes were getting a bit hairy. Look at what I'm pulling out. Smashed. Cracked and they're attracting fruit flies. We're used to doing processing number one, but how about processing number two? These are not all bad. They do not need to all be thrown out. That one's really bad, but this one is really good. So why not take the time to save these good ones? Redeem the cherry tomatoes. Well, actually, I redeemed them in two ways. Save the good ones. Let's turn these into, well, eggs.

Feed them to the chickens. They're my chores.

Okay, can you wait on me though? It works better with the camera.

Sure.

Rotten cherry tomatoes with chickens definitely works better with a camera.

What do you want for your birthday?

My birthday is tomorrow.

I'm not—

I want obedience.

Ah, something else that I can actually get you.

I can get you obedience, but way to wait till the last minute.

Mama said you already got yourself a present.

Yes, we got you that mountain bike.

Yeah, but what do you want from me?

I'll think about it. That card you and Josiah gave me last time to get me out of chores one morning was nice.

Mm-hmm.

But you haven't used it yet.

I totally forgot about it.

And it was Father's Day.

Yeah, it's been a while. It's been like 4 months.

Your birthday present could be doing chores for you tomorrow.

Okay. That'll work.

And I'll make you something too.

Wait a minute, Gideon, did you— did you eat 2 apples already? No! I mean, I guess that's okay. They're in season. We have a bushel. I want you to eat so many apples you're sick of apples and don't want to eat them again until next year.

Every time I have my third apple, you say, that's my third apple.

Our food growing partner. Morning. Got everything? Doing better. That's Whole Foods delivery. Normally we're getting, I don't know, a dozen bags, and hopefully this is the new trend. 'cause it's disturbing. 15% of this food has lost, or it's lost 15% of its nutrients. But what are we getting at Whole Foods? We could stop doing bananas, 'cause they're tempting to me and they're high carb. I would just rather not have them.

What is this?

But if they're in the house, eventually I'm eating them. I think this is for my birthday cake. We're not making condensed, sweetened condensed milk ourselves. Oh, chapstick. We're not there yet. We're not making our own chapstick. Don't say, don't say yet. This is a grocery unboxing. This is fun. Oh, little snacky things for Henry. Toddlers are tough.

We can make yogurt.

That's what I'm talking about. We want consistent homemade yogurt. We got to use a consistent starter. This is not for our consumption, but this is how then we partner with Whole Foods. We get this yogurt, which we could probably buy in bulk maybe.

Don't we have 3 bags?

And we could avoid the grocery store that way. Rebecca's gonna cheat. She's gone crazy for this hummus right now. This is one of those things where we, I think we could have done better. We got shredded pre-Mexican cheese. I think we would be better off, this is a full block of white cheddar, raw, raw cheddar. That pre-Mexican is not gonna be raw. This must be a vice. Siete, siete corn chips. This must be noodles. And what else?

Fruit strips.

Okay, all right. Hopefully by 2024 we're not even doing this, we're just getting the yogurt. We'll see. That was super vulnerable. I feel sick now showing you my groceries. I've discovered there's 3 different categories over there. Cheats, so like something that you really enjoy, then I think that's okay. For Rebecca, it's traditional hummus. Treats, this would be treats for the toddler. These are like, they're, I mean, they're organic fruit strips. Uh, so that would be—

don't forget this.

What else? Don't forget this. Cheats, treats, and I don't know, that would be under treat. That would be under the treat category. Meat, cheese, meat. Need, cheat, treat, need. I'm trying to find something that rhymes with cheat treat. Cheat treat need. We don't have a better word for this. We need this to, uh, it's not inoculate, is it? To inoculate, to make yogurt. We're obviously not there yet in our independency from the grocery store. It's going to be a big habit. To kick. But it's not fun. You guys are going to be here along the journey. The goal would be to have a period in 2024 during the growing season to be completely independent from this thing. But already now starting working towards that. Thank you for joining us in that journey. Maybe you'll go on that journey with us. Here it is right here for the pig port. I'm gonna try to build this pig port from the things of our farm, and I'll probably need some hardware here and there. So I'm gonna try to keep it under— definitely under $1,000. Good on 2x4s. We're gonna need 12-foot, a couple 12-foot 2x6s. We'll come back to that. We got some chores to do. Sheep trained? Yeah. Hey, did you remember to not move it yet? And to walk around in there while it's not moved.

Papa, she's scared of you.

Me? The moment y'all have been waiting for. Turn these very iffy cherry tomatoes into delicious eggs, which we need to make sure we have more up, given that we're going into the winter and they're going to start slowing down. So any little boost we can give these guys— it's fun to watch them go after cherry tomatoes. They poop in there. Oh boy, which one's wrong?

That one and this one.

What's wrong here? Oh boy, see this, Gideon? See this? That's why we got to turn the nest box sideways at night. They perch in here and poop. All you gotta do is turn these nest box sideways in the afternoon after everybody's done laying. And they won't get in there. You train them for a couple of weeks. But look at those legs. We're keeping them clean, my man. See? Shoot, it's disgusting. But $3 for this little nesting pad, this is unacceptable. Oh, somebody's tearing out there the material. Somebody's pulling that material out because they don't want to lay in that box. We might have to use these.

Yeah, these look pretty good.

If you find the person who's ripping that up, let us know. The amount of light we have now especially, and then the cold, these chickens are not going to be wanting to lay eggs. So we're going to give them all the support they can get. We got our fitter permit, so we're ready when the Concrete guys are kelp, oreganite, NutriBalancer, and grit. Grit to help them break down their food. Kelp is just an overall health boost, I imagine. Overall health boost. NutriBalancer, same thing. Oreganite is a calcium boost to help with their egg production, the toughness of their eggs. I've got this mineral sled for the chickens. Hopefully we can kind of slap it together. Don't have to do any repairs today. Let's just get them their minerals. Do you like this? Yeah, this is my mineral sled for the chickens prototype. Yeah, I'll figure it out. They got nothing else to do. What is it?

They're just dried up maggots. Corn soup?

Or is that soldier flies?

500 weeks.

It's really gross. They're getting those soldier flies out of there. Project today? Well, um, it's Mineral Monday, so get you to check the minerals. Honey has mastitis, so we got to treat her this morning and afternoon. And we were gonna just go around the farm and see what we have for building this pig fort. Henry, you want to go with us? Yeah. Well, where are your boots?

Before you know that, let's get a horse like Elmo and a horse like Smokey.

Oh, we'll see. Hey, you know, some commenters were saying— one commenter said, hey, you got— look at about a 14 hand. Yeah, that's about 8 to 12 years old, which I think I, I'm agreeing with that actually.

And it needs to be a gelding.

It's kind of what we were thinking for size. We didn't really know for—

it needs to be a gelding.

What's a gelding?

It's a boy horse that hasn't been fixed.

Oh, okay.

Girls are very hot-headed.

Oh really?

They're really fast and well, it depends on what horse. Some— a lot of girls, like, there's like a girl horse named Rocket and she's like really fast and she's really stubborn. And then, and a lot of horse— girl horses are much more hard to ride.

I had big plans to see what I got for that pig port today, but things are kind of stacking up. Hey, let's go. You just got this applesauce. Let's go. That's good enough. You want to take an apple with you? That's a good traveling food. You know what we got today that you might like? Take some of these. These you can take with you. Oh, yay! You said you wanted them. They're salami bites. All right, come on. So you want to go for snacky stuff for this guy? I need to treat Honey's mastitis. We've got cream separating to do. I just filtered today's milk. I won't even have to heat it up. I can just put it straight up in the dehydrator with some starter yogurt. This is where partnership with the grocery store comes in handy. Probably half of this will help us do 2 gallons of yogurt. I got the yogurt going. You're still having a hard time because of her thyroid being off. It's 9:40. I don't think she's made herself breakfast yet. We're getting low on our own homegrown butter, but We should have plenty of cream to make some more. Remember these tomatoes we salvaged this morning? There you go, take a moment for yourself. How are you boys from yesterday? I'm fine. Anybody sore? I'm not sore. How do we just go and do 20 miles without being sore? You want to do 20 miles again next time? Okay, I think we found our max at what, 12, 15? Yeah. Okay. We went on our first mountain biking trip yesterday. Did y'all enjoy yourself? Yeah. They'll never let me live them down that we went on that third trip— trail. Lily to babysit. I'm a little nervous. People will be safe, it just might be a mess. I didn't expect to be as long as I was. We're not going in the house yet. Mom's not feeling well this morning. We just left her. She needs a moment. Wait, is that all the cream we got? There should have been a lot more than that.

We're not carrying any cream. That's milk for hot chocolate.

Hey, I'm sorry. We just got out of your hair and now they're done cream separating and they want to come. Henry wants hot chocolate.

I'll clean it out.

That's fine.

It's not.

It is one of those moments. Mom needs a moment. And we seriously just left and now they're going in. Really? Turn your wheel a little bit. No, you know, don't jam. Do not jam.

You know why?

Move your wheel.

Once they stole the key and I tried to jump start it with like a little thingy and the tip broke off of the thing.

And, um, well, it's been working till now. Who took this out? Sometimes we need to coggle the transmission.

No, it's no, that's something.

Jonah stuck a little thing in there and it broke off.

I told you why.

They stole the key and I was trying to start it. Because he was gonna drive away without us.

Stop playing around with the machines. You're trying. How'd you do it?

Twisted it.

Couldn't get the key on in this one.

Where are we going?

How did you guys fix it? We got to go take this milk.

To Mama?

Yeah. It's a lot of skim. I still see a good bit of cream line on it though. And then how much milk do you guys need till tomorrow? You probably don't need 2 gallons, do you? What do you guys think? We've been thinking we need to put a pig port next to the garden to raise our pigs. Mom hasn't been liking them in the greenhouse. I think one reason is because we don't remove the material. What if we removed all the material this spring? Another leak in the bucket. It doesn't matter when we're doing feed, you don't even notice. But when you put liquid in there, buddy, you can't have any kind of hole. Almost 3 gallons of cream. This is why we've got to put off our project today, and honey becomes our project because the milk cows are the centerpiece of our farm. The pigs are gonna have to wait. But you know what, we're gonna at least brainstorm this and figure out our plan.

Put spigots out there.

Yeah, I would put a frost-free hydrant out there.

And since we have the trencher, all we have to do is hook up to the real water line. Yeah, you can do that. It's very easy.

Yeah, and the thing is So if we were in the high tunnel, we already have a— well, we're gonna have to put a hydrant out there too, but we're gonna do a pig port anyway during the growing season, which will need water out there. What is this? This is Lily's. You got a cafe for them? I wonder why we didn't clean up all the shoes in the cafe.

Hey, why not take your order? I already took my order. I would like some hot chocolate.

I want to ask the beautiful one, if we should just make some adjustments in the high tunnel. She's in no mood right now. I'm gonna need to wait. But of course, maybe it isn't the best thing to put them in a high tunnel. And my goodness, if she's been trying to get them out of the high tunnel for 2 years— if I want to cultivate the garden in peace, what am I doing pushing it for 3 years? And what happens is she ends up being so nice she can't say no and then gets frustrated when it doesn't go right. So I just need to listen. I gotta work on that listening. We're talking about a pig port right here versus, hey, do we just keep them in the high tunnel? We'll feed the pigs from the garden, and the pigs and their deep bedding will make— it will make compost, and we'll feed the garden from the pigs. We do need to talk to Mom about high tunnel versus pig port. Yeah, because We need to make the plan. Got a little experiment for Flossy burgers tonight. I think they're a normal lean ratio. Us adding that suet brought them up to probably about 15%. I like it a little fattier, so we're gonna try mixing in some pork. What you doing? Lights. Trying to find— you got a lot of homework from the electrician over the weekend, didn't you? The pig pork situation. You know, since we're gonna clean out the high tunnel now at the end of the season. I'm just gonna ask this, you can totally say no, please say no. Move the pig contraption down and get wood chips on the end so that we could wood chip them better and keep them in there. There's pros and cons.

I said earlier, it's really fine, we're gonna redo everything anyways because It's a mess in there and it needs to be redone, and if we're gonna be serious about growing our own food, we need to, we need to be serious about our high tunnel being better, like being more— not better, but being more set up for what we're actually using it for. Does that make sense?

Yeah.

We had to deal with them digging and all of those things, but if we're going to— revamp it anyways. It's not gonna hurt. It's not gonna get any worse, any worse than it is now.

Yeah, I think they'll be more comfortable in there because it'll be warm. Yeah, because of the green. It's like the perfect size. It's like 25 till 12. Oh my gosh, where'd the time go? I still have to go treat Honey, which could be a conundrum. What are you making us? I don't know. Yeah, yes you do know. Yeah, we buy some time. We don't have to build the pig pork quite yet. That'll come in the spring when we got some feeder pigs. I'm going to show you that high tunnel and my idea in just a minute. I think she's genuine about— not what— about it being okay in the high tunnel since we're removing the material and the fencing for the pigs for the spring. Oh boy, I didn't realize we were so low on alfalfa. I don't think we have enough to get us by until we can get a shipment. They're gonna protest, guys. We need some to treat them today. Should have done this when everybody was already separated. I have to get a little alfalfa for everybody so they won't bother her. I hope we use alfalfa to get honey so we can treat her. We have to get alfalfa to get others to honey so they don't bother her. They have next day's paddock set up. Let's cut Honey out and bring her over here, and then we'll have her to ourselves. Do you think you can keep everybody out but Honey? That calf's nursing. That'll help. It'll keep her empty. We actually won't calf separate for these 3 days of treatment so that she's always milked out. That's one of the best things you can do when they have mastitis is keep them milked out. Just had a move this morning, so she's probably just been pigging out. She didn't even go towards the alfalfa. I don't know which teat. Jonah said one of them's clogged. They're not badly clogged. Might be worth a mastitis test, but, uh, because there's milk coming out of every single one of them. Excel 7000, Synergy Animal Products. That's gonna have to wait a minute. They're calling for lunch. You want some?

Meat and the meat under it.

You want some, uh, meat to go with that rice? I do. Enjoy this meal outside because it's about to be cold. What's wrong with you? I can make you some lemonade.

We don't need lemons.

Are you sure?

Yes, and I didn't order any.

It's hard to grow lemons in North Carolina, honey. Feeling emo today?

I am. I'm feeling tired and I thought we were kicking your butt. I'm trying to figure out spacing for lighting.

Oh my gosh.

Over the thing, and here's an equation. I get to do math.

Oh my gosh.

So I did my math right here.

Okay.

And then I, and then the cabinet guy called, which is great. I'm not upset about that because we're, and he thinks he can hit on our timeline.

Wow.

He thinks he can do it. But there's another project. That he gave this estimate back in 2021 is hitting right now too. He said they haven't finalized it yet, but he thinks that he can get mine done. And of course, like, we talked to him in May.

Well, maybe some broth rice will help you, baby.

Is this second?

Yeah.

I'm not eating any snacks.

Get some more rice to go with that meat. Bratwurst, our go-to when we don't have anything for lunch. Who made this plate? Is this yours, Beck? That's how you do, man. Too hot to eat outside or you got too much to do?

I was sitting out there enjoying it, but the yellow jackets are—

I'll protect you, baby, if you want to give it another try. I do. Wow! Wee! Woo! Y'all look good, you beggars. Go ahead, Josiah, show us how it's done. Oh, it's not as fun, but when it's as tall as you are, it's a blast. I better watch out, these kids are practicing soccer a lot. She's going on ahead of me. All I had to say was I'm going to the high tunnel and she is out the door. Who is it? Who is it? Who is it? Are you blind?

What are you doing, weirdo? You—

they're pouring tomorrow back. We heard back from them, they're coming, they're coming tomorrow.

I talked— did I tell you? Talk to the cabinet guy.

Yeah, and you got good news on the cabinets?

Oh, he got the walnut today in. He said it looks beautiful.

This is a jungle. So this was a good size. What we have here is a temporary gate, and then I think we need to put it all together down here. You have space in there for them to bring the wood chips. We can bring wood chips in, dump them. Holy and then easily scoop them up over to them. Look, she doesn't like this compacted mulch. What they do at Polyface after the pigs are done, after the chickens are done in the winter, we're going to come in and scoop this materially up. I think a pig port is maybe better for feeders. Wouldn't have to accommodate a big old 500-pound breeder. How do you feel about building deep bedding up just against the side of the— that's fine. It's fine.

I mean, it's so deep in here, the bedding is. I'm really looking forward to when we get it all out.

And then this will be better even having a smaller place for the chickens because you'll get better, uh, manure to— you tired?

Let's be honest, the chickens are gonna be going over there too.

Yeah, yeah, you're right. What have I got myself into? What we will do, have our own pork chops. There's a poultry-proof gate. To review, to make sure— um, we're deciding on the high tunnel. It's going to be a warmer environment for them in the winter, more comfortable. We'll have the pigs here— well, pigs won't be right there. Pigs will be right here, chickens will be down there, and it makes chores easier. We have one— we'll have one water hydrant right out there that can service both people groups. This is where we'll pile wood chips. The machine can bring in pile wood chips will keep them dry. I would really like to try to figure out how to make this work for pigs because I think it would be a happier place for them in the winter. What? Come on now, speak up.

We got it. Okay, I say we do it this time.

She gave me a face. Pulling everything out and we're pulling all the material out, right? And then next winter we can do it again. No. Okay, wait, now, now, now, there's the truth.

No, because I said in there in the I said, okay, fine, because we're gonna revamp it. I was kind of mean in that line.

Never have pigs in it again.

I'll buy you a small one you can put your pigs in.

Do we need to rethink our pig port? I need to be focused on the pig port then. I don't need to try to make this be a pig system. You said it was just for one year, did you not? It would be nice to, uh, have them in one place. Year after year.

Why don't we just put greenhouse plastic on the pig port around the side?

You know what, I'm going back to the garden apiece. She don't want the pigs in there. Yeah, I'm gonna build a pig port door. I like this. And you have a cattle guard behind it. There you go. First, let's get some milk going while we're here. And they poured that in there, and there's chocolate chips in it. That was our chocolate chip jar. Got that going. Let's try pork. Mixed in with the burger tonight. Eating what we grew, acorn squash. So you added a bit of maple sugar and some of our butter, 2 pounds pork to 3 pounds beef. Hoping to make Flossie a little leaner. Still not a lot of grease on the skillet when I did it, so I should maybe test it. Rebecca, been working hard. Chocolate and peanut butter together. And a pipe. Oh, is it? What can I assume then? I want to lick things. Where is it? Everybody's licked it but me. It's me, the birthday boy, right here.

Yeah, look at— you dare?

You dare? So tell me how it is. We're trying to enjoy Flossie more, eat what we grew. Everybody loves it. I love it the way she is, but I'm like, I need some fat.

I got 3.

The fat didn't ooze off the skillet wasn't enough for me. Okay, okay, it's still better.

Better. We added more lard— or not lard.

Yeah, we had to add more fat, more fat to the pork.

It's pretty, pretty fatty.

We're eating Flosciana pork. Wait, this is pork mixed? Mhm. Oh, is that okay? I did not know.