Entire Year Transformation of Building an Efficient Homestead

can you believe it we've been here 2 years already on this 14 acres and today is the year in review after moving from California to North Carolina on 1 and 1/2 acres we outgrew that place in 6 years and last year we moved to this 14 acres you buy a new property you're excited you want to get all the animals and last year definitely we got all the animals in 2023 we said okay we're not going to get bigger animals like beef cows or a milk cow not that I regret it I loved it we loved it we learned a ton last year but we did realize that we need fencing we need water because hauling 5 gallon buckets of water on 14 acres compared to 1 and 1/2 acres it's a lot of work especially if you don't have a farm vehicle or a tractor this year there was a lot of first we got bees there was was babies born on the homestead for the first time I got a farm vehicle we started a big garden and we started our high tunnel Greenhouse every year has its own set of [Music] challenges as you raise your own animals and the larger animals there's one that's bound to get sick hey pigs and right off the bat in the beginning of the year we experienced our first sick Pig what's up we' gave Pig charcoal before and hopes that this will this can cure them you're not acting like a pig oh she's eating it pigs are smart they know they're not feeling good those ones are still eating there she goes and she seems like night and day from like a minute ago they're they are chowing down on that charcoal maybe they're lacking some kind of mineral but they're eating it she seems a lot better I was eager to wake up early the next day but it was raining quite a bit I think we have a sick pig or she's not acting like a pig it's concerning me hey but she didn't even come to the feet at all she just kind of stayed in this little Hut you all right I'm not sure what's up I gave him some charcoal apple cider Vin they got water feed kelp I'm also giving her some activated charcoal in the food I'm going to see what she's going to do with it I don't notice any signs of diarrhea or nothing she doesn't want it all right all right it's the next day and uh look who's that that's the one that I thought that was sick look at this she's out she's eating what happened and so maybe it was that charcoal I initially gave them yesterday um maybe that helped her let's check on our pigs here hey pigs there she is that's what I want to see acting like pigs there you are she's com on she's acting like a pig the charcoal the sun maybe it was that that that helped her seem to be normal now I don't think I've mentioned this in a video but we lost fuzzy muggins last year fuzzy we lost her to a predator it was a hawk she was a Polish chicken she was not a very good egg layer and she was kind of high maintenance in the winter we would have to trim her feathers on top of her because when she dipped her beak in water it would form icicles not sure if I would get a chicken like that again but she was super entertaining the good thing though guys is that we have a fuzzy muggins t-shirt that you can buy and fuzzy magnets for your fridge we had some good rains recently I just put on this gutter on our our shed here that I'm converting into a Bruder and I've been using it it's working guys this great but I do need another one right beside it that got me thinking what if I had another shed similar to this up on top of our mountain and I saved water up there so that way I can feed our animals that are up on the mountain hey P I got more feet the coony coonies are fine they're that not the ones that got sick it's our feeder pig one of our feeder pigs was sick look at them they're fine now she's fine acting like a pig our one steerer seems to be doing pretty good you know we feed him hay and ofala and we give them little treats I got a treat Orange Peel so when we bought this property there was nobody living here full-time it was a vacation home for someone and being that it was very overgrown and so I think this year big big job that we had to get done was clear fence lines so that way we can start redoing the fence line got to get in there before before spring comes and all this stuff is going to be overgrown again so that's my goal move you guys over here it's going to make raising larger animals a little bit more easier for us if we can utilize this fence this property is going to keep me young man oh 345 ft that we've done total all together which means from the barn all the way to this corner post hey pigs hey pigs howdy howdy and after all last year of using a hot spot to upload these videos we finally got decent internet I mean the best country internet that we got was on top of our property I mean sometimes it would take 2 days to upload a video but starlink was finally available in our [Music] area and this works 10 times better than a hot spot so now we have decent internet to upload our videos all right y'all I'm about to show show you where all the magic happens and where we store all of our food being that we have a limited height here we still want to utilize that height because if you notice on these shelves that we had they weren't very tall so we had that all that wasted space so the shelves need to be a little bit taller plus it's [Music] custom and that is it this is a start of turning our basement into our own grocery store this is my first time seeing them I'm so excited it looks so good it's so big this is better because I can see how much I have and how much we can go through way more room to hoard my food oh I'm so excited all right today whoa today we're moving our pigs into a different location it should be routine you better calm down you better calm down easiest way to move pigs is have a chicken tractor where you can put them in and close the door I don't trust no Pig excuse me excuse me and then you close the door we got to take down the hog panels they're zip tied we're still training them to this hot wire and I'm thinking the next time we move them we're going to move them without the hog panels hey pigs look at that one's already starting to root up [Music] [Applause] after a few days out in Texas it's good to be back on the homestead good morning still no babies yet with these two and honestly I'm thinking I'm think we're going to sell them you know it's just not happening and and we want to do other things you got water yep we got a ton of rain yesterday our pond filled up [Applause] there before to move him out here I want to move him out towards the woods so that way that beefy boy there is kind of in my way so I need to move him over here beefy boy here is coming on 2 years old and I've had him them for almost a year come on beefy boy come on let's move let's move there we go this side doesn't look that much different than that side you know we're still going to feed them hay you know grass is not growing yet even though it does feel warmish all right the rain's winding that part up no worries we have more hoses should start a hose company with all the h we use I mean he's dropping his bombs I've never have to deal with so much poop in my life I mean look at this this rubber I don't know what happened if they stepped in it or what but it's cracked right [Music] there in a heavy duty scissors but yeah it's amazing what they'll know right they're super smart you know they'll just lift this up with their head and get in there it's like they they know instincts their instincts just tells them this is what you need to [Music] do hey Bey boy you know he have him by himself right now so I'm still mindful that he could think I'm a I'm one of his beefy boys there you go he's so gentle he's never remotely been afraid of my life you just have to be mindful of bigger animals like that you know it could happen things could happen no matter if you're in a rural setting or if you're living in the city you're always going to have a problem with stray dogs so lately we've been having a problem with that two stray dogs came on our property and we're chasing our chickens one time in the summer a straight dog was chasing our steerers around slowly I've been taking out all this trash that was here when we moved you know nobody likes taking out other people's trash but somebody has to do it these doors are not really serving a purpose right now they're all rotted out and falling apart since I first saw this property I have always wanted to do that we have 75 meat chickens coming in 43 days will it ever stop Jason it's never going to stop because it's scrapwood you just kind of have to figure it out depending on the size of your scrapwood I am going to use a deep bedding system for these baby chickens the floor needed to be waterproof and I'm going to use this vinyl to do [Music] that we just moved these three feeder pigs to a new area the pigs are helping us work the soil in this area all right guys because this is the most flat part of the property here put you guys down this right here is where going to be the the opening of our high tunnel we'll probably end up taking that tree down and some of the trees that are that are up here come [Music] on [Music] typically we buy new country Organics for all of our animals best feed money can buy but recently I switched to just a no GMO feed just to save money CU because getting feed is like searching for car insurance every single year I go down the list of feed companies I see which one's the best deal that's the NOG GMO pelleted feed there and that's the new country Organics feed also the NOG GMO stuff has no corn in it these look like I would put this in my smoker like these look like wood pellets let's do the NOG GMO for these feeder pigs it's been a week now and they have not been eating the feed we just fed these guys this morning and they still have feed look at that the coonies they have no problem eating this feed are you fixed Zeke I'm beginning to think Zeke's fixed poor Zeke poor Zeke these guys are 2 years old and that's how long it takes to grow Cooney Cooney to put them in your freezer we're going to end up putting them in our freezer is what's going to happen they're too cute guys they're too cute they're too cute it's going to be some high dollar bacon I tell you that so it looks like we need to mix the feed up with something luckily theine has made a ton of broth more than we can ever eat we're putting the broth into another container so it be easy Transportation it'll just be easier to pour out too especially when you've got like pigs running around and [Music] I got your [Music] Kool-Aid there's still feed on the floor guys there's still feed on the floor that you guys feel see the feed right here excuse me excuse me excuse me excuse me got your Kool-Aid we're going to put some of this turkey broth we're going to mix it in I'm not going to give them all of it hold [Music] [Applause] on yeah that's it that's it guys you're get feed there I never heard of pigs being picky before like pigs eat whatever you give them right I mean if the pigs won't even eat it I've bought this feed before and never had a problem spoiled pigs you're just spoiled I think I'm usually on that side going up the hill but today I'm going to work on this side of the of the barn and go along the side here plenty of brambles horse fencing all that just leaning up on there we use a chainsaw blade for this definitely blueberries cuz we picked some last [Music] year good morning guys today we are moving out one of our groups of egg Lane chicken skins were moving them out on the property Beres good morning Beres you too Beres this thing is so easy to move far away in like up and down Hills and stuff the other egg layer Coupe which is a covich style it's it's even though it's smaller it's still cumbersome to be dragging it up our Hills so we definitely needed something more lighter that's probably why we've never brought them up this way so what's for breakfast what is that what is that this is Meg scrapple recipe um out here you could either call it scrapple or liver mush I like to call it liver mush I like I think it's a better sounding name liver mush well this one actually does have liver in it so we did um like four cups of pork and then two cups of liver and onions so we're frying it up in some butter penel is making waffles this morning look at this what kind of waffles are these Peli um in corn waffles in corn we had the same liver mush yesterday for breakfast and honestly that was the first time having liver mush crispy on the outside soft in the middle there's liver in there but you don't taste it at all it tastes like sausage is what it tastes like to me actually I think it tastes like hash browns that like crispy on the outside hash browns and then soft in the middle this shed right here used to be the old horse shed before my big barn was ever built also already has electricity in it but it's not hooked up I'm going to try to use it this year as a brooder because we have 75 meat chickens coming in less than a month grounding rods that's something I need to do also I don't think I need to do it for them to come out and do the meter but I need to do it anyways this year was also the first year that I figured out what were my limit what's my limit when do I call for help and clearing our overgrown fence line made me realize that especially with no tractor and it definitely is overgrown this tree fell on the fence right here I need to cut this down I think this used to be a Logging Road and so we're going to be clearing this section off so that way we could be able to take a a vehicle in here all along the property line so far I've done 300 ft of fence line and I'm just doing it by hand I have a forestry multra guy coming out and he says I could do your entire horse fence line that I've been trying to [Music] do and also my whole property line he could clear it out in one [Music] [Applause] day well what do you think this is amazing to watch like this guy is really good it's very satisfying it is and like I think I have a new jogging Trail and we have a cleared fence line oh man this is like the best thing that we ever did this year so far [Music] [Music] [Music] I can't believe this thing this thing's like this stuff override so now he's in the forest here our woods and he's going to do this along the creek and the fence line was this pretty hard difficult for you yeah going up to there was a little it was a little frustrating uh that tree is the only one that you would even have to cut this one in the middle yes but i' I've got it to where if you wanted to you could go around it yeah that's how I had to do it there was a couple of trees that had fallen in here yeah and that's why it's so open okay this time last year I didn't I didn't even know of what that was I didn't know of a forestry muler and the possibilities it's one of those things you don't know what you don't know but would have taken me probably the entire year maybe 2 years to do he did it in 6 hours the entire property so now I'm here with the girls rain and penel and we're just uh showing them what he did and I walked it with him and I cannot believe he did all this I mean it's not as much like there's wood chips but it's not like in a pile or anything so it's just kind of like covering the the ground I mean there's still going to be cleanup there's still going to be a lot of work for me to do I think it feels like we have a new property now like I don't almost even recognize these Woods um like we were going back here in these Woods to tag the certain trees and now that I'm back here again I'm like this I I don't even recognize these little trails that he made but I'm excited because these Trails could be like hiking trails and like jogging trails for us I think it's it's so [Music] [Music] cool today we are are putting our last beefy boy into the freezer hey beefy boy in March of last year we got two beefy boy steers one of them was in Angus Jersey and we put him in the freezer in December and when we got them they were already a year old now we've raised our little beefy boy exactly 1 year so he's 2 years old [Music] now we just picked up our last of our hay hopefully for the year because we're going to be putting beefy boy in the freezer there we go we raised the two beefy Boys on 100% grass-fed our last beefy boy was the bigger one of the two butchered him ourselves we pieced him out ourselves this time we're going to take half half the beef to the processor and then we're going to cut up the other half ourselves we butchered one of our beefy boys at the end of 2022 so in the beginning of 2023 at Springtime we had one beefy boy left that we needed to put in the freezer what has become something that was so unobtainable back then was a far off dream has become our normal butchering a large animal and just growing your food in general has become a lost skill that for a lot of us we're all trying to relearn sooner or later I need to build a walk-in cooler because we've already outgrown this place and this is how you get into it you got to crawl in here and then start hanging the this beef there we go walk it's a crawl in cooler and we're done that took an hour and a half of putting him in the cooler and now we we have uh liver that we need to put away okay it's the next morning and we're we are taking half of this beef to a processor so we decided half of it is going to a processor and then the other half we're going to do ourselves and I just want to see compare the two you know see how good our cuts are compared to the processor hey guys today we're in Ashford North Carolina and we're at the wnc EG Center and we're at the farm where live event today we have a booth I'm speaking today Joel salon's going to be here Justin rhs I mean this is where all the homesteaders are at this weekend hey it's Ben holler heyy what's up your flannelette it was too hot for the flannel today I thought this was a flannel convention hey you're on Deck y we're kind of at like a old gattle auction and this is where we're talking Joel Salon just talked so I'm following Joel Salon I know right I think in previous videos where I talk and I I share this day with you I say I'm nervous but honestly I'm not that nervous all right thanks for everyone for being here my name is Jason from solar land how many people here I'm just I'm just curious who watches my YouTube channel [Music] yeah yeah that's incredible thank you guys I appreciate every single one of [Music] you the season of change is upon us the Bradford pear trees are starting to grow their flowers I'm noticing the grass is growing more and more every day and I'm getting excited to see how the grass spawns after moving pigs chickens turkeys steers geese all of last year even the thorny bushes are starting to get their leaves hey pigs hey pigs hey pigs last year we wanted to get going on growing food in a garden the soil on this property is very compacted very clay and we felt like the fast fastest way to start growing some food would be in these raised garden beds and being our first Garden it did pretty good because we had just moved last year we weren't sure if this was the spot that we wanted our garden we just kind of just put it in a spot where we thought was good enough to start now that we've had this Garden for a year we grew here and now we realize that we want it in a different spot this area right here is where we're going to put the new Garden this fence right here one two 3 4 five of these posts that we have to remove now typically I would Will Barrow all of this soil one by one to the new spot but since my friendly good neighbor has let me used his tractor so I get to use a tractor for this this time time it's going to be so nice when there's not a fence right here because we're having to crawl through the fence lines every single time my neighbor the one who's has this tractor here he's he's going to help me dig these posts out there we [Applause] go before we bring in the soil we need to figure out exactly where these are going to be maybe just a little bit closer this way but I like how you lined them straight because before like everything was kind of off centered and I feel like symmetrical is always best where do you want me to stop stop tell me stop okay right [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] there believe it or not our two breeder pigs at the end of last season we were going to either sell them or put them in our freezer if they did not give us piglets are you pregnant girl big girl alira aruni is pregnant so baby watch oh boy so that means that portable other Chicken Coop that I'm building is going to take a back seat because we need to make something for alviva and the babies to come if remember my big pig shelter that I built at our 1 and 1/2 acres this is what I'm basically building except a smaller version that I can move I got two of these brooders done because we have 75 chickens coming next week we're just going to pull down on it you could also use this 6 ft hoop Bender to make low Tunnels for your garden I found this excess piece that we saved and we're just going to see if it's white enough it does it's a blackout so we want to put the uh the white facing up pop in that wiggle wire right in there and it sandwiches the plastic and it holds it place I initially started building this structure for more meat chickens because those are coming next week but being that alvara is due pretty much any week now we needed something for her and the piglets so rather than build something new I decided to turn the chicken coop I was building into a portable Pig shelter something that I can put a door door on it and if I wanted to contain them in there and move them I could this way the chicken's following too new grass oh she wants the greens she wants all those fresh greens as you know I'm trying to get electricity to our barn and good news guys after working on on the panel the last few days the power company came and trenched their [Music] line they buried the line this is the new line here this is the Old Line This is disconnected it's not working the power is not on yet because I still have to connect this existing box to the new meter box they were so kind to take out some roots to add this meter does not cost me anything extra on my monthly bill and now it's approved this is the existing underground that's not live it's not working I was hoping that they would do that before my baby chicks would come yesterday we finished moving our new brers in here because this is going to be our new Bruder space I want to hang heat lamps from here but there's no electricity all right all my calculations are correct this light should work it works we're dipping the chicks beaks into the water there's apple cider vinegar in there Zeke you're a father Zeke you're a father I mean it took almost a year for them to have babies so having the patience to not put them in the freezer that took a lot you know back in the 70s the Cooney was almost extinct but people brought them back and now I I think they're becoming pretty popular throughout the whole year we would go back and forth of wanting to sell them or putting them in our freezer still no babies yet with these two and honestly I'm thinking I'm think I'm going to sell him maybe she's in heat maybe sick sick a come on I just built her a new Pig shelter so she can have her babies and she's already sleeping in it we're on count down baby watch with our Cooney Cooney Pig and she's going to be born or have babies in two days almost to the exact date of when Lorraine said hey I think they're going to be born this date they ended up being born the next day after that we were like oh my gosh we have piglets they all looked happy healthy we made it through the first night with our new avara piglets next time I think I'll just C the eggs in there and we have good news today the power company just installed our meter now this property is a horse property so everything's really high I'm assuming because the horses won't chew on it turn this on all right we've got power almost lost faith youque almost I knew you could do it buddy I know you could do it where there's life there's death it's day three with the piglets and we believe one of them got crushed rain also started seeing them venture out one of them got out past that yeah it looked like this one got crushed by Mama which I was afraid of I mean I've hear of those things happening and you try to be cautious but you know you can't be in here 24/7 watching these ones still seem fine they just kind of huddled together pretty exciting last few days here of just babies being born which is awesome and then we just got our new chickens or meat chickens 75 of them and this like what I said for in previous video once we get those chickens it's go time doing it in the morning when they're really hungry helps food motivation they have a much bigger area now and this is where we're going to be putting a giant row of pumpkins we have the two lines come up and then this is going over under a pigtail and then toost holding it up I say physical barar but you know really they could bulldoze over this whole thing don't tell them [Music] that a portable refrigerator helps also because it's movable and we can move it in closer to the house after it was down there this is a side of beef this has been hanging for 2 weeks going to get I'm just going to get pick one I didn't expect to go that way you know what I can carry this you got that [Music] yeah so I guess we got to cut this out now cuz that's all loose this is a smaller steer than our first year we did in December we almost think like maybe it was like a Dexter or something or half because it just it was 2 years old and it just didn't seem like it was growing big wow that's like butter is that a big roast for our big party wow Randy's got his job pel's got her job what's your job penel taking off the fat what's mom's job just cleaning up these cups what's Grandma's job I'm measuring the steaks and sealing them fat grind and this what what the steaks are right there that needs to be this go around when compared to our first time doing it in December I think it was I think we kind of already knew what to expect and we knew like how to tackle it that big piece of meat it was only half and he was smaller so I felt more comfortable yeah did you oh yeah I'm throw it in the oven rooster and then when I cook make bone broth all this meat will fall off piecing out that half took an hour and we need to get the other half still and do that one nothing to see here nothing to [Music] see and that's it that's one whole side of beef we just finished that took about 3 and 1/2 hours we're saving all these bones we got to bag those up and freeze them so all these bones I'm going to save for bone broth I'm just wrapping them up in this paper it is kind of nice just doing the one half of beef versus both because last time I think we didn't finish till like 9 or 10:00 at night this is day two of putting away that half a beef and today we're grinding to kind of get it down even smaller all right we just made it home let's do a side by-side comparison of what we butchered here as a family versus the pros over at velle farms this side is what we butchered and pieced out and then this side is from the pros everything is nice and labeled right away we like to flatten it it Stacks better these are one lb packages also this is actually more ideal CU this uses less of the vacuum seal bag which is kind of expensive so whereas we're using this giant sheet here just to flatten and save space in our freezers all the ground here was 19 lb versus the stuff that we had ground was 31 lb they're getting bigger guys look at them usually in the morning they stand there usually they're still asleep and then they'll come out in the afternoon they're probably just still kind of cold she initially had eight piglets but she crushed one or we think she crushed one and it died so the seven that we still have still going good we're keeping Zeke separate still it's here guys 9 y of soil for our raised [Music] [Applause] [Music] Deads F spray when this used to be a horse barn there we go we have these three raised beds that just got charred and then now we got to put them together shugi bun style that's going to seal the wood a little bit better and hopefully it'll last longer and then now we got to bring it up the hill and then put them all together so we can start this Garden these beds are a old it's already kind of wearing down I mean they're still solid but these ones look how darker these are unless I did a better job this time slowly we're starting to plant more and more that's the beauty of growing your own food you could expand your garden it doesn't have to stay at one spot you could move it so many things no rules to this thing we have 25 2570 5 they've been back here in under these heat lamps for 3 weeks and typically raise them in here for about 3 to 4 weeks but usually is about 3 weeks because meat chickens they grow pretty fast this is what we just fixed 7-year-old chicken tractor 6-year-old chicken tractor and this one's still going good I don't have to repair this one we have about 40 chickens in each tractor now I'm currently making one another one so that way I can split them up and do 25 in each tractor cuz 40 what I've learned over the years is is too much too much for these tractors I would say these would be maxed out at 30 but you know they're still little right now so that gives me a little bit more time all right something we still have to do is empty this 2,000lb toe to feed now that we're getting low on our pig feed we have room to empty this bag I think we're officially starting our our busy season in here you know trying pretty much trying to grow as much food as we can there we go it's been raining pretty steady the last few days I mean look at this this is always backed up like this all that puddle I still need to add some [Applause] gutters just check it in on you guys when we first looked at this property the one thing that did sell me was not the house was not the land well the land is kind of nice but it really was this 13 stall horse barn slowly I'm turning it into my wood shop but what I've noticed over the last year is that when it rains really good it leaks the metal in this roof is over 30 years old we might end up repairing some sections of it I know definitely some of the wood needs to be repaired cuz it's just kind of rotted out wood because when we first moved here there was trees growing into this Barn so there's one hole right there I'm just looking for the ones that loose it's a perfect day to be on a roof since our barn is still leaking here in the middle it's mainly in the Middle where this ridge cap is we're going to take out some of these nails some are not too bad and they're just old Nails I wish we could say that I fixed the Leaky barn roof in 2023 but that does not seem to be the case we've had some good rains recently and it's still leaking it's leaking there it still floods all in here it turns into a creek so definitely gutters on this thing we hopefully we can do this coming year and hopefully we can fix these leaks and get this Barn watertight I started on the new new chicken coup Broiler chickens and that's what I'm doing [Music] [Applause] [Music] today all right let's check on our animals now towards the evening they got some much needed rain in this spot it hadn't rained for a while so now we're seeing it hey when it gets muddy like this you got to try just not to slip don't [Music] slip our new Waters I'm excited for for those chickens on Fresh grass actually more roomy in this style of cot that I made I made the doorway a little bit wider and I think it's also lighter I use less material down in the sides here and then around the D Frame less [Laughter] material all right finally gave in what a good Mama hey pigs hey pigs hey pigs hey pigs the first day of hiring the forestry muler we cleared a lot of our fence horse fence line and then also cleared me a path into our woods and then out towards our Creek and then the muler coming out again today to do some more fence line clearing and also o getting some random trees out in our pasture [Applause] area so right here where we're going to put a couple High tunnels so I need him to knock down most of these trees [Music] so I think if you're going to do this probably better do it you know right when you move to a property and then over time the passur should just get better some of these like this cluster right here I'm just going to thin out with my chainsaw so you couldn't get like you know in there if there's like a cluster of trees you know we're just trying to keep these we're just trying to keep these trees uh for shade for our animals hiring this muler was one of the best decisions we've ever made with our new property before we couldn't run our steers in certain areas and now we can and the amount of work that a muler did in 2 days which just us I mean it would have probably taken us 2 years and the only thing left to do is maintain our land and if we maintain it I shouldn't ever have to hire a forestry muler again ready let's go get the bees look if you put that on it won't like I know so we need one more so I could get one I could get in there all through all the family these are made out of pine part of me was like Hey I could just build those boxes cuz I think it'll be fun but at the same time maybe I would just buy one see how it works see how it's put together and then if we if we like bees maybe I could build future box [Music] boxes oh yeah that seems good oh my God gosh and you asked to wear the be if you wish if it's sure hey we're going to be calm I don't know if I can open this okay all right give more smoke give it all the smoke all the smoke we wow that's awesome okay so we're looking for a queen um she's got a longer body is she painted on at all she could be painted on I do not there only going to be one Queen in there one Queen and she's got a longer body than the rest is that no I uh I don't see I don't notice I have never been around this many bees oh there she is she's got a red mark let's show the camera she's right there there's the queen yay we got her okay so don't kill her okay we got to be super careful with that one oh we did it oh my gosh this is good job oh my gosh at least they're not on me we still got another Hive they know their way and you can already tell they're see the one that's sticking his butt up they're they're going to start all sticking their butt up and telling all the rest of them to come in here so seeing you that right there in the middle oh there it is there's the queen she's a big one yeah she is okay well let's put them in I say it was a successful year with the bees even though we did not get honey this year which that was the plan so hopefully this coming year we'll get some but I say it was a success only because they did not fly away and they have not died yet so we're successful this first the land good job yay oh my God you did so good never been around that many bees before I've never been stung by a bee we're going to do it guys we're going to finally try to put pigs in the woods something I've wanted to do all year hey pigs come on booty look at you come on there we go that door big you could if you pivot to the left hey pigs hey pigs hey pigs hey pigs hey pigs hey pigs let's go hey pigs hey pigs pigs in the woods yeah they so much space here they don't even want the [Music] feed pigs in the [Music] woods pigs in the woods since I first saw that you could raise pigs in the woods that was 7 years ago and so it took us s years to put pigs in the woods that's a new t-shirt pigs in the woods [Music] hey pigs what'd you get what is that a happy birthday balloon oh my gosh don't eat that pretty sure those balloons can kill an animal if they try to eat it got shocked that scares me every time these probably came from a birthday party this is where where it landed pigs are smart enough not to eat this otherwise they probably would have what makes these pigs so special is that they're grazing pigs and they need very little very little grain just to compare between how much feed we're feeding the coonies versus the feeder pigs I'm feeding them 5 gallon bucket in the morning and maybe about a half a 5 gallon in the evening hi pigs hi pigs moving from 1 and2 acres to 14 acres we might as well be living in on a th acre ranch in Montana because everything looks so much bigger and we are getting a little bit more used to it but as we're living here only a year we are realizing that you know we need some kind of vehicle maybe a farm vehicle utility vehicle to help us get stuff done now we just got this gorilla cart when we moved here and it does a good job of hauling stuff but it does have its limits you really feel the burn when you have to haul up 5 gallon buckets of water up to our meat chickens the first thing that came to my mind was a side by side because I have friends that have side by sides but they're just so expensive even the used ones I find they either super beat up or crazy expensive I thought about using a golf cart I've seen people use those on their Farm which I think is pretty fun it should be dual purpose because we are a onecar family and we have been for the past 12 years and having a farm vehicle that I can do stuff around the farm and take to the hardware store would be a plus and then I seen these Japan 4x4 Farm trucks W so let me hold that oh yeah please thank you so I haven't drove stick probably since high school yeah that's totally fine this could work for a homesteader oh for sure I think this definitely can now this could pull something I want to pull some oh yeah Suzuki is the one mini truck that you can easily put a hitch [Music] on [Music] all right guys here it is 1992 four-wheel drive it's street legal it's right-and drive this is going to take some time to get used to look at that we made it but mainly it's going to be a farm truck where it's going to take us and help us do stuff and help us work our land and help us do more farming stuff more homesteading things and I think it's just going to make our lives a lot easier one of the most important purchases this year was definitely this mini truck when we were on our 1 and 1/2 acres I didn't have a nice Barn like this so I made a pig hoist and that worked wonderful but what I've learned by making that hoist is that the height that needs to be to scald a pig needs to be at least 14 ft high that beam that we've been using to hoist things is 12 ft high that beam is not tall enough but the very top Beam on the ridge up there that is 15 ft high so we need to get up there because we need to scald this next [Music] Pig adding this longer cord it's not in the directions they say it can be done but but they don't tell you how or what part number or anything like that so you really do have to figure it out we're going to test something out here we have a tote of pig feed 280 300 pretty sure the pigs are not going to weigh more than 365 something that we're able to do more and more of is to do more Hands-On inperson workshops and this Barn helps us that for the first time we hosted two Pig butchering workshops instead of us doing the workshop alone we partnered with my friend Billy from permit pastures he came down and we hosted a workshop together between the pig workshops and then also we did more chicken workshops this year and we can't forget our build Workshop that we did this year building a chicken tractor see the trick is trying to have these all two96 me I want we have folks coming from all over the country either driving long distances or flying in to come here to take our workshops which we're super thankful for and we hoped to host more workshops in this coming year we have chickens guys we just picked up chickens from the post office and we also have turkeys turkeys are [Music] here we are just starting the busy season here on our [Music] hestad Bernice good morning [Music] Bernice currently this is the most animals we've ever had at one time 200 chickens and 10 pigs and today we're supposed to get more chickens and turkeys we have a Broody hand in here we don't have Broody hands very often but we have one right now we're we're trying to let her hopefully she'll lay some eggs and baby chicks for us let's see let's want see what's underneath here it's all right see what you got there's probably like two dozen eggs down there I don't see any babies it's all right I'm letting you be I'm letting you hatch them hopefully you'll hatch some baby chicks for us we're going to separate the turkeys we have 15 turkeys and then 40 meat chickens in this one there's apple cider vinegar here maybe a cap full and water and then it's best to count them uh just to make sure see how much how many you have cuz it's pretty typical that the Hat tree will uh sends you extras I'm still getting used to this truck having it it's pretty nice though you know before I'd be you know I only have two hands plus I have a camera and you know I could only take so much when I go out and feed the animals so it's literally two buckets or one bucket but now I can put a whole mess load of buck it'ss a feed back there and just take it up and just start feeding the animals with it one thing that you learn very quickly is that how fast your freezer full up and that's a good good thing to have um but also do I want to buy another freezer or do we just want to cook a half a hog and invite some friends over [Music] woo feel good about it I'm good I might blow it but I'm good all right here yeah aesome what hour is this oh I don't know 14 14 4 o' 14 hours 14 hours Y and it's finally ready it's finally ready all right yeah who wants to help all right this thing looks awesome we'll carry it all the way through we go straight down the middle all right we're coming through I don't want to get in the way of that wow okay so usually that's a pretty good sign that it's done and the blade comes out just like that all right Nick moment of truth I'm going to try it dude it's amazing yeah organic pasture raised cork you can't buy this stuff no right the stuff you buy doesn't taste anything like this let me tell you cooking a half a hog was a lot funner than buying a freezer and I hope we can do that at least once a year our seven Cooney Cooney piglets are about 2 months old now and right around that time is when we're going to wean them off but actually they've been slowly doing it themselves okay you ready to kick these babies out I've been putting off something that I don't want want to do but it needs to be done we need to castrate some of the males one of the males we sold and we're keeping him intact he's going to be a breeder Pig and then to the males we need to castrate actually we need to castrate three males want just put it back this I can't be [Music] out come on little that was the worst thing ever that was the worst thing it seemed to like go all right but being that man it's so weird doing that they seem okay so that worked out driving it over there Aira she was fine didn't not even know what's going on she's busy with her watermelon um but it's a little nerve-wracking and they're pigs pigs are pretty Hardy creatures it's going to take a lot uh but they seem fine we're castrating them because of a bore taint you know when you uh butcher the pig it might give off a little bit of taste a little bit of bad taste and also we don't want them to reproduce with each other and these are brothers and sisters don't want that either and we don't want more pigs uh we just want the two breeders alvara and Zeke and that's it and then you know maybe we'll probably breed them at least once a year as you continue to live this lifestyle and raising animals and then animals being born on your land and I mean it's it's really just a all about experience and the more we experience these things the more confident we're going to be at them and and the more used to doing these type of things like cast trading pigs I mean such a learning curve there you know and the only way to learn is to experience it yourself and get in there every time we do something like this it's not going to be fun but what I hope to be is just more used to it and know what needs to be done and get it done and do it right it's later on in the afternoon and I'm going to see what they're doing let's see how our little piggies are doing they all look good good job Piggies good job Piggies I see happy Tales wagging that's a good sign to be honest it's a lot easier to grow meat than it is to grow [Music] vegetables between our pigs our beefy boys that we have in our freezer all of our chickens that we raise you know we grow 100% of our meat you guys sound like squeaky toys when of our goals is to produce vegetables for us of course and then produce vegetables for our animals especially these Cooney coonies am I raising vegan pigs I mean you could grow a chicken in like 6 weeks for your freezer you don't have to worry about groundhogs eating them or aphids or moles beetles these beetles will destroy a garden horrible soil all you got to do is move around in the CP you don't even need grass to raise them but having a successful garden is going to take some time last year we had about five raised garden beds this year I made five more so we have 10 total in this bed I've got strawberries and then I planted a whole bunch of lettuce and kale we have harvested so much lettuce already Peas trellising on this trellis here I like how it goes all the way around in an ark uh you can eat them while they're young and tender and eat the whole thing but what we like to do is wait until they get about this big we do have two different varieties a blush variety on this side and then um a green variety on this side but we like to wait until they get this big and then we like to eat the peas in the inside and we've grown so many keas this year and harvested so many that we're able to take them inside and fill up a container and have it as a side dish and this year we just moved our garden to this spot because it's closer to our house it's not so far away and this is mainly going to be our kitchen Garden when the rain's making a delicious meal she can just walk out her back [Music] door all right good job penel look at this one these came out really nice we have since moved our turkeys into the CPE more space this is our mama H and these are the first chickens that we ever hatched she only hatched two but they're doing pretty good this one has a limpy leg her leg's like stuck straight but it's I mean still moving around pretty good we've been letting them out of their C and let them roam around a little bit more he does seem to fall behind but I mean he's still going pretty good he looks healthy some of them get it there's still some in there they're like I don't know I'm not sure about that guys I think I'll stay safe in here this is the pig netting don't tell them but they can actually fly over if these were the cornner crosses they definitely could not fly over the pig net these are Murray's big red broilers from MC Murray Hatchery my favorite meat chicken to raise W wner chicken dinner at this point they are a huge investment we fed them all the feed moving them all the labor it takes they're going to be 12 weeks before we put them in our freezer putting putting a net around him you know yeah it's more work but it's also a peace of mind because even though this never happened to me I've never had or lost a chicken in these CS but I also know it's only a matter of time before that happens we just planted our new pumpkin patch a couple weeks ago it's already growing and every time we do something guess whether it's our animal up the mountain or a new garden spot I always think about water how we're going to get water to it especially after it gets a huge downpour here I think I should be saving this water we have pumpkins watermelons and then we just planted sunflowers the one thing that was important for me when building this is that I wanted it to be [Music] movable [Music] it's coming down now I don't know how long it's going to last but hopefully it's enough to fill them up I don't have to water the garden tonight but let's check on our rain tower now that I extended the roof line for the whole entire year I should save about 980 gallons of water okay maybe to about right there try it yeah it works we have water guys this week we had a much needed break from the homestead and we were able to get away and go to the beach for those who've never been on the East Coast beach the water feels like a warm bath I me I'm used to going to like Huntington Beach Newport Beach out west and the water's always super cold but this one it's it's not it's amazing and it always takes a lot to leave but we wanted to go to the beach and it's a nice little fun family break since leaving my 9 to-5 job I always felt like I did not deserve a vacation in my mind I felt like I didn't do enough to deserve one before we started Living this lifestyle I've always read quotes where it said create the life that you don't need a vacation from well I don't know if that's true anymore because we have created that life and I feel like we still need a vacation because if I'm here I'm working I'm doing stuff so for me getting away from the homestead is important because that almost forces me to turn it off after 4 days of being out in the beach in the water it's time to get back to it I'm feeling recharged and ready to finish off this year strong I pulled up the work truck and then now I need to load up my tools and head up the mountain and finish off this shed you know when we haven't got a lot of rain is when this IBC Tote is almost empty it's down to there me this this tote has been full all summer long after a year of hauling buckets and hoses on 14 acres that gets old pretty quickly this year we installed this thg rain tank on top of our property in hopes for this coming year we can utilize it to gravity feed the water to all of our [Music] animals what strap that into this piece of wood and we are full I can add another tank like this right next to that one yeah there we go for now this structure is our picnic table and also this coming up year I see it being a shade structure for larger animals all right so we're showing Little Miss P here how got to drive come pick me up drive it around yeah all [Music] right all right good job how do that feel the drive good yeah mhm Believe It or Not these white broad breasted turkeys from McMurray Hatchery are 16 weeks old these turkeys are our heritage breed turkeys as much as I do want to let them out if I did they would probably fly away on me because they are that skittish unless I feel like going turkey hunting I have six of them and nobody has died on me yet I don't know if these ones are going to be ready for Thanksgiving the white turkeys definitely will be with the hard compacted soil plus trees especially in this horse Arena area we needed to bring in a machine to knock all that down the soil is crazy hard very hard compact now we could actually work it you know I can put put some rows now and we can plant some [Music] seeds no matter how you look at it it's going to be a little bit of work [Music] I think if I didn't cover the soil it would be really hard right now I wouldn't be able to even work in [Music] it and now the next step is getting that soil that good soil and putting it right on top of the [Music] Rose [Music] hurry up hurry up you got it for now B almost [Music] there oh [Music] 2905 [Music] and now it's towards the end of September and it's time to harvest the squash bugs had their way with our garden we planted more than what we need some for us some for the pigs some for the squash bugs some for the grand hog some for the deer so many nasty bugs look there's even like a furry cattlepillar right there that's it for today that's that's actually most of it guys uh a bucket full of soft veggies for the pigs uh plus we have still more out there for the pigs pigs always stick their nose in the air like what's that what's that what what's that what's that all right here's a [Applause] [Music] pumpkin this is old horse fence So currently there's hensil and it's meant for larger animals but we need this fence to be secure for pigs uh and sheep that's my biggest threat to my animals right now is a stray dog or a neighbor's dog and this part is where they would always come in there's something very satisfying by a clean fence line I picked up some more posts and then I'm still waiting on extra material to come [Music] in [Applause] [Music] uh but there's no fence here dogs just come in Freely the rain's clearing a [Music] path [Music] yeah man we're getting it well that wasn't too bad when you start taking out stuff that you already put in that's what that that's what makes it the whole project longer wow wild world of fency it's a whole new world and after I took out the stretcher bar it still felt really tight the best way to learn like many other things when you trying to build a farm is you have to do it with your own hands you can watch so many videos I mean I've watched a ton already on how to build woven wire fence put in posts but it just nothing like getting the materials and start doing it you're going to make mistakes it's very different than watching a video first job today we need to move this big tote of soil with my new bumper in tow hitch comes in handy so much No Pigs I already fed you this is not for you it's not [Music] [Applause] feed so the hard neck will produce Scapes yes so the hard neck is going in this bed and we'll know that it's a hard neck because it'll produce Scapes soft neck is going in this bed another raised bed oh we have yeah we have plenty of [Applause] room something is telling me that I am short on feed 362 362 - 29 330 * 3 okay all right 999 lb we're good a challenge this year for me was learning more about our wh system we had our wh go low on us and go out for a whole day our whale water and this year I definitely learned a whole lot about our well system sometimes stuff like that doesn't sound too fun but it's very important as a homestead owner uh to figure out and to learn yourself so that way you don't have to rely on somebody else to come in and tell you what's wrong with it if we can figure out how to um troubleshoot it will just help us in the long run help us save money and just help us learn how to manage our well water so far this year the Cooney piglets that we had have been a real Joy I mean they're easygoing they don't eat a whole lot of feed and they're great grass eaters but we're going to be butchering them here this coming up year and we'll see how they are you know we'll see how much meat we actually get from them how much lard CU they are mainly a lard Pig and then from there we're going to decide if we want to continue raising these coy coonies so this year we're going to put these four pigs in the freezer probably not till fall time but they're getting bigger we just put the two breeders back together and hopefully by this March we'll have some more piglets for our freezer and to sell currently we have about 80 days until the 2024 spring season begins and so hopefully we can finish our fence line before that happens finish our high tunnel hopefully bring in some sheep some beef more chickens more turkeys growing more food and continue to live the life that we want to live and that is growing food building stuff working for ourselves being happy as a family and sharing what we learn with all of you thank you guys for watching and this year is going to be our best one yet as we continue to convert this old horse property into our family farm of our dreams

Channel: Sow the Land

Views: 775,892

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Id: HJBGQ0pQgZM

Length: 90min 44sec (5444 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 29 2023