Change Of Plans

Ben is working on getting the greenhouse prepped for spring plantin, but the mission goes south when he realizes the compost is not as ready as he thought.

Today’s music, in order (available through Epidemic Sound http://bit.ly/2Mt3tXm ):
Intro: Let Me Love You by Loving Caliber
Wicked One by Velvet Moon
As You Make The Bed by Amos Noah
Get Over You Again by Christine Smit

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Uh pretty much this is like a full-on abort Mission Good morning beautiful people it is a nice like gloomy day we’re supposed to actually have rain for the next like 4 days I’ll believe it I’ll believe it when I see it so today I’m going to take advantage of the cold temperatures uh by working in the greenhouse I got in here

The other day uh and started ripping out Tomatoes actually coming in here there’s a few more Tomatoes uh ripped out than I remember uh it looks like I only have two left maybe three something like that yeah I see two Tomah hooks left so I’m most of the way done ripping out these

Tomatoes then I’m going to take out the weed barrier and then this space is ready for whatever I need it for I’m ripping out the weed barrier so I can get in here and dump compost I’ve got a whole bunch of compost up in the chicken

Chicken run that is ready to come out you can’t even see the bottom 2×4 maybe a little bit right there I’ve got so much organic matter in this chicken run I could probably fill up two of those compost rings that compost is done it’s cooled down like it’s done I need to

Pull that ring off and what would be nice is to let the chickens just kind of rake it all down and shred it even further but for the most part that compost is ready so you know horse before the cart and all that uh I need to get the greenhouse prepped and ready

Need to get the compost out of there put it in here and then I need to build more compost it’s just a it’s just a a process so I’m going to get in here rip out these last couple tomatoes and start pulling all the 100 Staples that hold

The uh the fabric down we got to pull all these staples so we got to move some dirt see the staple right there hook that Cobra head on it like that and pull hook and pull hook it under there real good oh you got it just put all the

Staples in the bucket where is the bucket it’s over there on the other side of the citrus a what where’s a table table oh it’s outside the door Staples oh Staples you got to find them and here’s one oh here’s one yep oh no here can you put these in the bucket

Okay get these last couple tomatoes out of here all right so this greenhouse is a lot warmer than outside yeah you can see your breath in here because it’s a cloudy day it’s kind of cold if you listen if it gets kind of quiet you can actually hear

It is kind of sprinkling right now uh when it actually like full-on starts raining I have to go grab the bacon and take it out of the smoker we smoked it probably half a day yesterday and it’s been going about half a day today once

We pull off the bacon we’ll just call it smoked enough we’re cold smoking it it’s kind of a multi-day process around here I’ll get it smoked I’ll put it in the fridge or the freezer get it nice and cold and then slice it sometimes that spans a couple days sometimes I can get

It all done in one day but I’m I’m not going to hold my breath chances are if it does rain the next couple days that’d be a good excuse to cut bacon inside cuz it’s kind of hard to film out in the rain we’re going to have a thousand

Tomato plants come up in here why because there are so many bad tomatoes everywhere okay I think this one needs to come up first it’s prly is Franklin when that bucket gets full another bucket we have two buckets Dad we have two buckets

Do just in case this one get we can f up that one okay staple right there all right so there’s like 50 million crickets hiding under this thing uh that’s actually kind of encouraging but terrifying at the same time crickets everywhere I need to get like a rogue Chicken in here they would

Have the best day of their life the only problem with that like what that means is if there’s crickets in here that also means that there’s going to be pests uh things that normally can’t overwinter will be able to overwinter in here all right got my first piece of

Weed fabric up I’m just going to continue I might move the Citrus down here further I’m not sure I’m going to have to move them regardless to uh get them off the weed fabric but what I could do is I could actually pull up half of this and then put compost here [Applause] Staple iPass that’s the first time I’ve ever heard anybody call a grub a trespasser grubs are trespassers I think I’m going to grab the wheelbarrow wherever it is where is the wheel where is the wheelbarrow next to the chicken oh that’s right it is next to the chicken

Coop I’m going to go grab some compost out of there haul it down here uh it really doesn’t get much easier than that I can just load it up haul it down pile it up and it’ll be here uh in a few months when I need it there’s there’s no

That’s my finger look right there there you go HK just HK it down there’s one little one in there get it there you go open it open it open it open it and close it we have one all right getting into it there is still actually a lot of like I don’t

Know I can recognize hay and leaves for the most part most of this compost is pretty broken down but where they have trampled it and just turned it into a mat usually what happens bring a whole bunch of leaves and spent hay from the pigs up here and it’ll be real good and

Then we’ll have a big rain event and it just turns into a solid mat of muck and everything underneath that mat that’s on top stops composting and becomes Anor robic so it looks like I’m probably I’m going to have to mess with this compost ring and I’m going to have to uh pull

The sides off and let them rake it out and then I’m going to have to come in here and get it now I will say if we do get rain for the next couple days there’s really no point in doing that because it’s just going to do what I

Just said it’s going to get trampled on uh they make you know mud right on the surface where they’re walking everything below becomes Anor robic cycle repeats really the the biggest enemy of doing a chicken compost system is neglect like if you let it become Anor robic it

Stinks like right now it stinks in here I need to get in here get everything fluffed up and back in a pile A pile takes longer to compress than it does when it’s you know 6 in deep on the ground so maybe that’s what I’ll do

Maybe I’ll just get in here uh and then I could pull the sides off this compost pile get them to rake it out it’s my day is not going uh the way I was hoping it would I was thinking I was going to get a whole bunch of compost out of here but

By the looks of it it’s not going to happen I know I have a lot of bones in here that need to come out uh I set on my bones aside and then we burn them and turn them into just you know uh calcium

For the garden uh but I have a lot of Bones this year seven pigs and a cow is a lot of Bones I’m going to get a couple strapping young Lads to see if we can lift this cage off uh pretty much this is like a full-on abort Mission uh I just need to have the chickens just shred this whole pile and break it down which they will gladly Do we got a whole bunch of Bones and actually these ones are just kind of moldy and funky so we’re going to take all of these over to the fire pit and burn them okay back that [Applause] up are we burning all with wood get a pretty good spot fire this is kind of killing two birds with one stone I’ve got this old shelf that came out of the wellhouse and it was half rotten and I’ve just been needing to burn it need to burn some bones it ain’t

Raining yet so two birds with one stone we want to be warm that is a very hot fire uh probably still not hot enough to convert all those bones into just you know just calcium dust so usually what we do is we’ll just put the bones at the bottom then we’ll have you

Know fir Fred a or whatever we’re doing and when we’re done I’ll come out the next day and as long as you didn’t like stir up the fire the bones will still be they still look like bones they’re just really white if you pick them up you can

Crumble them into dust that’s what I plan on doing here there was so many of them I’ll probably have to burn more fire or at least longer so I’ll add a few more bigger chunks of wood now that I got a nice bed of coals but just

Letting this Cruise as long as it doesn’t start raining probably that’ll be good enough that used to be fine used to be now it’s basically compost in a strip compost in log form well I’ll just come over here and look at these beautiful raw chickens

Ready to go in the oven yeah they are I was like hold on hold on let me get like a before shot literally all I’m doing is covering them all right had some lunch my fire is nearly died down I’m going to go out there and stir it around

And Meg is making all the bread products yes ate some lunch I don’t see smoke so it looks like my fire went out figured this was a good time good time to check the bacon couple of them look very very very smoked but the one up here on top

Doesn’t look very smoked at all feels kind of dry to the touch which that’s good you see how smoked the skin is the skin is pretty smoked but honestly for smoking for as long as these have smoked they should be a lot more Smoky looking

That one looks great I mean look at that bacon beautiful that one actually looks nice and smoked I’m just going to rotate those honestly like they smell really really smoked could be just a smoker residual smoke but like smelling my hand that bacon smells very very smoked I’m

Just going to run it just a little bit more I’m going to build my fire back up and I’ll just go maybe maybe another hour or so put them in the fridge slice them probably tomorrow smells like bacon I’m going to go check the fire over here maybe maybe give it a

Stir check on those bones see if they have burned yet or see if I’m going to have to add more wood o it is warm over here all right I see some bone I don’t know if that’s been rendered down that one actually kind of turned to Charcoal so that’s Okay see how that just turned to powder that’s what I want so I’m just going to take the Stray pieces of wood put them back on this pile of bones make sure there’s no pieces of bones that escape the fire I’m just going to kind

Of Mount it all back up and just let it cruise and once it’s done it’s done all the Ash will just pretty much disintegrate and if I’ve done this right then the bones will still be you know kind of a shape and I can pull them out

Of the ash throw them in a bucket either blend them up or just step on them and crush them into dust and then now I can add that to the garden so I had to like kind of brag on Meg’s bread braid braid braided bread something like that this is beautiful

Like this is absolutely beautiful and then the cinnamon rolls look how oh man those are beautiful ters don’t look beautiful yeah they will be yes so chicken is in the oven and I’m getting tatered we’ll have that Hollow and ters and I might throw some carrots

In here too so we’ll see sounds good and and yeah regular bread regular bread well I just had to come over here and brag on this beautiful wanted to come over here and look at the potatoes yes they’re they’re about halfway through cooking these in our Tallow that we

Rendered makes for good potatoes it does make for some bomb potatoes potato so I uh I just chunk these up and then I put like dots or bits of tow Al over it stick it in the oven for like 30 minutes and then I stir them and distribute all

The the wonderful grease and all that and I don’t season them until they come out um cuz that helps them the salt actually causes them to like steam more than fry yeah it makes them mushy yeah so Sal them salt them after they come out that’s that’s a trick if you need a

Trick for potatoes buggy can you get me a big cookie sheet okay close the door let’s go get the bacon all right so I’ve been waiting for this uh tiny tiny fire to die down there’s still a little bit of smoke going on but it’s close enough

Like I know yeah it’s almost done I’m not going to add more uh I think I got like 6 hours yesterday and then I started this up at like 7:30 this morning and it is now what is it almost 6:00 I would say this is as smoked as

These ones are going to get so this is exactly what I want it’s cool to the touch and very very very smoked it’s got good color yeah you can see how smoked that is so looks like mission accomplished look at that one that is some good bacon can I see yeah

Look oh that’s going to be good bacon now this one’s the one I’m excited for this is the thickest point on the bacon look how much meat is on that that is going to be some good bacon there we go all right let’s go to the shed woohoooo this therometer that’s where my

Thermometer went you H you hid my thermometer from me that bacon fits I just had to rearrange stuff a little bit I’ll let that bacon get nice and cold and then it can sit in here for a week if I end up not getting to it it’ll be

Fine in here I’ll probably cut it tomorrow or the day after bacon is a process if you want good bacon you got to be willing to commit cinnamon rolls I’ll get you guys later honestly I feel like we should just rip off chunks of that bread and eat it like we’re

Savages or something I I guess you could if you really let’s see how many how many let’s see 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 nine let’s do it let’s do it let’s just rip it apart like Savages oh okay all right ripping apart the chicken try and rip

Apart the and then oh where did the tatoes go oh I popped it back in the oven heat them up All right dinner was fabulous uh I could single-handedly kill that what’s it called hola hala hala bread c h a l l a a c h yes c h like Hala oh okay I couldn’t I thought you were just saying Hala like Hala back no no

I was like I’ve never heard of bread called hollow bread sorry uh sweet braided bread there you go I could eat that entire loaf yes or braid or thing yeah it it was really good potatoes are really good too all righty that’s going to do it for us for

Today so we’ll catch you guys on the next one Bye