The world outside these farm gates can feel like a whirlwind of uncertainty, but standing here today, surrounded by the familiar routines and the comforting presence of my animal companions, fills me with a profound sense of peace. So, let's dive into the rhythm of the farm, shall we? "Good morning, Jenny Barncat! How are you doing, sweetie?" You know, I often describe Jenny Barncat as the epitome of aggressively friendly. Unlike Pablo Barncat, whose affections are somewhat capricious, Jenny is a constant source of purrs and head-butts. She always craves attention and showers everyone with affection. It's truly heartwarming to witness. And yes, when I'm bundled up in layers of thick clothing, I often let her use me as her personal jungle gym, a habit she's maintained since she was a tiny kitten. It's a rather endearing ritual. "Good morning, large white farm dogs! How are you guys doing?" I come bearing gifts – fresh straw bedding for the hoop coop and the birds. "Okay, let's go, guys! Come on, Toby, please don't pee on that! Come on, man, I know you have a penchant for marking those straw bales, but I'd prefer if you waited until I actually finished spreading it in the birdhouse." Did Toby just… yes, I believe he did. A brief pause for a sigh of canine-induced chaos. Well, good job, Mr. Toby Dog, I appreciate you not peeing on that one.
Toby's fascination with marking new straw bales stems from his protective instincts. Anything unfamiliar that enters the Barnyard is immediately deemed suspicious and in need of his personal stamp of ownership. So, even though he's encountered countless straw bales over the years, these particular ones are new, and therefore, highly suspect. Abby, ever the loyal sidekick, tends to follow Toby's lead, although her suspicion levels are considerably lower. This morning, I had a thought-provoking conversation with a friend in Australia. She expressed genuine concern and confusion about the current state of affairs in the United States, particularly the post-election climate. She asked if Allison and I were alright, and thankfully, the answer is yes, we're doing fine. While I acknowledged that things feel a bit chaotic at the moment, I reassured her that we're navigating it. I can only imagine that many of you watching also feel the weight of the current uncertainties. And so, it is with great pleasure that I offer you a brief respite, a moment of weird chicken Zen. "Rise and grind, weirdos!" What in the world? How did these birds get out? They shouldn't be out right now; all of them should be safely locked away. How did you guys manage this great escape? This requires some investigation. You always know it's a warm day on the farm when the ducks erupt into a chorus of quacks. Listen to them; they're practically shouting, "Dude, come on, let us out! It's a beautiful day! Hey, we want out!" "Good morning, birds! Hey! Hey! Nobody…" Let me get this open. "Come on! Step aside! Step aside! Come on! Release the quacken!" It's pure, unadulterated avian chaos this morning. "Okay, you guys, I'm going to dump out the food… whoa! Hang on! Whoa!" Everyone's swarming me this morning; there are birds everywhere. Yeah, this frenzy will likely subside in about five minutes, but that initial burst of food sends them into a feathered frenzy. "Alright, you guys, let me start pouring your water… hang on." The watering system is still functioning quite well, although I must admit I'm not as fond of this particular splitter as I was of the previous one. I'll probably replace it sooner rather than later. "Abby, no! You're not allowed to eat the bird food! You're starting to develop a bad habit there, girl! No, you are not allowed to eat that! Come on!" One design feature I might not have explicitly mentioned during the setup is the disconnectable hose. I can easily pull it down like this, allowing it to drain quickly, and then reconnect it. This simple mechanism prevents water from freezing inside the hose during cold nights, ensuring it remains functional for the next day's refill. It's still surprisingly warm this morning, around 35°F, with a low of about 33°. Nevertheless, I need to make this draining routine a daily habit to avoid a frozen and unusable hose on a truly cold night. And there you have it – a self-inflicted hose shower. See what I did there? Get it? Get it? Get it?
Now, let's delve into a common source of agricultural confusion: the distinction between straw and hay. Allow me to illuminate this often-muddled matter. Straw, as you can see, has a slightly more yellow hue compared to hay, which retains a greenish tinge. Straw is essentially the leftover stalks of various harvested crops, such as oats or barley, after the grain has been removed. While low in nutritional value, these fibrous, hollow stalks make excellent bedding and nesting material for a wide array of farm animals. I use it for the dogs, the goats, the chickens, ducks, geese, and even the cattle. It's an incredibly versatile material for maintaining cleanliness and hygiene on the farm. Hay, on the other hand, is harvested and cut grass that retains a significant portion of its nutritional content, making it suitable as animal feed. During the winter months, hay forms a crucial part of the diet for both the cattle and the goats. For the cattle, it typically constitutes their entire regular diet, often provided in the form of massive round bales, which you'll likely see later in this video. For the goats, I use smaller square bales, as they tend to be rather selective eaters and often waste about half of a square bale each day. My cattle, on the other hand, can devour approximately seven of those thousand-pound round bales in a single week. Hence the difference in bale size. It's also important to note that not all hay is created equal. Different grass species and different cuttings throughout the year result in varying nutritional qualities. The first hay cutting of the year, often referred to as "first cut," isn't always the most palatable or nutritious for the animals. This hay here, which is "second cut," is generally of better quality. I typically feed my goats local second-cut hay, while the cattle receive a mix of second and third cut, and occasionally even first cut – Scottish Highland cattle aren't particularly fussy eaters. While hay provides excellent nutrition, it's not nearly as absorbent as straw and tends to become rather gross and slimy when soiled. Thus, the distinct roles of straw for bedding and hay for feed. And now you know! "Good morning, goaties! How are you guys doing?" I've been using this hay feeder for a few days, or perhaps a couple of weeks now, and I have to admit I have somewhat mixed feelings about it. Overall, it's decent; I usually have to refill it twice a day. However, the goats tend to spread a significant amount of hay on the ground, which, while not the worst thing, does somewhat defeat the purpose of a "less wasteful" feeder. "Okay, boys, here's your alfalfa pellets! Go nuts!" While they enjoy the hay and the occasional tree trimming, they absolutely adore these alfalfa pellets. The hay feeder I envision building would be designed to hold one square bale, with a small roof or cover to protect it from the weather, making my goat chores a little bit easier. If I find some spare time in the next two or three weeks, I might just construct one. If any of you watching have suggestions for specific designs, please let me know in the comments below! Alright, now it's time to add another layer of bedding for the birds. "Come on, guys, let's go inside!" And I can't forget you two. "Come on, let's go!" "Alright, Abby dog, you want to help me spread this bedding?" Abby is usually a pretty good helper with this task. "Hang on, let me get the strings off. Alright, girl, do your thing! Thanks, Abby dog, you're doing a good job, girl!" Aw, would you look at her? She's made herself a little Abby nest. "Yeah, you like that, I know." When it comes to spreading the straw, I actually don't have to do too much work. Between Abby's enthusiastic assistance and the chickens' natural scratching and pecking, the job gets done pretty quickly. The truth is, my main contribution is opening the bales and spreading them around a bit; the animals take care of the rest. Check it out! Found a duck egg! Actually, I found two duck eggs! "Hey! Hey! Look who who's here! It's Alfred, and Alfred brought a friend! Hey buddy, you can do it! You can do it! You've been getting so good at this lately! Come on, you can do it! Yeah!" So, who's this fella? This is Haron (with two Rs). He's about three months old now, I believe, and he's been hanging out here regularly. Yeah, he's figured out where Abby and Toby are, which is… a little bit of a problem. Yeah, Abby is not a fan of him. No, no, not in the least. Toby dog has a rather nonchalant attitude; he seems to think, "Well, nobody else is freaking out, so I'm not going to freak out." But every time Abby sees or smells Haron, she goes on high alert, and not because he's particularly adorable. "So, Alfred, what have you been working on here?" "I've been working on this uh freestanding wall. Um, you know, over the years, all the different projects I've worked on around here, I kind of set aside potential wall stone and uh pick through that pile and and built this. It's like a little over three feet tall now, I guess. It's going to turn around the corner and create a little bit of a courtyard feeling right here." I think the most interesting thing about this is there's no cement, there's no mortar; it's just rock upon rock upon rock, the way you built it. "Yep, this is a textbook dry stone construction. Uh, build up kind of a a course at a time, more or less. I've been able to course it out the full the full length, build up the front, build up the back, and then solidly fill the middle, and then jump to the next course and do the same. And I got about halfway up the wall, and I I ran some stones all the way through. These are called through stones. There's one here, one here, one here. Those those connect the front and the back sides of the wall to add a lot of strength. And then every stone more or less sits on top of two others, and then that way all the pressure is distributed down through the wall pretty pretty equally. And then using my stone, my granite, I'm going to cut some capstones that'll be about eight inches tall, probably, I don't know, maybe a foot long, haven't really decided yet. And and uh yeah, so it'll all be capped with with one piece stones going the full width." I'm really excited about it; like, I have plans for actually setting up an entire outdoor kitchen, and it's pretty much going right here. So, this is going to be a pretty cool project once it gets set. It's been exciting to see, like, over especially the last week, is like you come back and like sort of layer upon layer upon layer, and just like, wow, this is like… it's intense. We just got a sense that Haron's missing. Hold on. Haron, like the first place whenever he disappears that we go check is over by the dogs because I… I don't know, I just heard Abby barking too. Have you guys seen a little golden retriever puppy? No? Alright, well, let me know if you do. Yeah, there's been like a couple of times when Alfred have had had to like sprint over there, and Abby's just like snarling and barking at him, and he's just like rolling over and giving his belly like he's a cute little puppy. Lots of puppy mischief in that one. "Alright, so you found him! Found him! These neutro treats are a big hit with that little dog." Yeah, he really, he really loves these little treats. He's doing a good job; he's he's getting to be a good like kind of hangout dog. He's still working on it, but yeah. "Well, cool! Well, ol' will leave you to it, and I got to go feed hay to the cattle." I'm going to need the help of the tractor for this next activity. We're off to go visit marshmallow mountain! So, this massive pile of "marshmallows" is actually my stash of hay for the year. Basically, this is all of the bales of hay that I'm going to need to feed my cattle from pretty much right now all the way into late May, early June. I could have switched to the bail grabbers that I have, which make this task a little bit easier, but I have some other work I've got to do later today using the pallet forks, so I decided not to change attachments since we're only feeding one bale of hay – that's not too big of a deal. "Hey, look, it's Pablo barncat!" Alright, let's see if I can get this bale unwrapped quickly before I get swarmed by thousand-pound beasts who seem a little bit hungry. Uh-oh, they're definitely coming for me. "Easy, girls! Not yet! Not yet! Let me finish unwrapping this thing." Now we're going to let the bull do his thing as well as all the others. This is one part of the job that can get a little bit dangerous. "Back up, boys! Back up!" I was hoping to get the bale fully unwrapped and start to unroll it before the herd came and swarmed me, but I was not quick enough. Usually, what I like to do is actually unroll them and spread them out. I've been dropping the bales in spots on the pasture that are not nearly as good as the rest of the pasture. Like, for example, this is some really good pasture grass, so I wouldn't necessarily want to drop a bale here. But if you look at the spot where I did drop the bale, you'll notice it's actually like a bunch of weeds and some ferns and other stuff that I don't necessarily want in the pasture. And so, having them chow down right here is exactly what I want. There's also a piece of blue string that I got to try to get in there and steal, but I don't want to do it while Macho Man's gorging himself like that; I don't want to get myself hurt. And then what you'll also notice is the rest of the herd decided to swarm the tractor. They're kind of curious about it. I mean, for years now, they've been watching this thing feed them, and so to get up close to it like that, they always like the opportunity. "I'm going to make you guys get away! Everybody get away! Come on, back up! We're starting this tractor back up and getting out of here." About a week ago, I put down the first bale right here, and you can see they've eaten most of it. There's still some of it left around, which I'm sure they'll eat the rest of as well. But what's nice is that these hay bales are now putting down grass mulch on top of areas where I'd love to smother out what was traditionally growing here. Here, and probably the day after I move the cattle down to the lower pasture for winter, that's going to be the time when I come out here and I just start spreading a bunch of seed out in this space so that I can improve the pasture quality even more. One thing though that happened the other day is the cattle knocked out the cross piece of my cross fence, and so I don't know, I'm going to have to fix this come springtime. We're definitely on the end-of-the-season vibes up here on the upper pasture, and I don't know, I'm just really waiting for it to get really cold or get our first snowstorm before I bring them in, but so far, that has not been the case on either front. So, I don't know, I'm just kind of riding it out. I'm supplementing their feed a little bit with some hay, but in the past week, I think I've fed two bales. There's still a little bit of food for them to clean up up here as well as eat the hay, and then I'll move them down. Part of why I'm delaying moving them down too is just the more they spend in one space, the grosser and worse it gets, and so the longer I can wait and keep them up here, the better it is going to be down in the winter when I get into mud season like in April and May. And as I talk to you guys about all this, I'm not whining or complaining at all; I'm just letting you know what's going on with the farm. And when I think about the conversation I was having with my friend in Australia this morning, it really does make me think a lot about how lucky I feel to be out here in this space, in the calm, and I don't know, it just sort of fills me with a tremendous sense of gratitude. And so yeah, for that, I'm extremely thankful. And by the way, on my second YouTube channel, I just finished another video essay all about a midlife crisis I've been going through, and so if you're interested, you should check it out right there. And even if you aren't even familiar with Red Dead Redemption 2, you might get something out of watching it too. And so, I hope you enjoy it, and I'll be back again with another update from the farm real soon. Thanks for watching everybody!