This garden is fried.

Hey y'all, what's up? Welcome back to Roots and Refuge Farm. We're not at Roots and Refuge Farm right now, but this is the channel. We're here to pick up my azure order. Let's get this stuff loaded up. Not today. We got, we're doing karate this evening. All right. So I got a few bags of wheat berries. Um, I ended up buying quite a few more of their canning jars as azure canning jars. They're so good. They're really sturdy. I haven't had any break. Um, so I decided I would just start buying a few cases on each order just to stock up on those. And then some of this I'll have to reopen. I've got like Worcestershire sauce. I know I had a little bit of fermented stuff. All right. I got all the things in the back. My boys just walked next door. So since I've lived in South Carolina, I have been driving like 45 minutes to go pick up my order when I order from, um, azure. And my friend Jody has a farm, uh, between Saluda and Greenwood if you're local. And she just registered and became like an, an azure drop. So I moved my order over here. It's only 20 minutes from my house, which is really nice. Plus it's right here at her farm. My boys are always excited. Her son is good friends with my sons and, uh, we come and hang out here regularly. So it works out well. So there's her farm. My boys ran over there with her son. So I'm going to drive over there and get them and show you guys this place. So the first time we met Jody's family was actually up at the Rhodes house in North Carolina for an abundance plus event. And, um, they lived kind of in our area ish and they ended up moving to the little school my boys were going to. And Hey, um, and their son was in Ben's class. So we became friends over the course of that and I love what they've done here. So they got this old house and they've turned it into a little community farm store. This is open to the public. So it's a following C's farm. It is between Saluda and Greenwood and they carry all kinds of great stuff in here. They've got local meat and raw milk and fresh eggs. She also keeps certain things stocked, uh, that she orders, you know, wholesale to retail here. I have been getting this stuff from here. This is called pluck and her price is admittedly quite a lot better than anywhere I've found it online. But this is a beef organ and it's like seasoning that's made out of beef organs. So it's a good way to get those nutrients in. Another thing she does, which I think is so cool is she has like bulk grains and she has a grain mill in here because she's like all about fresh milled flour and by having this available, it's giving people in the community an opportunity to come by and mill some fresh grains and go cook with them without having to make the commitment of spending hundreds of dollars on a mill. And she has a lot of people that they just come by here, you know, once or twice a week and they mill their grains and they take them home and cook with them. She's also got like bulk herbs and different things like that. I love this so much. I just love coming and hanging out here. I think about me in my twenties and how this would have been everything to me. Like to have a resource like this back then, whenever I was really learning to do things and wanting to get into things. I want to try to get the frozen stuff first, which is um, the back right. And then that freezer that's open in the back. You've ordered these, uh, grass-fed beef sausages before? Yeah, this is my friend Jodi. This is her place with her husband, Timmy and their kids. And I was just saying how this would have been such a huge resource. I mean, it's a resource to me now. I mean, being able to come pick up my Azure order and get stuff. I mean, I got the best blueberries here last week. I've been baking with those and you know, I, I come by things, but man, before I could afford a grain mill and before I knew anything about herbalism and could come and ask somebody, Hey, what tea should I use? And then being able to get a small amount of those things that I have to order at bulk. Um, what was your goal in doing this? I'm going to turn the camera on you. Well, we, um, first believe that, uh, God created this land and we want to steward the land, stewarding the land and turn stewards our body. Yeah. Um, and we want a community created around us knowing that they can come and get food that will nourish their bodies. Yeah. Um, I only source the food here is either from our farm or from farms that I trust that our own family would eat, um, or products that, um, are, uh, stewarding something, um, not a wasteful spirit. Um, so we just wanted to create a healthy environment where people can come and enjoy the land and leave with nourishing food, um, which in turn nourishes their body. Yeah. Well, I love that. And I think what you're doing is awesome for people. Um, just as a person who's growing food and who is committed to those same things. I mean, it's about stewardship. It's about managing the body. We have the family we have in the land that we have access to. Um, and I think that starts as a mindset on any scale, you know, I mean, it's not just, Oh, you've got 70 acres. Now you can be a farmer. I don't have that. Um, Hey Toby. I, I do think that it's really cool though, to see you guys started doing that for yourself. And then it got to a point where you could then expand and make resources for other people. And I think that that is kind of the natural order of these things. And that's how communities ultimately built. And like, you know, I've been out here for markets and stuff like that. And it's just nice to see people coming together that have those interests. You know, we have a co-op that meets up here and the kids all play and stuff and you got all these moms hanging out that have those similar goals. And you're making, you've made like a landing pad for that, which is pretty awesome. A seedbed. For sure. It's beyond us. It's bigger than our dreams could have ever bigger than we could have ever even prayed for. I was sitting in here once when all the kids were playing and they've probably like 12, 14 moms in here. And you know, people are stopping by, milling their grains, grabbing milk, grabbing eggs, dropping stuff off that they're selling or that they're bringing or trading or whatever. And I was just thinking like, man, this is, this is it. Like this is truly, I leave inspired every single time. I'm thankful to have a place in it. It takes a community because we can't all have everything. So if we work together, we learn together. We're just going to be better people. Yeah, for sure. Better families. So we hired them to process our last, I don't know, y'all probably done our last four big animals, I think four or five. And they've done a fantastic job. It's been nice. They're set up for it and do it really well. They cured this bacon for me. And I wish that you guys could smell it. Smells amazing. So she's just sealing the slabs and then I'll take it home and do the slicing on my little slicer machine. My bounty. Now I got to locate my kids. They have a way of disappearing when it's time to go. Hoping that I'll just ring the bell. Yeah. Yeah. That's smart. The kid, the kid, they've been outsmarted. See they hope I'll start talking and lose track of time. I'm not going to do that. I have a cold stuff in my car and it's hot out here. I have one more thing. She gave me a package of lamb to try. I'll make that for dinner. All right. Ready to drive home. Guys, what, what book are we listening to? Secret Garden. What do y'all think of it? It's good. Very nice. It's really good. Yeah. My favorite book from when I was a kid. I loved it. Almost done. We may finish it. I don't know if we'll have enough time on the way home. Only 20 minutes. Hey Katie girl. Hey Jamie. Everybody's sluggish because it is four o'clock in the afternoon right now. It's so hot. I don't know how to describe it. If you've never lived in a hot place like the last, I would say the last week of July and at least the first few weeks of August, maybe through the month of August are truly oppressive. Like this is the time of year that I actually am like, why do I live here? I don't really feel like this cause I remember the reasons. I remember the rest of the year. I remember my mild winter and the fact that my garden was crazy beautiful by April and all that. That's why I live here. But this is what I absolutely pay for it. It is so hot. I was walking to the garden to talk about something and I got distracted by the fig trees. I asked Maya if he knew where a bee suit was. We haven't had bees since we lived in Arkansas. And if any of the figs get too ripe and they start to split open, they get so covered with bees and obviously I'm not going to spray anything that's going to hurt the bees. Cause even like organic pesticides and stuff, they still hurt your good pollinators. That's why I try not to use them. But I just need to get in there and pick them. But I don't like them swarming at me. He said he would pull a bee suit out for me. These are called Italian honey figs. I believe they're like golden. This one's right. These are so good. They actually really taste like honey. They're amazing. They don't taste like, like your dark figs. But Oh my gosh, these are a total game changer. I only have one tree of that, but I have a couple of empty spaces and I think I'm going to try to propagate a couple more. So here's my garden. I think we're going to start tearing this stuff out. I'll probably go through and pick off the green tomatoes. Some things are thriving such as the butterfly peas, but most things are not. Um, most things are just toast. Lots of volunteer basil, but pretty well the whole thing has just, you know, given up. I can't believe these, of course, this is just reseeded. The butterfly peas haven't planted these here for years. They just come back on their own. Today I was online and I was seeing so many people sharing essentially their garden is at peak right now. People are talking about processing all their tomatoes. They're showing they're, you know, in the height of tomato sandwich season and they're showing their photos of their beautiful, luscious gardens. And I totally know what you guys feel whenever it's March, April, and I'm sharing all the things that are happening here. And people are like, I'm still under a foot of snow. I'm not going to plant for two months. Oh my goodness. And like you're watching a lush garden through the screen and having, you know, not necessarily garden envy, but just kind of like, Oh, so not the season I'm in. That happens for me now, like in August because my garden is pretty well fried by this point. Now it is time right now for me to be making the moves to start the fall garden. Uh, but truly in August it is, it's hard, it's hard to do. It's hard to want to do because you know, you're tired. I have processed so much food and worked so much at this point that I feel really done. Um, I'm holding myself to, I'm remembering what it feels like in December, November, January, like when I'm really glad I did the work to, to restart and begin again. Um, I actually wrote about this on my sub stack this last week, just kind of a wax poetic a little bit about what it feels like in August. I just spend so much time focusing on the farm that I really like taking this really few hot weeks where it's a losing battle to try to keep anything that I'm going. Um, and I just, you know, I take my kids to the beach. We're going to the amusement park tomorrow. Jackson and Asher are moving back to college at the end of this week and then summer's over for them. Um, I'm taking next week to get my younger boys kind of back into our school routine and then we'll, we'll officially start the structure of that after that. As much as you can have summer vacation, you still have to cook for everybody and do all the stuff that moms have to do. I do wonder like it all looks spent to me, but I expect for people who are just looking at it, it's still pretty beautiful. Oh, look at that lady banks. She's trying to climb. Everybody told me that by like middle of next year, this would be up and over the Arbor. I don't know if you guys can see, but the guys have got the chicken yard all the way in clothes. It's got panels all around and they're over here working even in the heat. Hey Nosek. Hey guys. How's it going guys? It's hot. We're all looking forward to fall working. There will be another cold plunge tonight. Y'all are going to do another cold plunge tonight. Is it feeling nice right now? My ear. You want to real bad? I want to duck my head. Look at that. I pull my hair up when I'm working. Getting work ready? Yeah. Work ready. In case you're wondering, I actually, do you think your tractor is sexy? Oh Jeremiah. It really cuts the grass. How much longer are y'all going? You haven't been working this time of day. You've been, I guess you're trying to push to get it done. Well, we just, I got to get to a certain point cause I've only got Noah's help with the framing for so long. And so once it gets past framing, then me and the boys can take it and run with it. Just mornings and evenings. Yeah. But we need to do it today and tomorrow. Probably to get the framing done. It's been storming so much. Yeah. It's been a crunch. This is the hardest part. The rest of it. I built the nest box today so we could get it framed. And then like I said, the rest of it will be still good stuff for them to learn, but not as complicated angles and all that. Yeah. I grabbed my camera to give you guys an update and finish this video after having to be alone with the tractor. If you are in one of the places peaking, enjoy it. I hope it's amazing and perfect and beautiful. And you have just everything you hoped for out of it. If you were in one of the places where you're going to hang out with me today and all the days you do, I bless you. Until next time.