Running the Farm Solo ｜ A Day in the Life ｜ Sunup to Sundown

Good morning and welcome to Roots and Refuge Farm. Well at least it's morning whenever I shot this video. I believe it's 7 a.m. For over a month now I've thought about shooting a video kind of just showing what my day might look like on any given day. Now normally when I'm going to shoot a video I think about what I want to show or what do I want to be doing on the video and then I go do it while filming. My approach today differs because I'd already planned what I was going to do today and just decided that this was the day I was going to try and shoot this video. For the past two and a half months, I have started a workout regimen, working out six days a week, and so that's how we're going to start today. Now, working out is one of those things that in your mind looks a lot cooler than it actually does. I'm watching this back in the edit. I did not look as cool as I thought I did but it was a lot harder than it looks I'll say that. Those are 35 and 40 pound dumbbells and even though in the video I'm just like moving them around in super fast speed that's because I had to speed things up or this video would be like six hours long. After my workout I get a quick breakfast usually. Not always but pretty regularly I start my day with a protein shake. I use a company called Just Ingredients. They make my protein, the creatine that I'm taking, and also my pre-workout, which you saw me take before we started the workout. So this is not going to be a typical day, as Jessica and the boys are out of town on a fishing trip with Uncle Drew. So I'm going to cover all the chores, and the stuff that they would normally cover is on my plate as well. So we're going to jump into chores, and it's going to take a couple hours. It always seems to happen whenever you're trying to change up the routine you know I've got the drone going filming and that sets things into motion where Helen doesn't want to come in the stanchion because something's different so I leave the stall door open to go get her which then the goats the little goats get in there and one of them jumps up into her feed trough and there's just a little bit of chaos because they're out of routine they're not used to what I'm doing. to finish cutting the field that we were cutting whenever everything kind of broke. Because it wasn't fully cut all at the same time, I've got different lengths. So I'm going to use the Bush Hog for the tall stuff, switch over to the finish deck, and zero turn for the rest. One of the reasons why I wanted to go ahead and get the cutting done now is that we've got two days worth of rain coming. And as the temperatures have dropped and we're no longer so hot, it doesn't dry out as fast. And honestly, a lot of times in the fall and early winter, we stay pretty wet and muddy because it's not drying out. Throughout mowing season there are certain casualties that just get put off until the very end and I'm talking about garden hoses. There are three garden hoses that accidentally got run over in some form or fashion. Now we try to be thorough and walk through the spaces we're going to be cutting but mistakes happen. We use Waterrite half inch, I think they're called 500 series hoses with stainless steel fittings. They are definitely more expensive than your average garden hose but I'm the kind of guy that likes to invest in something that lasts so I don't have to keep buying it. I think in the long run, I end up spending less money. The problem is that all the things that they sell like Home Depot or Lowe's to repair hoses, in my opinion, are just not very good. That's when I started looking for a better way. That led me to trying something that I wasn't sure was going to work but in the end ended up working perfectly, and that is PEX fittings. Now PEX is a plastic water line that you use in plumbing for construction and it just so happens that the half inch PEX fitting and ring work perfectly to splice or fix these half inch hoses. They work so well it's almost seamless on the hose that I repaired the first time. It is extremely strong. It's never come apart and you can't even tell that there's a splice holding the two pieces together. The only way you could find it is if you're running your hand down the hose and you felt the bump of the rings at the point of connection. Now I don't know if this is going to work on another brand of hose on another diameter. I have never tried that. That's just something y'all can experiment with, but if it does work, it's definitely going to be a better fix than any of the stuff that you can get from the store that is specifically designed for hose repair. To finish off my day, I put my headphones in, listened to some music, and came down and weeded the fall garden high tunnel and watered it for about an hour, and then decided that that was enough work for one day. All right. I end almost all my days the same, with a cold plunge before I eat dinner. I do this for a number of reasons. There are some medical benefits and muscular benefits, especially if you're working out, but mostly I do it for the mental and emotional benefit that I get. There's something about being in charge of your body and your mind to do something that is uncomfortable that just brings clarity and accomplishment. It has helped me stay consistent with working out. and eating the way that I want to eat. It has also helped me sleep better at night. On the days that I don't cold plunge or that I am not home and I can't, I have noticed a big difference in how well my body resets for the next day. Now typically, the boys will actually do it with me. It's something that we do together. It's our thing. They don't do it as often as I do. Once I get out of the cold plunge, I like to sit out in the workout area for a few Just kind of meditate, let my body feel what it's feeling, and let my core temperature come back up naturally. I don't try and go get heated up by taking a hot shower or anything like that as it negates the benefits that you're getting. Well, the last thing on my day is dinner. Michaela was cooking tonight and she made fajita bowls. They look really good. So I'm going to go eat my food and then I'm going to call Jessica and talk with her and see how her day was. Thank you guys for watching this video and hanging out with us all the days that you do. We bless you here at Roots and Refuge until next time.