Big changes are coming to the farm...Your next chapter starts today. Get 10% off your first month of BetterHelp online therapy: https://betterhelp.com/anneofalltrades (Sponsored by BetterHelp)
********************************
Use code ANNEOFALLTRADES for 15% off Redmond products!
https://shop.redmondagriculture.com/discount/ANNEOFALLTRADES?rfsn=7896007.f371576
HUGE Thank you to Duluth Trading for their continued support of this channel! Check out https://www.duluthtrading.com/ for looks featured in this video.
Click here to support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/anneofalltrades
0:00 Intro
3:20 Alpacas
4:36 Pigs
7:41 Reba, my first dairy cow
8:35 a quick word from our sponsor
10:20 Help from mom and dad
12:19 Donkeys
12:43 Dogs
13:31 Chickens
14:12 Lucy and the guard goose
14:41 Goats
16:40 Bunny
18:22 Feelings about the pregnancy
MORE ABOUT ME
I'm Anne of All Trades. In NASHVILLE, I have a woodworking, blacksmithing and fabrication shop, a selection of furry friends, and an organic farm. Whether you've got the knowledge, tools, time or space to do the things you've always wanted to do, everything is "figureoutable."
I became "Anne of All Trades" out of necessity. With no background in farming or making things, I wanted to learn to raise my own food, fix things when they break and build the things I need.
12 years ago I got my first pet, planted my first seed and picked up my first tool.
My goal is to learn and share traditional techniques and skills while showing my peers how to get from where they are to where they want to go, how to do the things they are passionate about, and what can be done TODAY to engage their own community and grow deep roots.
Whether it's carving spoons, making my own hand tools, restoring my antique truck or growing heirloom tomatoes, the farm and workshop definitely keep me busy and support - whether financially through Patreon, through shopping my affiliate links, through buying merchandise, plans or project videos, or even just liking, commenting, and sharing my content with others helps me GREATLY to keep producing quality content to share.
Get a better roadmap of how to grow deep roots and live the life you want by subscribing to this channel and be sure to check out my blog for even more info https://anneofalltrades.com
********************************
Some of the links below are affiliate links, which means by clicking and shopping through these links, I might earn a commission, at no additional cost to you - which is a great way you can help the creation of more free content just like this. Your time and attention mean the world to me. I know you work hard, and I'm careful to only share brands and products that I FULLY support. Keep being awesome!
Help Support this project and others!
Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/anneofalltrades
Merchandise - https://teespring.com/stores/anne-of-all-trades
Project Plans - https://www.anneofalltrades.com/project-plans
Courses - https://www.anneofallt
********************************
Use code ANNEOFALLTRADES for 15% off Redmond products!
https://shop.redmondagriculture.com/discount/ANNEOFALLTRADES?rfsn=7896007.f371576
HUGE Thank you to Duluth Trading for their continued support of this channel! Check out https://www.duluthtrading.com/ for looks featured in this video.
Click here to support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/anneofalltrades
0:00 Intro
3:20 Alpacas
4:36 Pigs
7:41 Reba, my first dairy cow
8:35 a quick word from our sponsor
10:20 Help from mom and dad
12:19 Donkeys
12:43 Dogs
13:31 Chickens
14:12 Lucy and the guard goose
14:41 Goats
16:40 Bunny
18:22 Feelings about the pregnancy
MORE ABOUT ME
I'm Anne of All Trades. In NASHVILLE, I have a woodworking, blacksmithing and fabrication shop, a selection of furry friends, and an organic farm. Whether you've got the knowledge, tools, time or space to do the things you've always wanted to do, everything is "figureoutable."
I became "Anne of All Trades" out of necessity. With no background in farming or making things, I wanted to learn to raise my own food, fix things when they break and build the things I need.
12 years ago I got my first pet, planted my first seed and picked up my first tool.
My goal is to learn and share traditional techniques and skills while showing my peers how to get from where they are to where they want to go, how to do the things they are passionate about, and what can be done TODAY to engage their own community and grow deep roots.
Whether it's carving spoons, making my own hand tools, restoring my antique truck or growing heirloom tomatoes, the farm and workshop definitely keep me busy and support - whether financially through Patreon, through shopping my affiliate links, through buying merchandise, plans or project videos, or even just liking, commenting, and sharing my content with others helps me GREATLY to keep producing quality content to share.
Get a better roadmap of how to grow deep roots and live the life you want by subscribing to this channel and be sure to check out my blog for even more info https://anneofalltrades.com
********************************
Some of the links below are affiliate links, which means by clicking and shopping through these links, I might earn a commission, at no additional cost to you - which is a great way you can help the creation of more free content just like this. Your time and attention mean the world to me. I know you work hard, and I'm careful to only share brands and products that I FULLY support. Keep being awesome!
Help Support this project and others!
Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/anneofalltrades
Merchandise - https://teespring.com/stores/anne-of-all-trades
Project Plans - https://www.anneofalltrades.com/project-plans
Courses - https://www.anneofallt
Category
✨
PeopleTranscript
00:00I've been keeping a secret from you for almost seven months.
00:04I'm pregnant and expecting a baby boy in June, which is both so exciting to share, it being
00:11one that is something that I've wanted my entire life.
00:16But if you've been around here for very long, you probably know that we've struggled with
00:19fertility for 12 years and we lost our daughter to a miscarriage this spring.
00:26And this has all just been a very tough road, living in the public eye and struggling with
00:33really hard, painful things that I both think are really important to talk to people about,
00:39but also wanting to be really careful about ever oversharing or, I don't know, messing
00:45up when it comes to public vulnerability.
00:48But yeah, I mean, to say that I'm excited is an unbelievable understatement.
00:55But I'm scared.
00:58But also, life is short.
00:59There are so many things that we can't control and if I've learned anything over the last
01:0412 years I've been sharing stuff with folks online, it's that we need to learn how to
01:10celebrate what's good in the moment and not allow ourselves to live in fear of the kinds
01:14of things that we can't control.
01:15If you've been hanging out with me for a while, you also know that I work full-time and I
01:20farm in the margins and that I run the farm mostly by myself.
01:25I mean, completely by myself unless I need help and then I ask Adam to help or my community
01:30to help.
01:31And so with that, there are some really big changes that I've needed to make.
01:36I actually started this giant downsizing process when I found out I was pregnant with our daughter
01:41last spring.
01:42And I was so sick throughout that pregnancy and it took so long to recover from the miscarriage.
01:48The reality was that some things had to go.
01:52Some projects had to shrink.
01:54And then I've been so sick throughout this pregnancy that I'm actually really glad I
01:58started shrinking my farm duties last year.
02:00So this video is going to be obviously really different than a lot of our other videos on
02:06this channel because I want to talk about all of those things.
02:11What it feels like to put your whole heart and soul into something like farming in hopes
02:16of having future children and then waiting for 12 years for those children to come and
02:22struggling so much getting them here.
02:26And starting big projects that then have to pivot, change, shift, or shrink or even get
02:32totally given up on at least for a season and navigating the emotion of all that.
02:37Like what do we do when we have to quit something we're really passionate and excited about
02:41in favor of something that's more important?
02:44How do we deal with the grief of the opportunity cost of time, effort, money, research, energy,
02:50blood, sweat, tears that we've invested in things that we just have to press pause or
02:55put a period on forever?
02:57And so as I take a little walk around the farm today, I want to tell you about all the
03:01things that are changing to Lord willing, make space for a baby come June, to facilitate
03:07trying to get the school done and keep our focus on what's actually important and which
03:13animals, which projects are going to stay, go, et cetera.
03:18So let's do that.
03:20Cheers.
03:21When it comes to animals, making any cuts is a really hard thing for me because I have
03:26just this kind of life principle of wanting this to be the last place that animals come.
03:33Or if they're born here, I want them to live out their days here and never have any stress,
03:39never have to go anywhere else.
03:41And so I really, really wrestled a lot with deciding that it's time to rehome the alpacas,
03:48but I found a really great home for them.
03:51They're going to someone who literally will do a better job than I can.
03:56And basically just the very fact that I love doing stuff with their fiber, but I could
04:01also just get fiber from one of my many friends that raises fiber animals and not have to
04:08have one of the most stressful animals on the farm to actually continue to care for.
04:14And so, yeah, this is a, this is a tough one, but we did find a good emotional replacement
04:22for the alpacas.
04:23And we'll talk about that in just a second.
04:25And by the way, if you're looking around me, please excuse the chaos.
04:29We are in fact mid project and yeah, let's walk back here and we'll talk more about it.
04:36If you've been around this channel before, you've heard me say over and over, never,
04:39ever, ever leave your soil uncovered.
04:42And there is uncovered soil all around us.
04:45And that is both my pigs doing a really good job in this area of clearing out the underbrush
04:52so that we would have a good silvopasture area in the heat of summer to bring our animals
04:58where they have some shade.
05:00I mean, they will have some shade when these trees get some leaves on them, but because
05:05I've had to really limit my physical activity and my time on the tractor, there's soil uncovered
05:10everywhere.
05:11My dad's helping me get this stuff spread out and we're going to plant grass seed and
05:15hopefully it will be great.
05:18But right now it looks like I have done the exact opposite of what I want to do, which
05:23is I've desertified a forest and uncovered a whole bunch of soil and well, that's not
05:31regenerative at all, is it?
05:33It will be.
05:34But right now it certainly doesn't look like it.
05:37And speaking of the pigs, that was another downsize that was probably of all of them
05:43the most painful.
05:45I raised the pigs that I raised, trained them, took artificial insemination classes and was
05:53in every way expecting to use those particular pigs for years on the farm to create a whole
06:02another industry here.
06:05But because I was so sick for the first six months of my pregnancy, I realized that it
06:09was not going to be fair to those animals or good for their long-term health for me
06:13to continue putting off starting my whole breeding program, nor was it a good time to
06:19start breeding pigs.
06:21And in that, I decided that the best thing to do was to butcher them.
06:25And that was a decision that felt like quitting probably more than any of these other things,
06:32especially because I felt like I was quitting on them.
06:34It sucked so much.
06:36Another layer of the suck there was because I was not physically able to butcher them
06:41myself.
06:42I had to take them to a processor and calling them by name and having them just follow me
06:48onto the trailer, like after all that training and everything, like it just sucked already.
06:54But then we ended up having a super, super traumatic experience at the butcher, which
07:00was like just across the board, not okay.
07:03There was an unprofessionalism I've never seen.
07:07And I don't want to go into detail about exactly what happened, but just like nothing went
07:11well after we got there.
07:13And I just felt so much like I'd failed.
07:16And like, I'll be able to take the knowledge that I learned about artificial insemination
07:20and using pigs to, to help clear invasive species and all that stuff.
07:28Like I'll be able to take it.
07:29And when I am ready to do that again, I can do it later.
07:33So it's not a total failure.
07:34It just sucks that like some animals that I did really love didn't get the ending that
07:40I hoped for.
07:42But ultimately the crappy way that the pigs whole situation ended helped me make a far
07:47better decision about the absolute hardest decision I had to make throughout this process,
07:52which was putting down my first dairy cow.
07:59Who, like I've been limping along for the last couple of years.
08:08So I decided to put her down here and, and her last day here was exactly what I want
08:16every animal's last day to be like.
08:20And I'm so thankful for her and everything she's taught me over the last five years about
08:25consistency and self-confidence and boy howdy that I'm able to do way more than I ever thought
08:33I was able to do.
08:38I've wanted to be a parent my entire life and the last 12 years struggling with infertility
08:45stuff has made so much of that journey feel so out of control.
08:50But the one thing that I could control is the one thing I've tried really hard to control,
08:54which is trying to become the absolute best version of myself.
08:57And that brings us to the sponsor of today's video, BetterHelp.
08:59I found BetterHelp in 2020 when the world had shut down and we suddenly had to figure
09:04out how to do all the in-person things that we used to do in person over the computer.
09:09But long after the world opened back up, I've continued to use BetterHelp because it has
09:14been so helpful for me.
09:16It's super easy to get matched with a therapist online.
09:20All you have to do is fill out a little quiz and then it matches you with a therapist really
09:24quickly and then if you ever need to change therapists or you want to start talking about
09:29some other topic with some other person, it's super easy to change them.
09:33All of this stuff happens within an app.
09:36You can schedule your appointments, reschedule appointments.
09:39They even have really awesome group therapy sessions that you can use just because you're
09:44using the service.
09:45Honestly, the best part for me about BetterHelp is that I never have to leave the farm.
09:50So for five years now, Monday nights, I snuggle up with a blankie, I grab my spoon carving
09:56stuff if I'm feeling a little extra fidgety that night, and I sit down and my therapist
10:02and I talk about life.
10:03And if you are struggling with something and you think talking to someone about it might
10:07help, check out BetterHelp.
10:09And if you use the code ANNABALLTRADES at checkout, you'll get 10% off your first month
10:13of therapy.
10:14And look at that, my spoon.
10:16It's pretty neat what you can make out of a branch that fell out of a tree during a
10:19windstorm.
10:20Butter here is about to be bred to Fancy, who's our first sixth generation bull that
10:30was born on the farm.
10:32Thank you for sharing that with us.
10:35Since we are actually already interrupted, let me just say that we are currently on tornado
10:39watch, so it's quite windy out here.
10:41Welcome to chaos.
10:43And because I can't currently ride the mower for hours at a time due to not wanting to
10:51shake my fetus too much, I asked my parents to come visit for a month to help me with
10:56some of the more laborious spring activities.
10:59And so my dad's out there planting grass right now.
11:02Bless his sweet servant heart.
11:05Well, all the cows are leaving because cows are like cats and they're very curious and
11:11they all want to see what my dad's doing with the lawnmower.
11:15But while we go, please examine my proudest invention yet.
11:20I was able to make a trade with one of my neighbors for his old harrowing disc.
11:25And then I got a sweet little seed planter on Amazon and with some bricks and some bungee
11:29cords, I made myself my very own little seed drill.
11:33Excuse me, sir.
11:36I would like to eat whatever food you have in that bucket.
11:40I was led to believe that the sound of machines meant treats.
11:47Growing up, my dad did not have any tools and was not super handy.
11:50But when I started making YouTube videos, he started watching YouTube videos and I since
11:55learned how to do so much stuff.
11:56So now it's so fun to watch my dad using my tinker toys to tinker and to play.
12:05Everyone say hello to mom of all trades, who's here to help as well.
12:13God bless her.
12:14Carrying buckets of seeds.
12:16As we do.
12:17As we do.
12:18All right, you little dum-dums.
12:21Howdy and Bella, donkeys, loves of my life, dogs that live for 40 years, obviously are
12:25going nowhere.
12:27Trimming their hooves has become a little bit more physically challenging for me, but
12:30mercifully, they seem to kind of know that there's something going on and they've been
12:34a lot more gentle lately, which I really appreciate.
12:37Bella.
12:38Hi, buddy.
12:39You guys have been rolling in the mud, huh?
12:43Johnny, actual love of my life, and June, who's also here, are also going absolutely
12:49nowhere.
12:50Losing our baby last year.
12:52At that time, Johnny was actually really sick and I didn't think he was going to live much
12:56longer.
12:57I was so afraid that I would never get to see him be around a kid.
13:01I just can't wait for him to have his own little boy to play with and to watch after
13:07and to look after.
13:08So that's something I'm really excited about.
13:10Plus, I am very, very happy to report that he is actually the healthiest he's ever been
13:15in his life, which is so dang encouraging and hopeful to me.
13:21Howdy, are you making it hard for Adam to film?
13:27Why, yes, I am.
13:31And if you're a regular here, you know that I'm not at all sad to report that the chickens
13:36have moved to Maymay's house.
13:38My four-year-old neighbor, Maymay, decided she wanted to take over the chicken business
13:42this year and I was so excited to outsource that piece of it.
13:46We just had our first meeting.
13:47We ordered our spring chicks from McMurray Hatchery and we're going to put a portion
13:51of the egg sales into her college fund.
13:53So huzzah!
13:55We are now a chicken-free farm.
13:57Woo!
13:58By the way, I don't actually hate chickens.
14:02But if we are to compare the usefulness and lovingness and joyfulness of a chicken versus
14:08a cow, I'm going to choose cows every time, I hate to tell you.
14:12Lucy has earned her spot to stay on the farm forever because the day that our neighbor
14:16asked me to take Lucy, she, for absolutely no reason whatsoever, walked up to Adam and
14:22bit him on the leg and then walked away, so, you know, she gets to stay.
14:26And then also because Maymay was very afraid and rightfully so of my guard goose, the guard
14:31goose stays.
14:33We'll find something else for her to guard.
14:36Maybe she and Lucy will strike up an unlikely friendship.
14:41One of the things that I thought was going to be a much harder decision than it's turned
14:47out to be, excuse me, not your turn yet, was what we were going to do about the goats.
14:53There were some cuts that absolutely had to be made, but I'd actually already thinned
14:58my goat herd pretty significantly and the only ones that were left were my kind of star
15:06hitters, if you will.
15:08Hi buddy, I know, we're right here.
15:10Oh shoot, but now my hand's dirty and now I have to go wash it again, but that's okay,
15:15I will, because this is worth it.
15:18And so as I started thinking about this, I was like, what if I could find a situation
15:21where I could help someone else get really, really well established with their new herd
15:27and then at a later date, come back and revisit those genetics.
15:32Like maybe I would take a couple of the goats back or get a couple of the babies from those
15:38goats at some point later on, should I choose to re-expand.
15:43And that's exactly what I was able to do.
15:44We found a new home for Jeffrey, the originator of a whole lot of our goat chaos, which made
15:49things so much simpler in and of itself.
15:58And then I found another really great home for four of my eight remaining star players.
16:05One thing I definitely didn't want to lose in this pregnancy was my daily routine of
16:09milking.
16:10The simple reality of milking goats versus milking cows is that this is a whole lot less
16:15physical.
16:16So as I was thinking about who to swap and what to do and all that stuff, I basically
16:21just was like, okay, who are my two calmest milkers?
16:23And that paired with how much I've simplified all of the rest of my daily chores, we're
16:27down to basically like a 25 minute morning routine.
16:32And even on my worst days, though, sometimes I've had to have a bucket to puke in right
16:36next to me.
16:37It's been totally manageable.
16:41Making decisions to cut or to shrink is never easy.
16:43We can get lost in our sunk cost bias, like we've already put so much time and energy
16:48and resources into this endeavor.
16:51And I will say that over the last several years, one thing I've gotten a lot better
16:55at is making less emotionally and more data driven decisions when it comes to things like
17:03this.
17:04Are we in danger?
17:06I think we should go in the house.
17:09Let's go in the house.
17:13I knew that as I was downsizing the farm and I wasn't able to be as physical in the wood
17:18shop and doing saw milling and mushroom forging and all the things that I was previously doing
17:24all the time, I needed to bring some of the joy that I find outside inside.
17:30And all of that led me to decide that I was in desperate need of a small, cute, cuddly
17:38indoor project of an animal.
17:40So this is my house bunny, Eugene, who also happens to be a fiber animal.
17:45This has helped me to grieve the loss of the alpacas a lot because I can take her fiber
17:52directly off her as I brush her or just pet her right now and use it immediately on all
17:59of the spinning wheels that my woodworking mentor Frank and I built together all those
18:03many moons ago.
18:04I was able to potty train her and now she and our insane lab Rigby are the most cute,
18:12unlikely, wonderful friends.
18:14And it has given me so much joy.
18:18I mean, look at this ridiculous little lump.
18:23I've wanted to be a mom my entire life.
18:27Everything that I've done on the farm from the very beginning has been aimed at trying
18:32to create the kind of life for my kids that I wish I'd been able to have and learning
18:36how to become the kind of human that hopefully will be able to raise a kid like me.
18:42If there's one thing that I hope that you get from watching my videos, it is a sense
18:48of hope, but I'd be lying if I just said that hope at this point feels a little dangerous
18:56and scary.
18:57We were so excited to tell you about our daughter before we lost our last pregnancy.
19:04But one thing we've tried really hard to focus on, not grieving what hasn't happened yet
19:10and celebrating good news as long as it is good.
19:15And some days I'm better at doing that than others.
19:17But in the vein of hope and gratitude and excitement about what's to come, there genuinely
19:23are so many exciting things coming just right around the corner.
19:27Calving season is about to start, so we're about to have a bunch of really, really cute
19:31calves, which also kicks off dairy season, and we all know how much I love butter.
19:35I finally found a usable mate for my tiny donkey, Bella, and so a baby donkey is in
19:41the future.
19:42It's almost spring, so the garden is about to absolutely explode again.
19:47I set all of my bee swarm traps pointing directly at our neighbor's apiary, so we're probably
19:52going to get some more free bees pretty quick here.
19:55There is new life and sunshine and good weather and green grass and good things literally
20:02everywhere you look.
20:03On days that I'm able to allow myself a little bit of hope for the baby, I'm so excited to
20:09see Adam be a dad.
20:11Actually, knowing his dad was a huge part of why I married him, knowing that he would
20:16be literally the world's best dad.
20:18And though it's been really bumpy working together, it has gotten so much better.
20:22I mean, we just hit 500,000 subscribers on the channel.
20:25Thank you all so much for being such a huge part of this journey.
20:28We have so many exciting videos coming down the pike about all the things that I just
20:32talked about, and I genuinely can't wait to share it with you.
20:36And so I hope you leave this video like I hope you leave every one of my videos, feeling
20:40challenged, inspired, and excited to get outside, to try something new that just might change
20:46your life for the better.
20:47Cheers!
20:48All right, little Eugenius, let's go hook you up to the spinning wheel.