by Mister January 2017, James “Busvlogger” Moore

Some of my favorite things to make videos about are sharing our family traditions and going behind the proverbial ‘curtain’ to see how creative people are building great lives. After almost seven years, making one or two videos a week, it’s hard to pick, but here goes nothin’!

 

1.Food tour in a VW Bus

So, the VW Bus is sorta my thing. (‘BUS’vlogger)  When I found out about a touring company that did farm, food and beverage tours in a VW Bus, I may have gotten too excited. I got to feature them for onlyinark.com. To top it off, we got to invite friends to go along for the ride. Not a bad gig! 

2. My old college stomping grounds:

Making sponsored posts for onlyinark.com affords me the opportunity to visit a lot of amazing people and places. In this case, it was an excuse to revisit my home away from home; Walnut Ridge. It’s the only place in Arkansas that the Beatles ever ‘set foot’. Imagine! https://youtu.be/LpUdq7FX5ZI
 

3. Pumpkin Chili:

Cooking videos require a lot of extra editing; thinking like an editor and host while trying not to screw up your family’s supper is a lot to juggle. This recipe has become such a tradition for us that I had to share it with our viewers. Pumpkin Chili is unique in that it has just as much cinnamon as it does chili powder. Make a sour cream/grated cheddar/chili landing pad out of a cornbread waffle and dinner is served! Even the kids love it, so that makes it all the better. https://youtu.be/Bf9wFE3beFE

 

4. Exploring The Goonies filming locations:

The movie The Goonies is, by far, one of my childhood favorites. While on a road trip this summer, we passed through Astoria, Oregon and visited most of the iconic locations. The one that captured my imagination the most was the spot where the Fratelli’s Hideout was located. The guy that played ‘Chunk’ shared it on Twitter, I might have geeked out a little.  https://youtu.be/FQrTVICKULQ
 

5. Princess Unicorn Rainbow Cupcakes:

This little gem turns five years old in March! With over 1.3 million views, this video is my most successful. My four year old daughter named it, I wish I could claim that I was being intentional; it has all the right buzzwords to make Google fall in love. These rainbow cupcakes are another example of how you never know what the internet will take off and run with. Fun Fact: I wasn’t making ad revenue back when this video was really going crazy. At a penny or two a view, I could’ve been a thousandaire!  https://youtu.be/yzYE9xxUIeA

by Mister January 2017, James “Busvlogger” Moore

Okay, nobody calls me “Arkansas’ Youtuber”, except the precedent has been set on the Arkansas Women Blogger’s site… right here… because I wrote it just now.

Being a stay-at-home dad / video blogger / homestead farmer comes with a lot of diverse daily experiences. Some are glamorous, like the time I was in Anaheim, California having dinner with a Property Brother and the next day nearly (literally) rubbing elbows with Katie Couric. Others are less spectacular. Like that whole series of videos I made chasing our goat wildly round and round from the neighbor’s, only to have her gently lope back into her pen anticlimactically. (It happened so often that I made an intro for the video series.)

Most days, Jamie leaves for work and I get the kids up and ready for school; always insisting to our six year old twins that “I understand that you’ve already brushed your hair, but you don’t require a comb-over like Grandad!”

Once I’ve driven them to school, I have a slow, quiet breakfast with a black, no froo froo, no nonsense coffee.

I take the house pig out on her leash to answer the call of nature and let her eat, uninterrupted in the kitchen, while I take our yellow lab and German shepherd/Cujo mix out to sniff every inch of the yard.

At this point the pig has taken in water, so she needs to make water; one more trip outside before she retires to nap in our bed for most of the day. The dogs “help” me feed the two dairy goats, the five chickens and the two garden ducks. (long story)

We all go back in. Often I’ll put something out to defrost or get something into the crock pot for supper. I email folks about ideas I have for next month’s onlyinark.com video or I’m trying madly to convince someone that I’d be a perfect judge at the Squirrel Cookoff.

I can’t fold clothes or wash dishes without music, so the house is then filled with French electro pop or Sinatra crooning the standards. (I’m complicated)

Usually, shooting a video takes 5 to 15 minutes and editing takes about three hours. So a good chunk of my time is spent editing, then rendering, then uploading, then getting the music copyright cleared, then crafting the perfect thumbnail for people to see and click, then the title, description and then the really technical stuff.

I usually remember to eat lunch around 1:30. So I make myself leave my home office and eat the leftovers that the kids turned their noses up at the night before. Because I’m over forty (I know, shocking) and because I’ll be shuttling kids until supper. I may get a nap, unless the dogs are getting into something or her highness: Princess-Naps-All-Day decides that her curly tail wants to go outside again.

I tuck everyone back into their kennels and put real pants on, for the first time that day, to go get the kids from school. I have the route and the timing orchestrated perfectly. No string of school buses hold me up and I get to the school just as the last poor sucker to wait in the pick-up line pulls away; no duty teacher is put out with me and I don’t have to wait in line. I’m once again the king of dads, a professional, if you will!

Off to the allergist, scouts, dance, church, soccer practice; whatever the afternoon demands. Then back home to check everyone’s backpacks and get homework and supper underway. Jamie gets home from work, we eat, baths, much pleading and bed… for the kids. It’s Jamie and my special time to watch a show and talk; so fifteen minutes later, we’re both asleep on the couch, of course.

By Mister January 2017, James “Busvlogger” Moore

So I switched places with my wife to become the stay-at-home parent right as The Great Recession dropped. (I think that’s what we’re calling it now.) Our income was halved just as we were taking on new college debt; as Jamie started nursing school.

It was a sobering and uncertain time. My aspirations to try my hand at homestead farming, as a hobby, suddenly felt more like a practical survival strategy. Now, we were never truly destitute; we could eat and stay warm. But it was a wake-up call that really stretched us and made us more intentional.

Right about that time, I started making YouTube videos regularly. My brand, for the most part, has been all about crafting your best life; usually through the themes of food, farm, home and travel. This month’s theme ‘Step by Step’ resonates with me deeply. Maybe you’ve heard that phrase: “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”

My grandmother was poor and young during the Great Depression. (I know, I’m going off on a tangent, but I’ll bring you back.) I remember how grocery shopping with her, for a handful of items, took for-ev-er! She would look at all of the cottage cheese offerings at the store and ‘math’ it to death between the containers’ weights and prices. As a kid of the eighties, a decade of excess, it seemed like insanity!

A few days later, when the cottage cheese had been eaten, the container was washed with the same diligence that was afforded her good Pyrex. In the back room, above the whirring deep freeze, the container was nested with others like it; ghosts of cottage cheeses past. Thinking back, I’m sure the stack of cottage cheese cups were three feet high, at least. Madness! “You never know when you’ll need them.”, she’d say. If she ever sent us home with left-overs, off to the back room she went. A cottage cheese container fit the bill for her cole slaw perfectly.

Fast forward thirty years. Grandma is gone, but her house isn’t. It’s empty, except for storage. It shares a driveway with ours. We’re about to build a barn. Actually, it’ll be a party barn. There’ll be a kitchenette in the corner and a sitting area with big windows facing both the pond and a gorgeous, huge white oak tree. We want to be prepared when our kids are teenagers and need a place to hang out with friends. Okay, it’s really so I can keep an eye on them and know what boys are trouble! (envision me sharpening a knife, giving some boy the stink-eye, here)

Of course, I’m going to make a video series about the barn raising. I’ve gotten a sponsor for one video and am looking for more. I’ll have help for the new concrete slab and I’m hiring a company to put up the posts and roof. The siding, I’ve salvaged from a beautiful old oak barn; it’s piled next to the building site. I’ve also collected the kitchen cabinets and even a  stove top. Through the years I’ve been stacking up some very cool old windows and doors. I didn’t exactly know what they would be for, but… you never know when you’ll need them. They’re in the empty old house across the driveway, next to Grandma’s cottage cheese cups.

Check out some of my local YouTube videos:

Arkansas – A Love Letter to the Natural State