Original subtitles

NARRATOR: On this episode of Life Below Zero,

Andy's springtime plans come crashing down.

ANDY: Fuckin-A man.

NARRATOR: An elusive creature puts the Hailstones on high alert.

AGNES: Look, right in front of you.

NARRATOR: Glenn's quest for fire gets choked.

NARRATOR: And Sue's dream for Kavik is buried under ice.

SUE: I cannot replace that part.

The hardware store is a hell of a long ways away.

AGNES: One, two, three. Go!

We're down here in Kotzebue.

It looks like it's going to be a good day for oogruk hunting.

One, two, three. Go!

One, two, three. Go.

Today, we'll be going out with my cousin Victor's boat

and he'll be driving us out there.

Ready?

NARRATOR: This time of year

the Hailstones turn their attention to hunting bearded seals, or oogruk,

Alaska's largest species of ice seal,

and an essential resource for the family.

Jump in, Jon, jump in.

(LAUGHS)

I know Chip really wants to be out here with us,

but he really can't because only the native people can do this hunt.

So, I've chosen my son Jon

and my oldest daughter Tinmiaq and they'll be joining.

Hopefully, they'll be oogruk out there, if we're lucky. (CHUCKLES)

Son, get the other one.

NARRATOR: Seal hunting is an Inupiat tradition

that has lasted for thousands of years,

but in order to regulate seal populations

hunting laws prohibit

non-natives from taking part in the harvest.

Okay, put that box of shotgun shells in.

It's gonna get splashed.

Put that thermos bottle down.

And make sure your strings are pulled in some for the anchor.

And put your life jacket on.

NARRATOR: Catching a seal would provide the Hailstones with meat and oil

that will help them survive the extreme cold of winter.

AGNES: When we render down the blubber

we use it as our oil when we dip our frozen foods or our dried foods in,

and that's usually a real delicacy,

and it gives us energy,

so pretty much everything goes with seal oil up here.

(AGNES SPEAKS)

(JON SPEAKS)

(AGNES SPEAKS)

(JON SPEAKS)

(AGNES SPEAKS)

It's right there.

-Right there! Right there! -Right there, it's still bubbling.

Next time, throw it, son, so it stick.

Right there, it's blood.

On that side.

It already sink?

Right around there. Yeah.

(JON SPEAKS)

You never let go of your harpoon, that's why.

NARRATOR: Once the seal is shot or punctured,

it must be pulled to the boat quickly,

or it will sink to the bottom.

Jon's failure to harpoon this one is a costly mistake.

-(JON SPEAKS) -(AGNES SPEAKS)

Straight down.

Aye yai yai yai yai.

That was a seal, though.

JON: It is quite a bit challenging with all the ice gone.

Usually, you'd get for sure shots or just

a whole bunch of oogruk are sleeping or relaxing in the sun.

But with all the ice gone, now we have to chase out some seals,

and hopefully shoot them, harpoon them,

and get them into the boat without sinking them.

We've done it before, we can do it again.

SUE: So, I am fighting for my way of life

and I have every reason to believe I will succeed.

But I might not. It's the roll of the dice.

You ready to get out there?

NARRATOR: For Sue Aikens, the spring season means that

Kavik River Camp will soon be open

to house scientists, pilots, and travellers passing through the tundra.

But a lack of running water could shut her down before camp even opens.

SUE: It's around the end of May and I haven't had running water

since the beginning of late September, early October.

People come here, stay with me

to check out the tundra.

Part of the services is having running water.

Water to do dishes, laundry. Water to clean yourself.

Now, you're just gonna straighten this line out.

Yeah, and then we'll pull it back that way.

Once we get it straightened out.

I have to have this filter,

so I can filter and run that water today.

Because that river could flood as early as tomorrow.

When that happens the water is silty

and I can't put it through my filters.

If I wait till it's silty,

I can have all the water in the world running down the river,

but it's useless to me and my guests.

So I've gotta get it now while it's clean and healthy.

Then I can get it in, filter it, treat it.

I need to clear all this snow so I can run a line,

from the river back to my camp.

NARRATOR: With approximately 10 acres of land

and a mile of waterline

still buried under five feet of snow,

an essential piece of the puzzle

has yet to be found.

My filter piece, it is somewhere under the ice.

Fuck me.

That part is essential.

Without it, I cannot hook up to the pump.

The importance of that piece, it's the first piece that goes into the water

and sucks the water into the pump,

the pump pushes it through the line, and voila, I have water in camp.

And I cannot replace that part.

'Cause the hardware store is hell of a long ways away.

The piece I need, the coupler,

is on the end of a long length.

I am gonna guess it's somewhere out here.

Otherwise, I've just got 10 million acres

to choose from.

GLENN: I expect, and I hope to die out here.

That's my plan.

Just not anytime soon.

Firewood is important out here.

I spend a lot of time cutting wood,

all through the year.

It's one of the bigger jobs I have to do.

And I don't have any other source of heat

other than a wood fire.

I use it for heating hot water.

And I have a fire going 24 hours a day

through the winter.

And in the spring and in the summer,

I still use a fire.

I couldn't live out here without a fire.

NARRATOR: A wilderness purist,

Glenn forgoes the use of power tools.

He sets out equipped with only an axe and his rifle

for protection from bears and wolves

that lurk in the forest.

GLENN: This looks like a good area to cut some trees.

There're enough dead trees in close in proximity

that I can build a pile right here.

This forest is all white spruce through here

and I only cut dead ones for firewood.

And I've depleted all the dead trees

within three or 400 yards in my camp,

so I have to come quite a ways now to get wood.

Looks like a good one to start on right here.

I spend a lot of time cutting firewood.

It's a big part of my life out here.

This is the only way I have to heat,

and it's the only way I have to cook,

it's the only way I have to get hot water.

The Arctic is an environment

where people could never live without fire.

That's why if I have a problem and can't cut firewood,

it can become a real issue.

Cutting trees with an axe is quite a bit of work.

But I like that it keeps me in shape.

There. (SIGHS)

A lot of people don't realise how much you can get done

with a simple hand tool

because they grew up in a world that was all mechanised

and they never learned how to use tools like this

or how to work like this.

One hazard of cutting trees with an axe

is cutting yourself with the axe.

And that's why I like having a good clean area

around where I'm working.

In the wintertime, when it's cold

I go through about a quart of wood every month.

And in the summer, I still need quite a lot of wood

just for cooking and heating water.

Oh, I broke my axe.

Damn.

I just cracked my axe handle.

It split right down lengthwise.

I'm gonna have to put a new handle on that.

And that will take a little while,

it takes some work.

But that's the kind of thing

you deal with all the time out here.

When things go wrong you just fix them up

and start working again.

ANDY: We do have time lengths on certain aspects of our lives

and we want to maximise that while we can

and then set ourselves up

to being in a different frame of mind

when we get a little bit older.

You know, living out here it's all about planning for the future,

and planning for the winter.

Summer is nothing, but preparing for winter.

My goal in the next day here

is to mill enough lumber up to build a greenhouse.

Let's just see what 20 feet from here is

towards the house.

I think I'm gonna build it about 20 feet wide

by 38 feet long.

Then I'll be stretching

a reinforced plastic over that.

Basically 80% of our yearly food

comes from our garden

so it's pretty essential for me

to get this green house built in the next day or two.

I'm a week-and-a-half to 2 weeks behind right now

and that's not making me feel real happy.

Our season is very short.

So, if I don't get these plants into the ground

in the next couple days

it's really gonna affect our harvest

at the end of the year.

Okay, let's just see if we're somewhat square here.

We're noticing the climate change is making

colder, wetter midsummers for us,

which really cuts in on our growing season.

So this greenhouse...

Is our response to climate change in this area

by producing, uh, more food in a controlled environment.

Damn.

First try.

I don't know how I did that.

We're getting close to the point of actually

standing up and framing the greenhouse.

We're gonna stand up the centrepiece first

and brace it and then we'll stand up the other wall.

I've got all my pieces cut.

We'll found out if I measured right (CHUCKLES)

in a little while.

Here comes the rain.

Right now, the race against time

is to try and get as much done

before the storm kicks us inside.

And I'm hoping we can get about another

half an hour's worth of work in

before we're chased inside.

KATE: Andy has got the work ethic of an ant.

He never stops. He never gives up.

He can work, and work, and work, and work, and work

until he just collapses.

I admire that.

-Okay. -So I just drop it, right?

Whoa!

Something is just really fucked up here.

Where's that long tape measure?

Let's cross chain this stupid thing here.

See what the fuck's going on.

In that corner.

NARRATOR: One small error in measuring the foundation

could cost them a day's work.

I looked down at these strings and they just don't look like

they're running square.

You know, according to this level here

it's showing it's out like

eight inches at least.

Right here, on this peg here.

Outside, we're measuring outside corners

on all of these.

This one's two inches short.

It's a fuckin foot. That's what it is.

All right, I'm done for the night.

Fuck this. I'm fed up with it.

GLENN: I'm a little less dependent on culture

than your average person today

and I'm a little more connected to nature.

I was out cutting wood tonight and I broke my axe handle.

You just have to know how to fix it

and you just have to have a few tools,

you have to have a new handle, which I've got.

I'm just gonna saw it off.

Now I have to put a new handle on this head.

I enjoy maintaining my own tools out here.

It's nice to feel independent.

When you're using a tool that you put together yourself,

you know, you have a different relationship to it,

you feel more connected to it

than one you bought that was already assembled.

The nearest place where I can get any supplies

is down in Fairbanks a couple of hundred miles south of here.

So I have to plan carefully

and make sure when I go to Fairbanks,

I get everything I need

because I sometimes stay out here

for very long periods of time.

I often ask people,

"What's the longest you've ever been

without seeing anybody?"

And a lot of people tell me about 24 hours.

(LAUGHS)

Which I find interesting.

This winter I went four-and-a-half months

without seeing anybody,

but there aren't a whole lot of people

that want to live the way I want to live out here.

I'm not anti-social.

I'm just anti-cultural.

I don't care for the way of life

down in modern society so I choose to live out here.

Okay, my axe is already to go, that's my favourite axe,

and I got it all tuned up just the way I like it,

I'm gonna go back out and chop some more wood.

CHIP: The fact is that we are always looking for fresher foods

and this is the beginning of all the seal hunting.

The summer is when we come up with huge surpluses of food

to carry us through winter.

AGNES: Keep your eyes open.

Oh, look right there oogruk.

-Jon, can you shoot forward? -(GUNSHOT FIRED)

Oh.

-JON: Oogruk are pretty smart. -AGNES: Jon...

They help each other out, every time we catch onto one

a couple more pop out nearby and get us a little confused.

NARRATOR: Seal oil and meat

are essential for the Hailstones

to survive the extreme cold winter.

An adult oogruk can dive up to 300 feet

and hold its breath for four minutes at a time,

making them difficult to catch.

(AGNES SPEAKS)

There?

AGNES: Good, go ahead.

(GUNSHOT FIRED)

(AGNES SPEAKS)

Come on, baby, come on, pop up!

Oh, Jon!

-JON: There you go, Ting. There you go, Ting. -(AGNES SPEAKS)

(JON SPEAKS)

I've been trying to get them to stay down to where they're panicking

and have to get them up and stay up.

But they've been getting some good breaths,

and diving as far as they can,

staying as long as they can down,

and it's just been quite a chase.

Quite a chase.

(AGNES SPEAKS)

-Jon! -(GUNSHOT FIRED)

(JON SPEAKS)

(AGNES SPEAKS)

Watch those bubbles.

It's this one, the one that's right here.

Right here, it dived from right here.

(AGNES SPEAKS)

(GUNSHOT FIRED)

-AGNES: Harpoon, harpoon! -Harpoon.

Hold it, hold it. You got it, son.

Right there, right there.

(JON SPEAKS)

NARRATOR: A ringed seal is much smaller than an oogruk,

but it will still provide the Hailstones

with five gallons of oil that will last for months.

One, two, three, go!

(GRUNTS)

(AGNES WHOOPS)

JON: Let's wrap it up and go get an oogruk...

I don't know how our oogruk turned into a seal,

but that was pretty cool.

We started out chasing an oogruk

it was a pretty nice size one,

we got pretty close up to it, but, um...

It got a couple of good deep breaths

and swam as far as it can,

and gave us the slip, and we caught onto this one.

(AGNES SPEAKS)

Yep.

AGNES: Yay!

Right on!

JON: Right on. Right on. AGNES: A good day!

SUE: For the last 10 years,

I've been an employee of a company.

Now, in order to keep my life style

I purchased the place and I have a vision for it.

I'm the owner now. First year, first year counts.

If I don't do well this season I may not be here next season.

If I don't find this part,

I mean, that means I can't get water to camp.

If I can't get water to camp, guess what, my guest don't get water.

That affects my whole business.

If I don't have guests, I don't have revenue.

Wait a minute.

(CLANGS)

That's a good sound. That's metal.

Yes!

Let's hope, let's hope.

Whoo-hoo!

There it is.

Right there.

Yes!

I'm not going to dig out the rest of the line,

I'm just gonna take the end off,

and put it on the new hose.

I started this up close to the river.

This attaches to the pump and gets pushed out

up the line to camp.

RICK: Go. Push, push, push.

If you wanna get the pump going,

I'll go up here to the tank.

-Let me know when you say it's coming up the line... -All right.

And then I'll let you know when it arrives.

If it doesn't, then we've got a break somewhere in the line.

-RICK: Okay. -So, all right, buddy.

All right, I'm set.

Hey, Rick, you gotta copy?

Yes, I do.

(SUE SPEAKS)

What we're looking for

(WHISPERS) is the sound of water

coming through here.

Come on, bitch.

(MOTOR REVVING)

Yep, there's a noise.

(MOTOR STOPS)

No, no, no.

RICK: You got it yet?

No, I can hear it trying, though.

(MOTOR SPUTTERS)

It's on its way.

And there you go.

That's the first water in Kavik in nine months.

I got it, buddy.

You're good then?

SUE: I'm always good. Sometimes, I'm even better.

When people come here,

then they may buy a meal or a shower.

I have to guarantee that they have nice clean

melted snow glacier water.

What this means to me is

first hot shower in nine months.

First load of laundry in nine months.

Sweet!

Look at that, look at that.

Oh, my hair is even smiling. Yay!

It's a big deal.

GLENN: I value independence, obviously,

and I might be more concerned with it

than most people are

'cause I really like to do things on my own.

NARRATOR: Living in the isolated wilderness

firewood is Glenn's only source of heat and fuel.

Without it, he wouldn't survive.

GLENN: I remember when I first came out here

nine years ago, I had a watch and it broke.

And I thought, "Damn, my watch broke.

"That's gonna be a problem."

And about two or three weeks later,

I said to myself, "I'm so glad that watch broke."

And I never used a watch again.

I think about time very differently out here

than people think about it

down in civilisation, you know...

It's, uh...

The sun just goes around in a circle in the summer.

The moon goes around in a circle in the winter,

those are the timekeepers out here.

The changes of the season, that's my calendar.

The summer out here is just like when I was a kid,

you know, when you're little.

And summer just stretches on for a long time.

That's the way it is out here.

It's a whole different sensation

that goes on in your head.

A whole different experience of time.

That's the wood I'm gonna use

for heating my camp, cooking my food...

Heating my water to take a bath,

and do my laundry.

That's my fuel out here.

Out here you do what nature requires.

Nobody tells you

you gotta get up and go to work today

so you can pay your heating bill.

Out here you realise you need wood

'cause it's getting cold.

And you haven't got enough to keep the fire going.

That's what motivates you out here,

is what actually has to be done for you,

not what somebody else needs you to do for them.

Living out here keeps you in shape

and I enjoy that.

I've had a lot of people tell me

that they would love to live out here,

but I don't think many of them

would stay long if they really did it.

Physically, living out here is damn hard work.

But psychologically, it's hell of a lot better

than the way people have to live

down in civilisation today.

ANDY: We don't have to chase the all mighty dollar living out here.

That's not our focus in life at all.

Our focus is to have a really high quality of life,

and live the way we want to live.

I'm feeling pretty good.

I think everything's gonna start coming together now.

Got a good night sleep.

Reset my foundation this morning.

I think we're going to start cranking on it now.

After we get this secured,

the next step is gonna be to get the side walls framed up,

and cut the rafters in.

That's really gonna tie everything together.

(ENGINE REVVING)

There's really no hard part.

It's just all in the hoping

that nothing slips and moves on you.

He just had some time to think about it,

change a few things.

If you took a tour of our property,

and you can see all the buildings,

and all the structures

that have gone up from dishes to windmills to showers.

I don't think one has gone completely smooth. (CHUCKLES)

ANDY: This is the main hard part to get done.

Kate doesn't have the strength to lift up these heavy beams,

but we were able to get it started with the bulldozer

and then use leverage to push it up

a little bit at a time.

I'm rocking now.

Or I should say, we're rocking now.

-What? -Not this right here.

Just pull it tight like that.

Oh! Fuckin-A man!

(SIGHS)

That really fucking pisses me off.

-I didn't do that. -Yeah, you did.

You pulled on the fucking string too hard.

KATE: I never even had my hand on the string.

You're the one that tugged the string.

-Okay. -You said, "Pull it tight like this" and you yanked it.

-So don't look at me! -Okay.

(ANDY LAUGHS)

I wonder how many more fucking things

we can do to fuck this whole project up.

You gotta be fucking kidding me, man.

Why do it once when you can do it four fucking times?

Fucked up fucking project I ever worked on around here.

This whole fucking thing

is turning into a big fucking quagmire.

GLENN: I'd rather die up on one of these mountains if I had to.

But I'm not planning to.

This is the best way of life for me to live

and I'm going to do it as long as I can.

NARRATOR: A stockpile of wood

means that Glenn can afford a luxury

he doesn't have often.

The ability to do laundry.

Now, when I'm down in Fairbanks

I do my laundry at the Laundromat,

and I never get excited about going to the Laundromat.

But I really enjoy doing laundry out here.

I got a great view.

The birds are singing.

I can't think of a better way to spend the afternoon.

My philosophy is keep your technology simple,

things won't go wrong.

There's not much that can go wrong

with this washing machine right here.

I really don't like to do useless exercise

where you just running around,

like a hamster in one of those little wheels

they got in the hamster cage.

I like to get my exercise doing useful jobs.

Step two, put it through the old ringer.

This ringer here used to be my mom's.

She brought this 50 years ago.

How many washing machines that were brought today will be running in 50 years?

This ringer does have limitations.

Down around 30 below, it starts to freeze.

Thirty below is about the limit

for doing laundry out here.

Okay, all that's left is to hang it up.

Laundry's all done, probably be dry by tonight.

If I was in town I'd still be on the road

headed to the Laundromat.

SUE: Well, it's not that I don't want to look you in the eye,

I can't afford to look you in the eye.

I watch my horizon endlessly.

The only warning I get is paying attention.

NARRATOR: With the opening of camp approaching,

Sue is expecting a shipment of 5,000 pounds of food

to feed her guests.

(BOB SPEAKS)

Hey, buddy, how are you doing?

(BOB SPEAKS)

Doing good. It is... Yeah, we don't have any wind down here.

It's calm as anything.

You got about a mile of clean runway going.

BOB: Okay.

Bob is shuttling our food out of Prudhoe Bay.

5,000 pounds is gonna get us through September,

but it's for all the hunters, and bird people,

everybody that comes to the camp,

so we have something to eat.

All right, buddy, I will be out there in just a jiffy.

BOB: Okay.

Time to get some groceries.

All right, time to unload.

SUE: This is the first load of goods

that I've been able to get in this year.

You know, when I'm here for about the nine or 10 months by myself,

I eat game meat.

Grocery store is too far away. I have to supply myself.

But when people are here it would be illegal

for me to feed them game meat.

That's hunting for profit and that's against the law.

So I have to bring in store-bought food.

And it cost me well over three bucks a pound

to get up here.

It cost me 70 bucks an hour

plus 5% of the total

to get somebody to shop for it,

so a gallon of milk by the time I get it here

is about 50 bucks.

And it's a couple of 100 bucks a day to keep it cold.

So, by the time I pour it for you it's about 25 bucks a glass.

But you can't run a business or live here by mistake.

It's a conscious choice.

This area here is dry storage.

I try to project how many people do I think

I'm gonna get.

What do I think they're going to eat?

It's a guessing game.

But I try to be as accurate as I can...

...and then I order it from town.

I can tell you damn near everything that I ordered

didn't come in right, but...

All right, the rest of that goes in the dry.

I gotta call him and let him know that,

yeah, there should be a ton more in the freeze.

When you've only got 550 pounds of 5,000,

I've got a lot missing.

It's $1,000 or $2,000 worth of meat.

Steaks, chicken, ribs, burger, bacon,

you know, nobody wants to lose all that stuff.

And sometimes things happen, but people spend a good penny,

and maybe save their whole lives for one trip up here.

So, it's up to me to give them

the most I possibly can for their trip.

High quality, high fun.

When I get less than that, I'm not happy.

So, I need to verify that it's there.

Hopefully, there is more freeze over there.

(BOB SPEAKS)

Hey, buddy, are you there?

(BOB SPEAKS)

SUE: Yeah, you were saying that you thought you brought all the freeze and chill?

Oh, okay, I just wanted to make sure

'cause I thought you said you'd brought it all,

and I was going to say, "Holy cow, I'm missing a lot of stuff."

Well, all right buddy, I sure appreciate it,

and you sure fly safe, and I'll see you when you land.

Cool. Yeah, he had said that he brought it all out.

But when he got back there they made another delivery

and there's four more coolers coming soon.

Might be dead?

The compression is not coming on at all, Sue.

-Yeah. -SUE: Dead?

-Dead. -Awesome.

-That is so cool. -RICKY: Yeah.

SUE: Well, welcome to the world of being an owner.

RICK: Yeah.

You know, when I'm ordering, I know here.

How much space do I have,

how many mouths do I gotta feed, what can I fit in,

at what kind of turn around

on the products so that they still at top quality.

And so I ordered in to fill all my different fridges,

but I plugged it in and...

This little guy has to go back to town, he's dead.

Well, I have to pay somebody $70 an hour to shop for it,

and then 10% of that bill,

and then another $700 to come in.

Here we go.

So a 1960's fridge is gonna end up costing me

probably $3,000.

But I don't live my life dwelling on the negative.

I look for the next challenge and this thing is a behemoth

with how much it uses power.

Here's a chance for me to be more efficient.

I will ring up a more eco-friendly piece of equipment.

It's had a happy life, you know,

get it out the door, and get a new one in.

So when the plane comes in,

for me to run a business, having a bunch of people in and out,

I gotta have another working fridge.

(BOB SPEAKS)

I mean, you can't plan for everything.

But that's the wonderful life of being an owner

and just the complication

of choosing to live in the Arctic,

and it's a choice.

You know, I came here fully knowing that it's a son of a gun

to try to get anything out here.

And it's just another day in the park, Kaczynski.

(LAUGHS)

AGNES: Sometimes we don't always have money

to go to the store.

So we pretty much rely on

mostly subsistence living out here.

This is the seal we just got back with

from our seal hunt.

It takes two, three seals to make up for the oogruk,

but this is a good start.

We can just go on ahead and start taking it apart.

NARRATOR: The process of harvesting seal meat and oil

has been perfected over centuries

and passed down to Agnes from her ancestors.

AGNES: You wanna try and keep the meat

with the meat, and keep the oil with the oil.

When you start to mix the meat with the blubber

it always gets kind of rancid a little too quickly

so you've gotta try and do it nice and slowly, and careful.

Now that we're done cutting up all the blubber,

and making little tiny strips like this,

all we do is put this in the porch.

That way every time we walk around the house,

the bucket will shake

and it'll let the bubbles rise up

and we have to stir it everyday.

And by the next couple of days

it should be from blubber to oil.

And then, we'll be able to put the black meats

that are dried into the bucket of oil

and then that would preserve it

throughout the summer.

I guess I took most of the blubber off.

All I have to do now is wash it up, soak it

so all the blood and the yellow oils

come off of it.

Then we'll stretch it and then I'll start tanning it

because we're wanting to make a vest.

We were wanting to make it out of ringed seal

so here's our ringed seal.

A few ribs from the seal and the black meat

that I want to hang until, like, tomorrow

when it dries up a little bit more

and then after that I'll strip it.

The first step is to have this piece dry up.

And by tomorrow, say afternoon,

it should be ready.

I'm now done with my seal hunting adventure.

One big bloody mess.

The mess of success.

ANDY: The reason we live out here

is 'cause we don't have people telling us how to do things.

And that's what freedom brings you.

KATE: Just as important as living out here

and living off the grid, we also live off the code.

Come on up.

The written code of cities, and towns, and hamlets.

And, there are no permits to be had.

There are no building codes. We can build what we want.

Don't have to ask anyone's permission to do anything.

You live by your own dream

and I think that's the most amazing way to live.

May not be the easiest way to live,

but, boy, it's the freest way to live.

ANDY: (CHUCKLES) God, that was stupid.

KATE: Well, it wasn't that hard to fix.

ANDY: No, just made me feel like a real moron.

It's gonna be this one.

ANDY: It's a little bit different than the way

most people would build a greenhouse.

Most people go very light framing,

very light structures.

But I'm trying to build this greenhouse very stout

because I plan on this lasting many, many years for me.

-Yay! -The worst is over.

The hard part.

A little bit of problems pulling one wall up,

but it all came together good.

And so we got her all framed up

and ready to stretch some plastic on it,

and throw the plants in,

and start growing our winter food source.

Just in the final stages here.

Everything is looking really good.

There you go, now pull it down until it hits the very bottom.

This material probably would have cost

well over $1,000 if I was to go out and buy it.

This whole greenhouse is probably only gonna cost me

about $25 in gas and $120 in plastic.

So, for $150, I'm gonna get a 20 by 30-foot greenhouse.

You can't do that doing it any other way.

We can build it anyway we design it in our heads.

We have the freedom and independence here

to do things anyway we want.

And that's why we like it here.

All right!

KATE: It's 100 degrees in the back of the cabin right now.

ANDY: Sounds like a good time to go into a hot greenhouse

and start planting to me.

In the back if my mind I'm always thinking I'm getting older,

I don't have a lot of years left of this hard work in me,

and so when I'm 70,

I'm not gonna be able to go out and do the things I can even do now.

So we're thinking and planning

on how we can set our life up here

so that we can live the rest of our lives,

basically, live to be old people out here

and still be able to do the things we need to do.

I got a lot of satisfaction out of building this.

I felt really good when I pounded that last nail in.

And then every time I walk in here,

I'm gonna remember every log that I cut.

It'll remind me of all the goofy things

that happened while we were building it.

Most of the times

it's all about the trials and tribulations,

and screw-ups, and close calls,

and near death experiences.

Those are the exciting things to talk about

so if you don't have that in your life,

you're not living much, you know.

This is one of the most important projects of the summer.

It's truly, the most wonderful miracle in life

is to watch something grow, and that you helped.

It means more to me than I can possibly put into words.

(ANDY SIGHS)

KATE: Stop now!

(ANDY EXCLAIMING)