2023 Thoughts, 2024 Hopes!

Colonel’s Blog, Earthdate 29 December 2023…

Hey Y’all!

Good afternoon and happy Fast-Jet Friday! The fast jet today is the Mighty-Mighty F-15E. The two pics are both from the 492nd Fighter Squadron, RAF Lakenheath, flying low in Wales earlier this month. Our F-15E pilot, Hannah “HAIL”, is doing very well and enjoying her new-found voice as a flight-lead. It’s amazing how quickly you go from the “new-guy” to “one of the gang” in a fighter squadron. Mind you, it doesn’t feel quick when you’re the new-guy! We awoke to a dusting of snow this morning and the temps will stay in the 30s today. The cooling trend will continue over the next couple of weeks as the lows dip into the 20s. The animals are all doing very well today with nothing significant to report. We offer a chance to meet most all of the animals in the YouTube video we posted this morning. I’ll leave a link below. We’ve been trying to relax a bit during the holidays but find ourselves busily filming and editing videos. We did have a chance to get started chipping some branches from downed trees to make mulch. I think if we were to chip all of the downed branches on the property, we’d make another mountain! We’re making plans for drying off our milk cow, Happy. The main resource we use for our milk cows recommends allowing the cow to be dry for 50-69 days prior to her calving due date. For Happy, that means we should dry her off sometime during the last two weeks of January. We will probably lean more toward the 69 day range as this is the first time for all of us. Our plan is to start on the 15th. We will withhold her grain and milk her out completely. The 16th, we won’t milk her or give her grain. The 17th, we will milk her out completely while withholding grain. That will be the last milking until after she has her calf. We will continue to withhold grain for a week to 10 days, until we see her udder start to decrease in size and become flabby. We’re hoping that if we go into it with a plan, all will work well and we won’t have to deal with any issues.

2023 is winding down! A moment of reflection on what 2023 held for Air2Ground Farms. We continued our focus on making amazing food for ourselves, family, friends, and local community. Quick estimates: 8,500 pounds of pork, 2,000 pounds of beef, 1,500 pounds of chicken, 900 pounds of lamb, 750 dozen eggs, and 1,200 gallons of milk. We enjoyed our first full market season and were able to be there every Saturday from the 1st of April until the market ended at the end of October. We met amazing people and continue to enjoy those relationships and look forward to many years of friendship. We started posting a video or two to YouTube in February and continued that for a few months. By early summer, we floundered a bit and weren’t sure if we wanted to continue. Through much reflection, we decided to focus on video podcasts and posted our trailer in July. We’ve thoroughly enjoyed that format and are having so much fun that we continue to post. That experience led us to decide to revisit the farming focused videos and we’ve added a couple recently. I think the low point of the year for the farm was the tragic loss of one of our dairy cows. We continue to learn, both on the farm and social media! Looking at 2024, we will make a couple of adjustments. We are going to do more chickens this year and will try to double the chicken we have for sale. We also added to our ewe flock this fall and changed our management practice which will probably triple the lamb we produce. We have a decision to make concerning milk production. If we continue with only one milk cow, we won’t have much milk for sale. So, we have to decide if we want milk to be part of the ‘farm’ or ‘stead’ of our farmstead. On the social media front, we've committed to a Monday podcast discussing a question or comment from a viewer, a Thursday full-length podcast continuing the focus on Food. Freedom. Farming., and a Friday farm video. We plan to continue that pace for at least half the year and will reevaluate in June. Shelley and I thank you for your love and support through 2023 and look forward to an amazing 2024 with you!

Dust’er Mud Podcast Episode 26, we discuss some things we do instead of what ‘THEY’ say we should…making us ‘INSTEADers!’ Check it out! (Shelley is designing us all a T-Shirt as I type). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnQt-u8ZKjg&t=810s

Come meet our animals and join us for milking as we give you an up-close FULL farm tour during our morning chores this week! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3RkfzeMRB0

Cheers!

Psycho & Shelley