Corporate Munchausen

Colonel’s Blog, Earthdate 6 April 2023…

Hey Y’all!

Happy day before Friday! There was thick frost on the ground this morning. Good grief. It was 37 degrees and you can see in the first pic, we were back in our lined coveralls. A couple more mornings of this and then I think we’re done. The hogs are great and are almost ready to go to the processor, 11 days remaining on the farm. We are calculating the amount of feed required to get them through their time here so that we have enough but not too much left over. The other animals are also good. The beef chickens are doing well and the prolapse crew will rejoin the flock today. The layer chicks are also good. As soon as I published the blog yesterday, we heard peeping from the incubators and by this morning, we have 9 new layer chicks. One thing to mention is that the chicks we are hatching on farm will be a mix of hens and roosters. It should be about a 50/50 mix. We will grow them to about 12 weeks and it will be obvious at that time which ones are roosters. We need a mix of about one rooster to every 15-20 hens, so we might keep one per batch but most of the roos will be processed as food. They aren’t as big and meaty as the ‘beef chickens’ but are food nonetheless. The beef cows are doing really well. The second and third pics are our herd sire. He doesn’t have a name, just “the bull.” Maybe we should name him? Thoughts? Suggestions? The last pic is the calf we may keep intact to replace the bull in a couple of years. He is looking good and has a really calm disposition. The grass is almost ready for them to start grazing! We plan to give them large paddocks and still give them a bit of hay. That should keep them from overgrazing the new growth and keep roughage in their guts to slow down their digestive system. Yesterday, we ended up making a couple of trips to town and didn’t get much else done on the farm. Today we are going to do a big chicken move. The beef chickens and first batch of layer chicks are going outside, freeing up a brooder for the newly hatched layer chicks. We were planning the move for this weekend but decided to move it up a couple of days. Flexibility is the key to Air Power, and farming, it would seem.

Shelley and I are especially enjoying our freedom today, nothing happened, just appreciate where we are and what we’re doing. It seems like the longer we’re doing this lifestyle, the more we are able to free ourselves from unspoken bondages. I’m thinking of the pandemic shutdowns again. This time I'm thinking of the mandatory dress codes (hide your face/breath from public) and limits on what you could purchase for your family. We commented this morning that we are able to go longer and longer periods without going to the grocery store, and when we do go, we are buying less and less. It’s truly a feeling of freedom. Our mentality is shifting from ‘freedom to choose which store we must frequent to feed ourselves so we can stay alive’ to ‘freedom from needing corporations to stay alive.’ As I write this, my attention was diverted to a letter on the desk next to me that we received from Compassion International asking for assistance in providing food for families caught in the “worst global food crisis in 70 years.” They are assisting families with training and resources in order to “help families build self-sufficient, food-secure futures where they can provide for themselves, even in difficult times.” What an appropriate way of describing what Shelley and I are doing for our family. We want to be self-sufficient. We want food security. We want both of those even in a future plagued with difficult times.

I’ll throw out Shelley’s thoughts after the blog yesterday as more food for thought. She described the situation as “Corporate Munchausen syndrome by proxy” or newly renamed “Factitious disorder imposed on another.” According to the National Library of Medicine, this is where a child’s caretaker either makes up false symptoms or causes real symptoms to make it look like the child is sick. Shelley’s assertion is that corporations are making products that are responsible for humans getting sick and the same corporations are selling the medicines to make humans survive the sickening products—making money off of the humans on both occasions. This was the basis of my food for thought comment yesterday, but she was able to take my comment and describe the situation more thoroughly. Continuing the look at only Bayer. As I mentioned yesterday, they own Roundup, an herbicide with glyphosate as the active ingredient. The International Agency for Research on Cancer regards it as a group 2A (probable) carcinogen. The US Environmental Protection Agency has set maximum daily exposure limits due to its carcinogenic risks. Multiple lawsuits are settled and ongoing regarding the carcinogenic nature of Roundup. Bayer also makes at least 5 different cancer treatment drugs. They make the product causing cancer and the products to treat cancer. You decide...Corporate Munchausen?

We're going to publish a couple of YouTubes in the next few days about the pork processing and moving the beef chickens onto pasture. In the meantime, check out our other videos and be sure to subscribe to our channel and turn on notifications so you will know when our new videos are up. https://www.youtube.com/@air2groundfarms/

Local Farm Report for 5 April 2023:

Harvest:

28 Chicken eggs

13 Duck eggs

1 Goose egg

4 3/4 Gallons of milk

Sales:

3 Gallons of milk

4 Dozen chicken eggs

2 Dozen duck eggs

Cheers! Psycho & Shelley