FARMER FAIL!!

Colonel’s Blog, Earthdate 29 March 2024…

Hey Y’all!

Good morning and happy Fast-Jet Friday from Air2Ground Farms! The fast jet today is the Mighty-Mighty F-15E Strike Eagle flying low in Wales this week. These photos made me think, it’s amazing the different ways clouds form. One way is from high-G turns which create such a low pressure situation on the top of the wings that clouds form as the moisture is pulled out of the air when the humidity is high, like low-level flying in Wales. Another way occurs as clouds form when water vapor from the exhaust of an aircraft engine condenses into ice crystals in the upper atmosphere. This happens because jet engines emit water vapor and other gases as part of the combustion process. When this hot, humid air meets the colder air at high altitudes, the water vapor condenses into tiny water droplets or ice crystals, forming a visible cloud. Likewise, in very cold weather, you can see the exhaust from your vehicle, or even from your mouth, form tiny little clouds. Sometimes, clouds form right here around us, and we call it fog. So very interesting! Overall, the animals on the farm are doing well. Happy is still pregnant and very big! The beef cows are looking really good coming out of winter. The hay we bought this year really did them well and we already committed to buy next year’s from the same folks this summer. We’ve got a couple weeks more and are anxiously awaiting the grass. It’s green, but still too short to graze. Last year, we started grazing too early and had to bring them back and feed hay to allow the grass to recover. We’re trying to avoid that this year by holding them a few more days to let the grass get taller.

In the last blog, I shared my premonition that things were going to start popping as soon as Shelley left. After she left but before she even landed in DC, I was bottle feeding two lambs. As of this morning, we have 6 new lambs, 2 sets of twins and 2 singles. So far, 5 ewe lambs and one ram lamb. The pics today are of the lambs so far. The only ram lamb is the one standing face-to-face with its mom. All 6 lambs are doing very well. I am tagging all of them when they are about 12 hours old. I want to give them time to bond, undisturbed, with their moms but can’t wait too long or they are too fast and skittish to catch. We’re tagging immediately so that we can keep better track of them than we have in the past. I am also spraying the mom’s ear tag number on their sides so we can reunite them should they get separated. By now, with everything sounding like it is going swimmingly, you may be asking why there are two bottle lambs. I’ll have to back up a bit to make it make sense. Before we got the first sheep on the farm, we got 3 Livestock Guardian Dogs (LGD); one male and two females (we now have 7 total…yes, we know how that happens). The male, Tank, is the best LGD of the bunch. We spent over a year moving the LGDs into the paddock the sheep just left, constantly keeping them next to the sheep and working them on leashes with the sheep. Tank matured first and took to his job like a champion. He is especially diligent at protecting lambs. He will lie down and let them climb on him and even sleep curled up next to him. He is an amazing lamb protector. It would seem that in the year that has passed since the last lambing, he became confused. When I returned from dropping Shelley off at the airport, Tank greeted me very excitedly, happy to show me the two lambs he was protecting. Of course, I too was excited for the new lambs, thinking to myself that I was right and Shelley had not even arrived when the lambing season began. Quickly, I realized things weren’t quite right because as Tank ran over to greet me, the entire ewe flock gathered around the new lambs but none of them were “mothering” them. I assumed a potential rejection situation but couldn’t find the ewe with evidence of recent birthing. As I went looking, I found her dead, stiff, and with a bloody neck. As I was processing this, I noticed the blood around Tank’s mouth and neck. Using my best CSI Las Vegas skills (although no DNA evidence was collected), I determined that confused by the commotion, blood, and most likely amazing mothering instinct, Tank “protected” the lambs from their mother. I immediately removed him from the flock and put him in a pen next to their paddock and will slowly reintroduce him. Notice I didn’t title this blog “Farming” Failure? The farming principles are sound. I own this one for not anticipating an issue and easing Tank into lambing season. This one is squarely a Farmer Fail.

On Thursday’s Dust’er Mud podcast, we discussed Joel Salatin’s (regenerative farming guru) opinion that we are too old to start this farming journey. We accepted his opinion as a challenge! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g12P5-LFvT8

Cheers!

Psycho