Colonel’s Blog, Earthdate 24 April 2023…
Hey Y’all!
Good morning and happy Monday from Air2Ground Farms! Even though we’ve gone out to ice the past three mornings, I am especially glad to be in this place at this time. I read a bit of information this morning that reminded me that I am not in the Pentagon, not in DC traffic, not even required to be anywhere! Shelley and I decided what we are going to do today during our morning staff meeting, over a couple of cups of coffee still in our PJs. Guess who we asked about our decision? That’s right, NO ONE! Still awesome! The animals are especially good this morning…or is it that I’m especially glad to be here doing this…either way, all is well today. Since we last chatted, we’ve moved the flerd a few times. They are currently across the creek. We weren’t sure how the sheep were going to react to the creek crossing since we’ve never had them across. Most of them didn’t even hesitate. A couple ewes and one ram were skeptical but when they found themselves the only ones on that side of the creek, they quickly decided to cross. The dogs are still doing amazing. They parole the perimeter as soon as they get into a new area ensuring all is well. Only then will they ask for pets. We plan to bring the flerd back across the creek today before the rains start tomorrow. We’d rather not take a chance on the water getting too deep for the calves and small ewes. The bottom pic is the flerd on the other side of the creek. The milk cows are also great. They are providing us between 5 and 7 gallons of milk a day. Still amazed at how beneficial that is to the farm and we have multiple new customers who want to enjoy the benefits of GMO-Free raw A2/A2 Jersey milk. The top 3 pics are us with the ladies this morning as they were getting a drink after milking. Betty likes to try to clean our hair with her especially rough tongue. The 4th pic is the beef chickens. They are growing like crazy! The next batch of chicks will arrive this week. They will spend 3 to 3 1/2 weeks in the brooder while the current batch finishes growing. We will process the first batch around the 15th of May and move the next batch onto pasture. They will finish in early July and then we are taking a beef chicken break until early August. The market was amazing on Saturday. We did a lot of business and, even better, talked to a bunch of folks who appreciate what we are doing. We really enjoyed the morning at the market. By the time we got home from Makaylah’s soccer game, we had time to move the flerd but not much else. Yesterday, we replaced the starter in the side-by-side. We excitedly turned the key to find no change in the issue. Only then did we consider it could be the battery not fully charged. So we put the battery on the charger and in no time at all, it was fully charged and the new starter sounded amazing as it cranked the engine. We’ll get a new battery the next time we go to town. We were also able to complete our barn project of building shelves and workbench. The two pics give an idea of the scale of the project. That end of the barn has 12’ walls and we decided to take the shelves all the way up. Today we will move the flerd and begin moving the hog area. We are going to tear down the piglet training pen and the hog loading pen and move them to a different section of woods. We are happy with what the hogs have done to the current woods and want them to clean out some different areas.
Order. As Winnie the Pooh discusses, “a place for everything and everything in its place.” We like order in our life. The military life, with all of its supposed order, is not always orderly when it comes to the stuff you drag around the world. Since 2009, we have been in the United States. That means that we have been able to keep the things that you normally have to throw away on overseas moves. For example, oil for vehicles, transmission fluid, coolant, bug spray, grease, gear oil, paint thinner, you get the idea. Those types of things are expensive to replace when you have to buy everything at once so we were excited to be able to pack them into our vehicle and drive them to our next home, instead of throwing all of them away. The result is that we have bins from the last almost 15 years with various liquids in them. The same thing happens as tools, sand paper, caulk guns, don’t even ask about screws, nails, nuts, bolts, etc. collect in different bins. With each new house, we would set up our portable shelves and try to get things as orderly as possible, always in bins and tool boxes (I think I have 10 different tool boxes). This barn project, with the shelves and workbench, provides the possibility for order. We gave ourselves enough storage space to find a place for everything. We can unload the bins and boxes. We are excited to have all of the tools in their own space. I can’t even describe the amount of time we waste looking for tools as things are constantly being moved from one place to another. Chaos no more…order is the word of the day.
Our newest YouTube Short is of us feeding the beef chickens. Check it out!
There are also a couple of the flerd.
Local Farm Report for the past 3 days, 21-23 April 2023:
Harvest:
71 Chicken eggs
45 Duck eggs
3 Goose eggs
0 Guinea eggs
18 1/4 Gallons of milk
Cheers! Psycho & Shelley
Great post! Kelly works for a builder and one of the subs they use for plumbing Carrie’s around a “magic bucket”. This is with him at every jobs site and it magically provides some random part that is missing or all the sudden needed! Shelves look great!