Colonel’s Blog, Earthdate 10 May 2024…
Hey Y’all!
Good evening and happy Fast-Jet Friday from Air2Ground Farms & Air2Ground Meats! The fast jets today are the Mighty-Mighty F-15E Strike Eagle. The first pic is a 6-ship from the 494th Fighter Squadron Panthers as they returned to RAF Lakenheath, UK this week from a location in the Middle East. You don’t often see a 6-ship formation, so this is a great pic. The next pic was taken this week in Wales as a jet from the 492nd Fighter Squadron Bolars circles a mountain at low level. The animals are doing very well this week. The new hogs are now just part of the farm. One leaves on Monday to go to freezer camp. She is older and although very flavorful, her meat would be tough so we are having her made into whole-hog sausage. It’s amazingly flavorful because it has all of the cuts, like tenderloin, hams, shoulders…everything. The ewe/lamb flock, the rams, the dairy cows, and the beef cows all moved to fresh pastures this week, actually yesterday and this morning. We walked 7 1/2 miles up and down the hills yesterday taking down and putting up temporary fences for the different groups. While physically exhausting, it is awesome to watch the animals enjoying fresh pastures. This morning, when we moved the beef herd, their bellies are so full of fresh grass that they didn’t even get excited for their new pasture. They just meandered around trying to find some particularly tasty bite to nibble. Today, we spent the majority of the day planting the garden and recording it for our next YouTube Video. We’re very excited to have a weed fabric and automatic watering system that should make this year’s garden much more manageable and enjoyable. After the bad storms passed this week, I snapped a pic of a rainbow arcing around the garden with a lightning bolt in the middle.
It’s been a while since I’ve discussed the regenerative style of farming we practice. Before we moved the beef herd to their new pasture this morning, Shelley and I had to stop and stare in amazement at the pasture grass. The 3 pics that look fairly boring, just some grass, are actually an amazing testament to this style of farming. You see, that particular pasture, just 3 short years ago, was brush, saplings, and broom sedge. First, we mowed it. We had to get the saplings under control before it just became more forest. Then we grazed it with the cows and sheep, moving them every day. The first winter, we unrolled a bit of hay as we moved the sheep and cows daily. The next spring and summer, we continued to graze it with the cows and sheep moving through every 4-6 weeks. The second winter, the cows spent the first half of the winter there and we unrolled probably 40 bales of hay. By spring of 2023, there was starting to be more grass and we were very excited. Those of you who have been hanging out with us for a while probably remember those pics and discussions last spring. Throughout the spring and summer, we continued to rotate the cows and sheep through. Sometimes together as a flerd, sometimes separately. The entire time, the grass kept getting better. So, this past winter, we decided to really focus on that pasture. We put the flerd there, all winter. We unrolled close to 150 balls of hay on that pasture. It got the combined impact of the cows and sheep, and the carbon from 150,000 pounds of hay. By the end of the winter, it was brown everywhere with remnants of hay bale unrolling. It looked awful but we just knew it would be good. That pasture has rested since we moved the animals out a couple of months ago. The warm weather and rains have brought it to life! It is now full of Brome grass. There is still some saplings and briars. BUT, it is so much better than it was! I think, if it wasn’t mine, I would be having Pasture Envy!!
Thursday’s Podcast was about the realities of small business compared to the mega corporations that now rule the economy and the financial sacrifice required for the consumer to “buy local” even if the product is hands-down better…it still costs more.
Cheers!
Psycho & Shelley
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