Smile for the Ladies!

Colonel’s Blog, Earthdate 13 December 2024…

Hey Y’all!

Good afternoon and happy Fast-jet Friday from Air2Ground Farms! The fast jets today are the Mighty-Mighty F-15E Strike Eagle and the amazing KC-135 Stratotanker. Our own daughter Hannah “HAIL” Slayton is the pilot of that Strike Eagle refueling over the desert of the Middle East. The pic under that one is of the aircrew from her 2-ship after their final combat sortie of this deployment. Her squadron received a reprieve and is going home before Christmas, in fact she is flying a jet back to England within the next few days. Well done, HAIL! The weather is still cold and we’re expecting rain this weekend for a cold and wet few days. Tomorrow is the last day of the Forsyth Farmers Market and we will be loading all of our stuff from our indoor booth and bringing it home for the season. We are setting up delivery/drop sites and dates so that those interested in continuing to receive amazing products from the farm can continue to get it through the winter months until the market reopens in 2025. Shoot us a text or email if you are interested and are not already on our list. The store continues to do very well, although things have slowed with the holidays approaching. We expect things to pick back up after the new year. I will take another beef to the processor on Monday, which will be ready after the new year, and I pick up the first 4 of this year’s lambs. The lamb freezer will be full again when the store opens Tuesday morning with a great selection of roasts, chops, and leg-of-lamb just in time for your holiday meals! It’s been another busy week and this one has also been a bit crazy. Notice the picture of the black cow standing by herself? Doesn’t seem that exciting, does it? That was Tuesday’s project. I noticed her in what I thought was labor on Monday morning when I gave them hay. When she was still lying in the same spot Tuesday morning, I went over to check on her. She couldn’t stand up, wasn’t laboring, and the calf inside her was still alive. The vet arrived within about an hour and gave her the works, to include an IV to the jugular to get her some vitamins. No real idea what was wrong with her but gave her the works. I took the picture about 2 hours after the vet left. She was up and eating like nothing had happened and is still looking great. Sometimes I guess you just need an IV to the jugular to get you on your feet! The next day, as I was going to give the beef cows hay, I noticed water running through the ditch and it hasn’t been raining. Great, there’s a leak somewhere. As I followed the water, it led me to the dairy cow waterer, which I turned off at the underground valve. The water stopped flowing…to the house. Our house water is just one of the stops on our entire property’s water system and we tied into the system at the dairy cow waterer. So, when I stopped the leak, I also shut off the water to the house. Nothing like a little motivation to get the leak fixed! If you watched our video about the waterer leak a few weeks ago, you won’t be surprised to learn that it was the underground Y fitting that I installed 3 years ago. The “brass” fitting just disintegrates with our mineral-rich water. I had all of the parts on-hand to get it fixed and I restocked on the next trip to town because it’s just a matter of (not much) time until the next one goes out. I weaned the final 2 piglets yesterday evening and put the sows in with Tex, our registered Berkshire boar, this morning. The top pic is Tex enjoying his breakfast and smiling for his ladies this morning. The 2 pics below that are the 27 feeder pigs the other morning when it was about 20 degrees. They were so warm from their hay nest and pig-pile that they were steaming!

The scientific board for the 2025 USDA Dietary Guidelines released their 481-page report this week. This report forms the foundation for the guidelines that will be published next year. The release kicked off a 60-day comment period which means the new administration will be in place to draft the final dietary guidelines. In my opinion, the dietary guidelines have been an abject failure from the beginning. In the time period that the guidelines have been published, the nation has become the sickest/unhealthiest/most overweight nation on the planet. In Episode 90 of the Dust’er Mud Podcast that will be released this afternoon, we look at this report and discuss the main issues we find with the report, why the guidelines even matter, and what we can do about it. Check it out this afternoon at 4:00 pm, CST. https://youtu.be/Frh4r1WufOE

We posted a video last week featuring Makaylah and our GMO-free feed haul. Makaylah has really stepped up with Shelley’s injury. Check her out! https://youtu.be/-hUoq49eCMc

Please don’t forget to subscribe to the new Dust’er Mud Podcast channel and turn on notifications so you will know when we post a new podcast! http://www.youtube.com/@DusterMudPodcast?sub_confirmation=1

Cheers!


Psycho & Shelley