Colonel's Blog, Earthdate 31 Dec 2022...
Hey Ya'll, Happy New Years Eve!!
Good morning from Free Missouri! Yesterday's project of organizing the barn turned into a multi-day project, so we will be back at it again today. We will start the new year with much needed organization. Maybe we're weird, but areas of clutter in our immediate surroundings drive Shelley and I crazy, and this has been bothering us for quite a while. Lots of work, but excited for the result. The top pic gives you a good idea of what I described yesterday as a barndominium. Although the property appraiser said "It's not a barn, it's a big carport."
Why farm? This question is actually twofold. Why call it a 'farm' and why are you doing this thing? I'm sure our longtime family and friends will not be surprised to hear that we put in quite a bit of research into what to call this endeavor. Farm, farms, ranch, homestead, farmstead, etc. Well, we settled on Farms. The best differentiation between farm and ranch I read was that on a farm, the farmer brings food to the animal and on a ranch, the animals harvest the food themselves. We felt like farm most appropriately described what we want to do and we made it plural in the name 'Air2Ground Farms' to symbolize the multiple farming enterprises we planned, from hogs to gardens, eggs to pastured chickens, sheep to Livestock Guardian Dogs, dairy cows to beef cows. The deeper question is Why farm?
We have always been health conscious and in 2019 we ordered our first whole beef from a local Virginia farmer. We picked up that beef a few weeks before the country shut down for the health crisis. We had a freezer full of amazing beef and were never worried about food, even though we couldn't buy meat at the grocery store. We subsequently ordered another beef and a couple of hogs. Then in early December of 2020 we watched a documentary called "Sacred Cow" and Shelley looked over at me and said "I want to do that!" My reply said it all..."Where?" Well the 'where' turned out to be the Ozarks of Missouri. I took the bottom pic from a Cessna the girls rented me for Fathers Day of our slice of Ozark paradise.
Cheers! Rich & Shelley
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