Colonel’s Blog, Earthdate 22 November 2024…
Hey Y’all!!
Good afternoon and happy Fast-jet Friday from Air2Ground Farms! The fast jet today is the Mighty-Mighty F-15E Strike Eagle flying low in the snowy mountains of Wales this week. The weather over the past 2 weeks has continued to be a bit rainy and is following a cooling trend. We had a bit of ice on the puddles this morning and have our first forecast 20 degree mornings next week. Wow, have we been busy! I understand, no excuses for missing the blog last week. I’ll try harder! Some thoughts on the farm over the past 2 weeks. We’ve started putting Griz, Artie’s Jersey bull calf, in the manger at night kicking off the calf-sharing routine until he is weaned in the March timeframe. We’re getting around 6-7 gallons of milk per day now and Rebekah is steadily growing the raw milk customer base such that most of it is sold each day. What isn’t sold, Nana (my mom) turns into yogurt, cheese, and butter. The pigs are happy to drink the whey and buttermilk from the process! Papa (my dad) has been the resident handyman and go-getter. In fact, he is getting straw right now and will go get 2 tons of feed later this afternoon. The pic of Rebekah and Makaylah is an awesome look into their chore attire! Everyone is pitching in and while things are getting done, we are ready for Shelley to be back to 100%! She is doing well post surgery and is going to physical therapy twice a week. She can bend her knee and put up to 50% weight on it while standing but will be on crutches for walking for another month. I included 2 pics of the bull and one of a black cow. I thought it highlighted the extreme differences in their bodily makeup and what we look for in a bull and cow. His face/skull just look bulky and masculine. His shoulders are very broad with a deep barrel chest. Her face/skull is slim and dainty. Her shoulders are narrow and her hips are wider. As they were eating hay the other day, it just struck me as perfect examples of what to look for in each. The pano pic is looking through the sheep flock, featuring one of the rams, to the house/barn, and then to the fall leaves on our mountainside in the distance. The Ozarks really are beautiful! The top pic is a newcomer to the farm.
I’ve mentioned that we are interested in partnering with other local farmers. We believe it provides a win/win/win opportunity. I know that is a rare, if not extinct, bird but we really do believe the triple win is possible and here’s why. WIN—we need to expand our production but are limited in what we can physically do and what our land will support. By partnering with other local farmers we can add to our product offerings without exceeding our capacity. We make sure they are farming using the same or better practices which we follow and then make the deal. WIN—many farmers don’t like the sales and marketing aspect of this business. That relegates them to the sale barn/livestock market. That one decision sends the animal which they have raised with love and compassion into the industrial food system of antibiotics, concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), and GMO grain feed. Many farmers don’t relish that idea but don’t have another choice. By partnering with us, they know their animal will stay here in the local area, humanely raised on our farm until time to be processed by a local butcher, and offered as nutritious food to our local community. WIN—the local community has access to more amazing/local/humanely raised food. The top pic is a 500 pound steer we just purchased from Kevin and Sarah at Living Traditions Homestead, marking the beginning of a business relationship that gives them an outlet for their cow/calf operation while bypassing the industrial food system. It gives us access to more amazing grass-genetic beef without having to expand breeders in our herd. AND in about a year, it will be amazing beef offered to our local community. Our next step is to pick up 4 lambs this afternoon from a local farm looking to sell their lambs without taking them to the market. They will hang out here on our farm for a couple of weeks until their processing date, just in time to be leg-of-lamb for our local community’s Christmas dinner. That allows us to hold our lambs another month giving them more time to grow and extends the time we will have lamb available in the store by at least a month further into the year. It really is a WIN-WIN-WIN!
Reminder of Hannah’s deployed address if you would like to send a care package:
Hannah Slayton
332 AEW/492EFS
Unit 61811
APO, AE 09321-1811
We split the YouTube channel!! Today we published our last podcast on the Air2Ground Farms channel. From here on out, the podcasts will be on the Dust’er Mud Podcast channel. Check out this video where we discuss that decision and request your assistance. https://youtu.be/bj7tdniCeMk
Cheers!
Psycho & Shelley