Colonel's Blog: 1 Year Anniversary

Colonel’s Blog, Earthdate 19 December 2023…

Hey Y’all!

Good afternoon and happy Tuesday from Air2Ground Farms! We went outside to 18 degrees and sunny with frost everywhere this morning. Rain is forecast to start Thursday evening and continue for almost a week, with temps giving us a wet but not white Christmas. We loaded lambs Sunday and delivered them to the processor yesterday. Our average live weight was 88 pounds across the 13 lambs. We are looking for somewhere between 80-100 pounds so are very happy with their weights. The biggest was 106 and the smallest was 72 with the corresponding hanging weights of 61 and 37 pounds. Giving a conversion of live to hanging weight of 57 and 51% respectively. We are happy with those numbers! 3 of these lambs are already sold as whole with the remaining 10 going into Air2Ground freezers for sale as cuts. This completes the 2023 harvest season and we are very pleased with the harvests this year. The top pic today is the ewes enjoying some freshly unrolled hay. The next 3 pics are the blue plastic balls and our frost-free cattle waterers. It’s time, again, to replace the balls to keep the water from freezing in the waterers. In the spring, we take the balls out so that new calves can get water without having to push down the floating balls. By winter, we can put them back in place to keep things from freezing. Some of you may remember the pics of the blue balls last year, about this time…

Today marks the 1-year anniversary of me writing a blog, so I thought I would go over a few numbers with you from our last year. I’ve written 248 blogs that have been viewed 14,302 times by 3,595 different visitors. 6,934 saw the blog via Facebook and 4,083 saw the blog via email. There are a few standouts as top and bottom as far as views goes. The top 3 are: 1) Shipping Update, 4 Jan 2023, 159 views; Tied for 1st) Murderous Raccoon, 20 July 2023, 159 views; 3) Making Food is HARD—Final update on Betty, 28 November 2023, 144 views. The bottom 3 are: 1) Morning Rounds, 12 February 2023, 13 views; 2) Sheep Day, 15 June 2023, 19 views; 3) Bottle Lamb Update 24 July 2023, 20 views. Overall, I enjoy writing the blog as a way to share with you what we are doing on the farm. It also gives me the opportunity (and excuse) to learn new things, research topics in which I am interested, and hone my writing skills. I think, over the year, the blogs I enjoyed writing the most were those in which I had to really think, like when we discussed Artificial Intelligence. About mid-way through the year, the realities of life intervened and I had to stop writing daily. Initially, on the days I couldn’t write, I had that “homework due, procrastination” feeling in my gut as I wanted to be writing but literally didn’t have the time. I finally shared my feelings with Shelley and she recommended the routine of Tuesday/Friday blogs and that is working quite well. I want to take this opportunity to say THANK YOU to those of you who read. I feel great satisfaction when you read and especially enjoy it when we can have conversations via the comments. I hope you will continue to be a part of our farm through the next year of the Colonel’s Blog!

Yesterday on the Dust’er Mud Podcast, we answered a series of questions we received from a friend from high school that is interested in our non-standard keto lifestyle. Check it out!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG-kMKWMS-4

Local Farm Report for 15-18 December 2023

Harvest:

18 Chicken eggs

3 Duck eggs

8 Gallons of milk

13 Lambs

Cheers!

Psycho & Shelley