Food Prisoners

Colonel’s Blog, Earthdate 9 August 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 clothed in a cloud of its own making while flying low in Wales this week. The weather is DRY!! It hasn’t rained since my last blog on the 19th of July. Coupled with the extreme heat we were experiencing last week and the grass is getting dry and crunchy. It’s certainly not growing and recovering from grazing. Thankfully, the weather cooled off a bit and there is rain in the forecast this weekend. We had an amazing vacation in Florida! We thoroughly enjoyed the week at the beach and Rebekah and my dad and mom did an amazing job keeping the farm running so we could relax. We were honestly able to detach for a moment and never worried about how things were going on the farm. The top 2 pics are Shelley and I one day that we chartered a boat with friends and family to catch some dinner. The next pic is one of the sunrises we experienced while there. We think one of the main benefits of the time away was the ability to step back and look at life from a bit of a detached position and talk through everything we are doing without the stress of actually doing it. We took an honest review of all of the things we are doing and evaluated each from the lens of is it a benefit or stressor. We came away more resolved than ever to grow amazing food. Each animal species is less important than the overall desire to serve our community through our food offerings. This blog is an avenue to share the thoughts behind what we are doing and we believe it is a benefit. The YouTube channel is absolutely a stressor but we think it is worth the stress in order to connect with likeminded people and build a community that is able to offer support to each other. We may have to continue to massage the frequency and timing of videos, and even the types of videos, but think that we will continue. Enough about us, time for a farm update! The dairy cows are doing very well. Happy is producing and we have milk customers that want our raw A2/A2 GMO-free Jersey milk. Artois is beginning to form an udder as her body is getting ready for a calf in the next couple of months. Stella is definitely pregnant and is looking good. Happy’s calf, Mary, is fat and sassy. We are talking about weaning her soon (as soon as we are willing to milk Happy twice a day). The layer hens have settled into a routine of about 2 1/2 dozen eggs a day and are doing well. The ducks are on their way off the farm, as soon as we get up the energy to catch all of them. We are giving them to some friends who want to put them in their pond. We separated the male lambs from the ewe flock and transitioned them to “feeder” status. We put them on some amazing grass and are giving them some GMO-free lamb feed to help them grow so they will be ready to butcher before winter. We sold 12 ewes/ewe lambs to friends that are growing their flock. The remaining ewes and ewe lambs are doing well. The beef herd is also doing well. We have 6 calves so far this season and expect 1 more within a couple of weeks. The feeder pigs are growing like crazy! The 15 of them are going through 100 pounds of GMO-free feed every day!! That brings us to the breeder hogs, in the pictures. The first picture is Lady, a sow that is ready to have piglets any day now. We moved her into her own area and built her a hut so she has a place to have the piglets. The next pic is Tex, the boar. Our breeders are registered Berkshire hogs and he is a great example of what the breed should look like. His coloring is right, he is long bodied—increasing the amount of bacon, and he is mild mannered. The final hog pic is of the other sow and 3 guilts…all of which are pregnant and will be farrowing within the next couple of months. Our time away allowed us to refocus our minds on the reason behind the farm…making amazing food for ourselves, family, and community. Why, you might ask, is that so important to us?

I’d like to share a quote: “The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he’s in prison.” —Fyodor Dostoevsky. It’s striking to me how much that relates to what is happening in the food space in the entirety of Western culture. I want to pose a series of questions to generate thought. Why is obesity and diabetes increasing at an astronomical rate? Why is dementia and Alzheimers increasing at an astronomical rate? With the amazing advancements in medicine, why is life expectancy decreasing? Here are some potential answers: Sugar, high fructose corn syrup, sugary drinks, seed oils (there are no vegetables in vegetable oils—they are all seeds), glyphosate (Round-Up), processed foods, highly processed foods, ultra processed foods, sedentary lifestyle, fast food. Allow me to pose a few additional potential answers: the food pyramid, low fat/high carbohydrate diets, the war on cholesterol, lack of nutrition education for doctors. I can think of no better way to control an entire population than to ensure they are sick and are dependent on the “system” to provide the medication required to keep them alive. We were all educated under a system that teaches us to submit to and not question authority (sit down, raise your hand, walk in a straight line, don’t talk to your neighbors, don’t pass notes, etc). We were also taught that the low fat/high carb diet is the best thing for our health, a calorie is just a calorie, it’s ok to eat junk food as long as you don’t eat too much, etc. Is it possible that the “Standard American Diet” is the prison? I posit that it is, and the best way to ensure people don’t escape is to convince them that it is good for them even though the evidence is screaming the opposite. Shelley and I do this thing so that we can make good food, real-actual-good food. Our time away helped us remember that we are offering an alternative to being a Food Prisoner.

Cheers!


Psycho & Shelley