Happiness=Like What We Have?

Colonel’s Blog, Earthdate 10 July 2023…

Hey Y’all!

Good afternoon and happy Monday from Air2Ground Farms! The weather over the past few days has been mild and humid. We had another half inch of rain the other day giving us a total of 2 inches in the past week. The grass is loving it! The animals are doing really well. We commented this morning that the pigs look like they are growing. It appears they grow in spurts, like a teenager. It seems that a couple of weeks will go by and they just sort of look the same and then one day we say wow, they are really growing! I added a couple of pics from the other day after the rain. They were muddy and loving life. The ducks are calming down after removing the chickens, roosters, and dog. The layer hens seem to be doing better also since we processed the 7 teenage roosters. They weighed anywhere from 2 1/2 -3 1/2 pounds processed but they look like skinny, long-necked, no-breast marathon runners compared to the beef chickens! We are starting to get a consistent harvest from the garden. The last pic is one of the garage fridges full of mostly cucumbers. There are some green beans, squash, and zucchini also. The tomatoes are starting to get ripe. We’ve gotten a couple dozen but things are about to pick up. We harvested and ate quite a bit of broccoli the other day and we have some cabbages that seem like they are doing what cabbages do and maybe we can pick them soon. We have some pumpkins that are getting ripe, some mini pumpkins that are ripe and need to be picked, and some watermelons are starting to make tiny fruit. The jalapeño and Thai pepper plants are full of peppers. The market went well Saturday and we sold the 9 chickens we took with us. Yesterday, we spent quite a bit of time working in the garden. There is so much grass growing and we haven’t taken the time to get it out so it was quite the chore. Today we are making yogurt and cheese, and Shelley made a delivery of milk and eggs.

I’m continuing to research the goings-on with Artificial Intelligence. I decided to do so because there is such a wide disparity between my thoughts of “not too bad and maybe even good” and some of your comments that likened it to nuclear weapons. Most recently, I was watching a video podcast with Mo Gawdat—the former Chief Business Officer for Google-X, author, and podcast host. Mo is more in the camp of nuclear weapons and believes it may even be too late to do much about it (one of his books is “Scary Smart—The Future of Artificial Intelligence and How You can Save Our World”). If you’re interested in the topic, I recommend listening to what Mo is saying—he’s been on multiple podcasts lately. I may be changing my mind about the AI issue…. During the podcast interview, however, Mo made a comment that is stuck in my mind so I decided to share with you. He said “Happiness is not getting what you want, it is liking what you have.” My first thought was “How anti-American!” Then, that’s anti-progress. But the more I have thought about it, without taking it to the extreme, I really think Mo (one of his books is titled “Solve for Happy—Engineer Your Path to Joy”) might just be on to something. This is something I am going to think on for a bit. One thing I immediately notice is that Mo’s idea is something that is finite. The things we have exist and in most cases will continue to do so. The opposite, getting what we want, never gets here. In my experience, wants are seldom satiated. They’re like the sign painted on a building in the Florida Keys that says “Free Beer Tomorrow.” When you drive by the building tomorrow, it says the same thing and you never get the free beer. What would change if we focused on liking what we have instead of trying to get what we want?

Local Farm Report for 7, 8, & 9 July 2023:

Harvest:

65 Chicken eggs

22 Duck eggs

0 Goose eggs

19 3/4 Gallons of milk

22 Beef chickens in freezer

7 Yard-birds in freezer

Cheers!

Psycho & Shelley