Colonel’s Blog, Earthdate 21 February 2025…
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 through the Scottish mountains a week ago. The weather this week has been quite literally Arctic. Yesterday was the coldest and we awoke to -4 degrees feeling like -14. It made this morning’s temps of 3, feels like 3… still feel cold! It’s going to get above freezing tomorrow for the first time in days and maybe some of the 8 inches of snow will start to melt. The top pic is the beef herd patiently awaiting their hay during the snowstorm. Lots has happened in the 3 weeks since I last wrote so I’ll try to hit the highlights. For those of you that have been reading for a while, you will remember that I had to put down one of our dairy cows due to a disease called Johnes. At the time, I told you that we had to wait until her calf was 2 years old before we could test her to see if she could join the dairy herd or if she would join the freezer crowd. That calf is Stella and you have seen her in quite a few pics over that time. She is now 2, we drew her blood and sent it off for not only the Johnes test, but also tested for other common dairy cow issues. We are elated to share that she tested negative for all! When we received the negative test, we immediately started working with her in the milk barn. She now comes in for her snacks without hesitation. She is featured in pics 2 and 3. She doesn’t love the idea of having her udder touched but we will continue to work with her, just like we have done with the 3 other heifers we have trained to be milk cows. She and Happy are due to calve in less than a month, increasing our milk production significantly. We went from 2 in milk to 1 as we dried Happy off prior to calving and went to once a day milking for Artois. Soon, we will be milking 3 cows twice a day as we wean Artois’ calf and the other 2 have theirs. We’ll be swimming in amazing raw A2/A2 Jersey white gold! Last week, Shelley and I traveled to the East Coast to celebrate a good friend taking command of an F-15E squadron in North Carolina. We visited with many of our best friends that week and had an amazing time. My parents along with Rebekah and Makaylah did an amazing job tending to the farm and store while Shelley and I were gone. Next week, Shelley, Makaylah, and I will travel to England. Daughters 2 & 3 are both in England with their families and we are very excited to get to see everyone.
As things continue to get more and more busy around here (yeah, I thought things would slow down but I don’t think that is in our nature) we’re continuing to look for time efficiencies. This is blog #323. I remember celebrating #100 but haven’t made a big deal since then. Today, I’m celebrating #323! I am excited to say this is the last of the “regular” blog posts I’ll be writing. While I thoroughly enjoy writing and love sharing this experience with you, it’s time for a change. I may send an update here and there through this outlet but we are transitioning the regular farm updates to our new Patreon. I’ll leave a link below and sincerely hope you decide to join us there. There is an option to join for free and there you’ll get these regular farm updates. There are also 4 different paid membership levels that each offer more insight and more involvement into our daily farm life. For those of you that have been with us from the beginning, I truly thank you for your support! For each of you, I hope you will join us on Patreon so you can continue to be a part of the Air2Ground family.
PLEASE JOIN US!!
Cheers!
Psycho & Shelley
I knew that Artois was good stock!😎