Colonel’s Blog, Earthdate 26 April 2024…
Hey Y’all!
Good morning and happy Fast-Jet Friday from Air2Ground Farms! The fast jets today are the Mighty-Mighty F-15E Strike Eagle. These pics were taken last week as a couple of Strike Eagles did max performance takeoffs from RAF Lakenheath, UK. The weather is cool and rainy and will continue this trend for the next few days. We love the rain! The top pic is Happy’s calf, Mary, in training during the morning milking routine. She has been a bit skittish and that doesn’t work for a milk cow so we’ve been halter training her. She doesn’t love it, but she doesn’t mind too bad. She spends the night in the stall you see and while we’re milking Happy in the morning, Mary gets some quality time with us. She is learning to stand still while we brush her, to stand still while she is tied to the stanchion, and she is even learning to walk with us. It’s much easier to teach her these things while she weighs less than 100 pounds than when she weighs over 1,000! The next pic is of Mary and Happy while Happy is enjoying her breakfast and being milked. The following pics are the beef herd still enjoying their Spring grazing. We’ve continued to move them into 5-10 acre pastures and they only stay for a day or two in each pasture. They are already in the routine of frequent moves and express their dissatisfaction if we’re behind their schedule. The sheep are still doing well and the lambs are growing! We have a couple of hogs going to the processor on Monday and we added two sheep to the appointment. The two ewes that didn’t make good mothers are on their way to freezer camp. We will have them processed for our own freezer and not for resale. There are 3 batches of beef chickens on the farm, with the fourth set to arrive next week. All of them are doing very well. The second batch will move to the pasture as soon as the severe thunderstorms are finished in a few days. Batch three will then move to the big brooder and the small brooder will be cleaned and ready for batch four. This week has been extra busy, with medical and dental appointments thrown in. I know everyone will be happy to hear that both Shelley and I have pristine looking colons and we don’t have to do that for years, and we all have great looking teeth.
We’ve discussed our business expansion as we are purchasing three pure Berkshire breeder stock. As part of the preparation for breeding hogs, we had to build new, and more permanent, pens. We planned and put up the new pens this week and only have to run the electric wire around the bottom and then they will be ready for the new additions. The three guilts we kept back to breed instead of processing are all looking great and are ready to join the breeding stock. We will go this Saturday and set up our new booth at the Forsyth Farmers Market in preparation for the first market day on Saturday, May 4th. Now for the BIG news… We leased a storefront in Ava!! That’s right, we’re going to open a permanent site to sell Air2Ground Farms products! Here are a couple of pics…
The address is 105 N Jefferson St, Unit 2, Ava, MO. We take possession of the property on 1 June 2024 and will schedule a GRAND OPENING shortly thereafter. We will start with limited hours and we’re not sure what they will be—lots of details to work out still. We’ve already got ideas of adding fresh Gulf seafood and fresh baked goods. So many ideas…so little time! For now, I’ll leave it at “We’re Expanding!”
Saturday’s Video was an in-depth look at how we use regenerative grazing practices to improve our pastures. The sheep are the stars of this video! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SGh7BojKXM&list=UULFNqaipbTwMJVyld1tmsaCkA&index=3&pp=gAQBiAQB
Monday’s Dust’er Mud podcast was a discussion regarding Splenda and how it is worse than sugar in many aspects, especially for diabetics.
Thursday’s Dust’er Mud podcast was a look at how we don’t buy the idea that keto or carnivore is too expensive. We look at ways to go easy on the budget while starting a low-carb lifestyle.
Be on the lookout for this coming Saturday’s video from Living Traditions Homestead https://www.youtube.com/@LivingTraditionsHomestead , where Kevin and Sarah came here to the farm to help us install weed fabric and a watering system for our garden. We’ve had a sneak peek and think it’s a good one!
Cheers!
Psycho & Shelley
Congrats by on the expansion! Interested to see all the things you guys bring in and support your community!
Wooowho!! Expanded
Mary doesn’t appear exceptionally happy about being trained 😉 but, as you said, better to start now than later on.
Congrats on the growing empire! #RHSSASTT
You guys are going to need to clone yourselves soon!!