Colonel's Blog, Earthdate 29 Dec 2022...
Hey Ya'll!!
Good morning again from Free Missouri!
All is well on the farm this morning. Yesterday's straw removal project went off without a hitch. It was very windy but otherwise a great day on the farm. Today's focus is on our Livestock Guardian Dog puppies. Our Livestock Guardian Dogs were the first animals to join the farm. We purchased three Anatolian Shepherd / Great Pyrenees puppies, one male and two females so that we could train them to guard the sheep flock. They are an invaluable part of the farm! They subsequently had puppies and we were able to provide a few local farms with awesome guardians and one as an apartment-living emotional support dog, but we still have five puppies on the farm! They are in training to guard the sheep but are getting a bit costly to feed. So, we are going to spend more time working with them so that we can offer them for sale as sheep guardians that are trained to their name and basic commands. By the way, an Anatolian Shepherd has a 700 PSI bite force, three times that of a pitbull!
I want to take a moment to discuss why we chose Air2Ground as the name of our farm. In standard fashion of picking fighter callsigns, there are multiple facets. First, Air2Ground is an acknowledgement of the amazing career I had flying the F-15E. The F-15E was originally designed to be a self-escort, deep-interdiction, fighter jet. That means it can fight its way deep into enemy territory, drop bombs, and fight its way out. Thus, its main mission is air to ground, supported by its air to air capabilities. Second, Air2Ground captures this moment in time as we transition from a career focused on the air to a career focused on the ground. After 25 years in the USAF, we chose a complete career change and began a first-generation farm focused on utilizing regenerative practices to produce amazing food for ourselves, family, friends, and community. That brings me to the final aspect of Air2Ground, regenerative farming practices. The practices we use to operate this farm actually result in carbon being removed from the air and captured in the ground, thus reducing harmful greenhouse gasses. The 'standard' way of raising animals in enormous 'Confined Animal Feeding Operations' produces excess carbon where regenerative farming sequesters carbon from the air into the ground. So...Air2Ground!
Cheers! Rich & Shelley
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