Cider Bend-October

October was a busy month on the farm. It was crunch time to get some big projects completed before winter. 

Hay Barn:

I have been hinting about a big project in my last couple Cider Bend blog posts. I'm happy to say that Cider Bend is the new home to an awesome hay barn! I'm so excited about it! It turned out so good! Mark designed it and built it himself. Just like all of our other farm projects, we're learning as we go. It definitely took longer than he thought it would, but he wanted to make sure it was done right. He took a week off work to work on it, and the weather was less than helpful. It poured rain the majority of the time. We're talking torrential rain! He did what he could in that week, and then it was slow going completing it after that. By the time he would get home from work in the evenings, he would only have an hour of daylight left, so he would go out and paint a section, or roof a couple rows. I went out many times well after dark, wondering why he hadn't come in, and hoping he hadn't fallen off the roof, only to find him working away with a headlamp on, and his truck pulled up, with headlights shining. He made it big enough to store more than a winters worth of hay for the animals on one side and things like the 4-wheeler or future tractor on the other side.

Tractor rented and materials waiting to be unloaded!

The first order of business was prepping the ground.

Staking it out.

Drilling the holes for the posts was a nightmare. So many rocks!

You can see how nicely it goes down at first, and then you can hear it hit the rocks. 

Peep the cute little audience! 😊

He would drill a little bit to loosen up the rocks, and then I would have to get as many out of the holes as I could so he could drill down further. What a pain in the butt!

My back makes me useless for heavy lifting, so we had to call in reinforcements. Sawyer and Amanda came over and unloaded the trailer in the rain.

Helping with the cement in the holes! 😆

Sawyer 😅

The rain went on for days! He set all the posts in the pouring rain!

Poor Mark! It was raining so hard! Look at all the puddles, and we won't even talk about the mud! 😩

Setting the beam! And check out the blue sky! 

Getting the rafters up.

I was so excited when the siding started going up.

Getting closer!

It was looking so good!

Now it just needed trim, paint, and a roof.

Painting and roofing!

All finished! I love it!

Here's a view from the front so you can see how big it is. It is located right outside the back barn door. 

Goats:

The goats have been as cute and entertaining as ever!

We had General Conference for our church at the beginning of the month. We were home watching it on TV, and I got a text from Amanda with a picture of her holding her cat, and it said, "just watching conference with Bean". I told Mark to run downstairs and get me a goat. Turns out, that's a lot harder than it seems. They are heavy now, and we have a big, very steep staircase. Mark is a good sport though, so I was able to send a picture back that said, "Just watching conference with Ginger." 😂 Oh my gosh, I was laughing so hard!

I can't even look at these pictures without cracking up!

Ginger enjoyed her field trip upstairs!

Sweet kisses though the fence.

Dolly gives Ginger a message most nights while Mark is putting them to bed. So funny!

Kirby was watching our animals while we were in South Dakota. He sent me this picture of Dolly, and it's my favorite thing ever. You can't look at this and not feel happy. 😁

Dolly was enjoying some yummy leaves. 😆

She really is as cute and sweet as she seems in the videos and pictures I post.

There is something I find so satisfying about goats eating. Skip over the next video if you don't share my same sentiments. But holy cow can they strip a branch clean in no time!

I'm not quite sure what was going on with Dolly and her breakfast, but it was pretty entertaining. I didn't even start filming until most of it was already off her head. 😅

Most people make leaf piles for their kids, but I was over here just making piles for the goats to play in. 😆

Rocky always thinks the leaves on the other side of the fence taste better. 😄

Donkeys:

I probably say this with each monthly post, but I love my little donkeys so much! I'm pretty used to them now, but sometimes I'll just look at them, and realize how cute and tiny they are, and I have to remind myself that this is really my life. 😄

We've had a ton of equipment here for the house and landscaping. Willow has to make the rounds on her morning walks and examine all the new stuff.

She looked so tiny next to the big tractors.

Oh my gosh, Clover is about the cutest thing on the planet! 😍

The girls were entertained for a couple weeks while all the grading and stuff was being done for the house. There were so many tractors and dump trucks to watch.

Willow has to be in the middle of EVERYTHING! Cleaning her stall out is always fun. She insisted on helping me sweep it out. 😆

It's crunchy leaf season, and the girls couldn't be happier about it. I put some in their corral each morning, and they love them. The crunchier the better.

I can't boop one nose without booping the other. 😂 I love when they play with the buckets we leave in the corrals.

We had our first dusting of snow, and the girls were excited about it. Glad someone was, because I sure wasn't!

Queens!

Oh my gosh, Clover's prance at the beginning about kills me! 🤩

We woke up to a very cold morning, so while I was getting bundled up, Willow got impatient, and decided to take Clover on a walk herself. 😂

If the gate would have been opened, they seriously would have gone without me. I freaking love them!

Someone stole Willow's ears!

Oh, there they are!

If the cart is in the corral, Clover and Willow need to be a part of whatever is going on with it. It's hilarious. Here is a video of them helping me with chores. 😅

This reel was pretty popular on my Instagram account, and truer words have never been spoken. 😂

One of the best parts about October, besides the leaves, is that it's beanie season! 😄

😍😍😍

Love my little Clover!

Driveway Trees:

We got our landscaping bid back, and we knew we wouldn't be able to do it all this year. We really wanted the front yard mostly done, and I REALLY wanted the driveway lined with trees. To pay someone to plant the trees cost more than the trees themselves, so we decided to do it ourselves. It was a huge job! We lined the driveway with 20 trees, alternating between Cleveland Flowering Pears, and Celebration Maple. Since this area is mostly river rock, digging twenty holes was a huge pain in the butt! We enlisted the help of Sawyer, and got half of the trees planted, and most of the other holes dug in one Saturday. He was a huge help! The maple trees came in the mail shortly after that, and Mark and I got those planted the following week. Our driveway is going to be swoon worthy as soon as the trees mature a little bit. The long driveway is one of my favorite parts of our property, and I can't wait to see how beautiful it looks in a couple years.

Random Stuff:

I'm still loving the Cider Bend sunrises. I'm trying to enjoy them while they last, because it's getting darker and darker on my morning animal walks.

This sunrise was amazing!

Look at my sweet Reeses being all majestic in front of the sunrise.

 I posted about the hay barn and said we had n insane amount of rain while Mark was working on it. Here is an example of that. The corrals flooded in a matter of minutes! It was nuts!

My sweet, old girl with her pig. 😊

Mark got the hay barn done just in time for our load of winter hay to arrive. 🙌

It's always a good feeling to know we are all stocked up for winter.

Another pretty sunrise with my pup.

We lit the barn up for Halloween!

I love that I can always find her napping in the hay.

Fall on the farm is one of my absolute favorites!

It seemed like the trees decided to drop the majority of their leaves all in one day. If you know me, you know that I am obsessive about keeping the corrals clean. I couldn't find any of the poop through all the leaves, so they had to be cleaned up.

Before

Midway

After

Then I got to the goats corral, and it wasn't as smooth sailing from there, because I had all the extra 'help.' 😅

That's about it for the farm this month. The outside projects will slow down now that winter is upon us, but we'll be moving into our house any day, so the winter projects will be getting the airbnb ready, and getting the barn all set up like I want it once our stuff is not stored in it anymore. Stay tuned for a house update next month.