Cider Bend-January

 Winter on the farm is always interesting. Anything is better than the never ending, horrible, winter we had last year, but this year has brought its struggles too. Our weather has been so strange. Just in January we have had a blizzard, a week of extreme cold, and spring like conditions that brought oodles of mud. Never a dull moment.

There is something I love so much about walking the animals in the fresh snow! We did lots of walks in January, because I was working on a virtual challenge and I needed 267 miles in the 31 days of January. We walked in every kind of weather imaginable. The animals helped me get about 65 of those miles.

Donkeys:

I love when Mark is home on the weekend and walks them with me. When I see someone else walking the donkeys, it reminds me of just how tiny they are. 😄

Gotta love Clover and her snacks! 😆

We had a brutal cold spell, so Mark installed freezer flaps to help keep the cold out of the donkey's stall. Willow wasn't quite sure about them at first, and pitched a pretty epic fit. She threw rocks and everything! So dang funny! 😂 I made a reel documenting the whole thing. I'm happy to report that she is quite fond of the freezer flaps now. She likes to breathe on them and watch them fog up. 😆

Having their mid morning nap. 😊

Boop!

RJ watched our animals for a couple days while we took a quick trip to Boise. He sent me this darling picture of Willow. She is seriously the cutest little thing!

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Goats:

I walk the goats everyday now, and it's my favorite thing. They are so funny!

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They like to go in the snow, rain, and even the wind. They just like to be out there hanging out with me. 😁

You can see in the last video that the goats went the wrong way, and had to run to catch up with me. Dolly didn't come, so she got lost when we went around the front of the house. We could hear her crying because she didn't know where we went. I back tracked to find her, and she came speeding around the house in a panic trying to find us. I was laughing so hard. Her little run is the cutest!

Mark thinks it's so funny that I just walk around the property with my goat entourage. They are the cutest little shadows! He was on the four wheeler plowing the driveway and stopped to film us. I love it so much!

Cutest little snoozer! 😴

Another cute picture that RJ sent me.

Random Stuff:

This picture just makes me happy! It just reminds me that I'm truly living my dream life.

Lots of people ask me about Reeses. She had a really great month. She seemed particularly spry and happy the first half of January. Just look at her in these videos with that pep in her step. 

We have a ton of moose in our area since we are so close to the river and the mountains. I saw this guy right up the road from our place. I had to stop driving and wait for him to cross the road. 

I love when our apple tree gets all frosty. 

We had some freezing fog, and everything looked so cool!

We had a blizzard warning, which doesn't happen very often. Actually just a few times in the 25 years we've lived in Idaho. We definitely got the wind, which caused drifts bad enough to close roads, schools, the INL, etc. But since it wasn't accompanied by a big amount of snow, it was kind of anti climatic. Not that I wanted anything bad, but maybe something a touch more exciting. Being snowed in for a few days would have been fun, but life just resumed like normal the next day.

We didn't even miss a day of walks! But check out this amazing cloud bank the morning after the blizzard. 

Shortly after the blizzard, we got a brutal cold spell. It was negative temperatures for several days, and got down to a 'feels like' of -25 at some points. When it is like that, I keep the animals inside the barn.

I got myself a cat! It's not technically 'mine,' but I'm claiming it. We have lots of feral cats around here, which is actually great, because they are great mousers, and we have had zero mice in our barn. I noticed that this cute gray cat seemed to have taken up residents in our hay barn. I didn't really think much of it, but then I started seeing it every day. I knew the blizzard and cold temps were coming, so we got some old blankets to put out on the hay. I bought a bag of cat food, because I figured the poor kitty wouldn't be able to get it's own food during a blizzard. I would go out several times a day to leave it water, which kept freezing. It was a pain in the but, but I would break the ice out of the water bowl several times a day and refill it with warm water, just to make sure it could get a drink. Mark told me not to feed it or get attached to it, but the next thing I know, he has ordered it a heated water dish off Amazon. 😂 I give it a very small handful of food in the morning and evenings. Probably not enough to make it full, but enough to get it by. I figured it was my payment for it catching the mice for us.

I didn't sleep hardly at all during the blizzard because I was so worried about the cat. Then when we got our cold spell I was so stressed. Our house would pop super loud because it was so cold, and I would instantly feel sick knowing that the cat was out there trying to survive the night. I know it was blocked from the wind, but it still had to be miserable. When I went out the next morning, and it was waiting for breakfast, I was so relieved. At that point I claimed it as mine. It won't let me touch it, but it definitely knows I'm trying to help it. It isn't nearly as scared of me now, and just stands back instead of jetting away when I go out to feed it. It even gives me cute little meows of thanks. So far I've just called it Kitty, but it needs a proper name. I'm thinking Stormy because it's solid gray, and it was the storms that technically made it mine. 😁

Here's Stormy!

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Our deer have had a much easier time this winter. Not nearly as much snow. It's nice seeing them look so healthy when they wander through.

I'll end this post with this sweet girl! Man I love her!