Cider Bend: May

 We kicked off May with beautiful weather, and our field was so green, pretty, and growing fast. I used Pearl to mow on a beautiful Idaho sky day.

I say it all the time, but I love our Idaho skies!

Mowing the field with Pearl.

So pretty!

Just a couple days after our beautiful spring weather, we got snow! I've lived here long enough that I expected nothing less.

 I always look out my bedroom window in the mornings, and this time I got a fun surprise. There was a mama and baby moose just hanging out in our back yard.

They walked behind the barn and made their way over to our orchard. We ended up going outside and scaring them away, because they were starting to eat my fruit trees.

These two moose ended up hanging out in the area for a month, and put a big damper on my donkey running. We ran into them so many times, and I finally stopped taking the donkeys off the property to run. It was a huge bummer, because I felt like the donks were just starting to get really fit. Eventually the mama went back up into the mountains, but her baby stuck around a while longer.

We finally got our 4 entry way pillars painted, and put our farm sign up.

The sunsets from my front porch are dreamy!

Kittens:

May was a whirlwind month with the kittens! We loved having them in the hay barn. We would go out and play with them all the time. They were so cute and fun, and they loved the attention!

Mark was like a human jungle gym. 😆

So stinking cute!

This is the only one that turned out fluffy, so we called him Floof.

😌😌😌

I would find them in the most random places! 😂

The kittens were starting to leave the hay barn a little more, so we knew we needed to get them out of there before they got snatched by a hawk, or other predator. We had to live trap Stormy, which broke my heart. We took her and the kittens in to the shelter, where they would be fixed, chipped, given their shots, and adopted out. When we got them in there, they did all those things to Stormy, but the kittens still didn't weigh enough. We were keeping Stormy, so we loaded everyone back up, and brought them back to the farm. Stormy needed to be kept inside for a few days while she healed from her surgery, so we kept them in the tack room of the barn. That was a long few days for them. They were bored, Stormy was pretty unsure of things, and they stunk up the room. Once we thought Stormy had recovered enough, we let them all back out in the hay barn. We had two more weeks to fatten them up to try the whole process again.

Seven cats in one small room in the barn was pure chaos!

Meeting at the water cooler! 😁

😀😀😀

They are so cute! I love that they all piled into one little bed to sleep.

Stormy stayed away from them a lot while she was healing, so I fed everyone kitten formula, because I wasn't sure if she was still able to nurse them.

After a few days, we let them back out to the hay barn. They seemed happy to be back outside in their familiar area.

The kitten saga will continue into June!

Chickens:

The chicken coop was started in March, and was a solid 10 week project with Mark working on it every minute of daylight that he was home. He even took some days off work to get it done, because the chickens were quickly outgrowing the stall in the barn. The coop turned out AMAZING! It exceeded all my expectations! Below is the process of building it.

Getting the base down.

The floor!

Starting the framing.

Progress!

The inside was coming along nicely.

Phil came out and helped Mark a lot! They got it wired, and got the siding up.

The inside was looking so good!

Roofing

Putting on the deck.

I primed the inside for paint.

Here's a little paint teaser....

Amanda came over several times to help with the inside. She worked her magic on the back wall, and it turned out so cute!

Painting for days!

Finishing touches on the inside.

The chicken run!

Lots of predator proofing. It's safe to say that nothing is getting in this coop!

Here is a fun reel of the finished product. I love it so much!

When the chickens were still in the stall, I would try to hold all of them every day so they would be used to people and be nice.

In May we started giving them some table scraps to eat.

Watermelon for Memorial Day!

Tillie and Fern are my favorite two chickens, and they were getting bullied by a couple of the others. Tillie was bleeding and had to be separated from the rest of the jack wagon chickens. We put the two of them in the coop the night before the rest of the chickens got to go in. They seemed to love the coop, and a night of peace from the others.

Tillie seemed to love her new home! 😃

We hung mirrors in the coop because I read that it was a good enrichment activity for the chickens. It has been hilarious! They run straight into it, they peck at the stranger they see, and they play lots of peek-a- boo with themselves. So much entertainment!

Move in day for everyone!

They all had fun exploring the new coop!

They caught on to the roost right away!

We opted to put sand in the chicken coop because it's a lot more clean and hygienic. It also makes it a piece of cake to clean. I have a lot of people tour the farm, and I don't want our guests wading through a bunch of chicken poop, so I clean it a couple times a week. I had some doubters that thought I wouldn't be able to keep up on it, but it only takes me 5-10 minutes twice a week. It really is easy! I am known for how clean I keep my animal's corrals, and I wasn't about to stop with the chickens. 😁

I was excited to get the chicken run all set up. I didn't want bored chickens, because then they pick on each other. I made sure they had plenty to do.

Goats:

The goats are still doing great, and living their best lives. Here are some random videos that I took of them in May.

Nothing is cuter than tiny goats running through green fields.

I wish everyone greeted me with as much gusto as Dolly does. 😆

Just some cute goats eating. 

The goats used to be scared of the kittens, and now they want to be friends. 😄

Donkeys:

We took the donkeys on an outing to Deer Park Canal for a little run. It was fun for them to take a trailer ride and get off the farm. We went 4 miles, and that was plenty for them.

Sweet Clover.

Willow loves to go exploring.

I love our Idaho sky!

This is why Willow is so chubby, even when we run her a lot. She's like a lawn mower as she goes. 😅

One of the Instagram accounts I follow put a plug in for this awesome shedding tool. I bought it right away, and it was worth every cent! The thing worked magic on my shedding donkeys! I was brushing them every single day, and not making a dent on the shedding hair. This got them all shed out in a matter of days. I highly recommend it!

Pardon the photo bomber, but this was the hair I got off of them in just a couple minutes.

Once the weather starts warming up, I like to put my camp chair in the corral and sit with the donkeys. They are all over me! They try to climb in my lap, eat my chair, and just generally invade my personal space. 😆

💙💙💙

I could watch these two run around the pasture for hours. It never gets old. 

Clover and Willow were big fans of all the dandelions in the pasture. They looked so cute surrounded by yellow flowers. 💛

I can always tell when Clover had a really good sleep. She's usually wearing half of her bed. 😁

😂😂😂

We gave everyone watermelon on Memorial Day. I love how Willow comes out of nowhere in this video once she realizes I have food. 😂

Opal & Ace:

Introducing Opal and Ace! We have had a lead on mini highland cows for the past year. I didn't say a lot about it, because I wasn't sure how it would pan out. I really thought it was too good to be true and I didn't want to get my hopes up. Through some good friends, we learned of a place called Maple Minis in Logan, and they were doing their first round of breeding. I got into contact with them right away to let them know we were interested in a female micro-mini. After that, it was a waiting game. The bull was a micro mini, and the two females were midsize. 

Ace was the first one born. He was male, and ended up being a mid size, so we passed on him. Opal was born a week later, and was exactly what we wanted (a white, micro-mini female). We jumped at the chance to get her! Trishelle contacted me, and said she would love to keep the two of them together, and would give us a really good deal for both of them. We weren't sure we were equipped for a bigger cow, so we took a quick trip to Logan to see them (mostly to see how big their moms were). Ace is like a giant dog, and stole our hearts instantly. We agreed to take both, and then just had to wait for them to be ready to leave their moms.

Ace when he was born.

He is the sweetest little guy!

Opal right after she was born.

Opal and her mom, Penny.

I could just die at the cuteness!

Ace enjoying a nap in the sunshine.

💚💚💚

Opal's mom, Penny, is so pretty! 

I love them, and after watching them interact with each other, there was no way we were going to separate them.

I am so excited for the cows to come to the farm!

 Sometimes I just sit and think about how much my life has changed in the past couple years. The life we are living now was just a far fetched dream, yet somehow it happened! It's definitely not without it's hard work and challenges, but it is so perfect for me, and I wouldn't change it for the world! I say it all the time, but I really believe I was born to do this.