Happy New Year from all of us at the Cozy Corral! We hope 2025 brings you peace, happiness, adventure, and big dreams.
We kicked off the year on our social media by introducing ourselves and our farm animals. We got a lot of new followers over the past year, so enjoy these little recaps of our lives.
Mark & Tricia:
We're Mark and Tricia! We went from high school sweethearts to empty nesters in the blink of an eye. We've been adventuring together our whole lives, and once our kids flew the coop, we decided to embark on one of our craziest, most exciting journeys yet! We moved out to the country and started our little farm. The past 4 years have been a ton of work, but we're well on our way to creating the farm of our dreams. We have big plans for this place! We love sharing our animals, farm projects, and day to day farm life with people.
Aside from the farm, we are avid trail runners, and spend a lot of time in the mountains. We both just completed our first 100 mile trail race. We are currently in pursuit of visiting all of the national parks in the United States.
We go hard, we set big goals, and we love chasing our dreams together. Thanks for joining us on our journey.
Clover & Willow
These two are the whole reason we started our farm, and we just adore them! They are 2 1/2 yer old miniature mediterranean donkeys. Clover and Willow are half sisters and were born on the same day. They have lived on our farm since they were 6 months old.
Clover is a micro mini, and is just as sweet as she looks. She has the perfect amount of adorable sass. She loves booty scratches and treats.
Willow is a sass bucket, and keeps us on our toes. She is so smart, a natural leader, very teachable, and makes us laugh everyday.
Donkeys are very misunderstood animals, and we hope that by following our farm, you can get a glimpse of how amazing they really are. We love these two so much! It's impossible not to smile when you're around them.
Ginger-Roxie-Dolly
These three gems have been with us for over a year and a half. They are Nigerian dwarf goats, and they provide endless entertainment. There are few things cuter than baby goats, and few things as peaceful as adult goats living their best lives. They pester the donkeys relentlessly, are always underfoot, and live for walks around the property. We love them!
Opal & Ace:
Opal and Ace were born in the spring of 2024, and were the best addition to our farm. They are half siblings, and have never been separated. Ace is like a Giant lap dog. No amount of snuggles and love is too much for him. He is easy going, very playful, and a friend to everyone. Opal is like a dream; she is the cutest, sweetest, most loving little cow I've ever seen.
We didn't have any experience with cows before we got these two, and it's been a fun learning experience for us.
Now that we got all the introductions out of the way, let's get on with things. 😄
January was COLD! We had so many days that had negative temperatures with crazy 'feels like' temperatures. Farm chores aren't nearly as fun in those conditions. Not to mention the stress; I worried the chickens would freeze out in the coop, and I worried about poor Stormy (the cat) freezing in the hay barn. With a few adjustments, everyone handled the cold really well.
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| Here's just one example of what are days have been like. |
This is what happens when you throw boiling water outside when it's that cold.
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| When it's really cold, the animals spend more time inside the barn, which means more mess for me to clean up. This is how my wheelbarrow looked for most of January, because with a 'feels like' of -26, I'm not about to make two trips out to dump it if I can help it. It became a fun game of 'how high can I really pile this.' |
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| It's been too cold to go out, so we tackled some much needed inside projects. This is what my feed station looked like. It was a total mess! |
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| This is what it looked like when we got done. So much cleaner and more organized! |
Tis the season to also have the moose show up on our property. We get quite a few in the winter and spring. We're learned from experience to look around before we head outside. This is a young male that was around for a few days.
We spent some time in Grand Teton Park watching the bachelor herd of moose and finding the big horned sheep. I made a reel to show how cool the park is in the wintertime.
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| I love the view from my back porch! |
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| We went to dinner with our friends from Spero Farm, and they gave us this awesome stone as a memorial for Reeses. I can't wait to put it out once the snow melts. Such a sweet gesture. I miss my pup every single day. |
Cats:
Stormy is a trooper, and survived the cold month. She has a pretty good set up in the hay barn; she is blocked from all the wind, has a couple warm beds, and lots of blankets. I wish I could get her to come in the barn on the really cold nights. She is getting so sweet and friendly with me. She follows me around and lets me pet her a lot when I feed her. She even purrs around me now. I am slowly building trust with her, and I was even able to pick her up for a couple seconds.
We had a cute orange tom cat show up, and he stays in the hay barn with Stormy. I was so happy for her to have another friend, and they seem to get along great. I named him Cheddar, and he isn't very shy. He missed dinner one night, so he showed up at the back door of the house meowing for a snack. 😆
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| Cheddar |
Floof and Michem (we gave up calling her Mischief) are doing great! They have no idea how spoiled they are. 😆
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| This is what happens when I try to scrapbook. 😅 |
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| Michem is a snuggly little thing. |
Donkeys:
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| Willow was ready to take Clover on a walk. |
Despite the cold, we were able to get out on a couple snowy walks.
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| It's a good thing these two love their blankets, because they've had to wear them for the majority of the month. |
Willow still loves to mess with Clover's blanket. Such a little stinker! 😆
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| Whenever I walk by in the barn, this is usually how Clover is. She's the cutest, and it's impossible not to give her treats or scratches. She has me totally figured out. 😁 |
Seriously, just look at her sweet face!
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| 😍😍😍 |
I looked out the back door and saw Clover pestering Willow, and it made my whole day.
That turned into them running laps around the corral for about 15 minutes. I wish I had better video, but I didn't want to go out there and disturb their fun.
The toy of choice for the donkeys has always been a bucket. Kassie and Jeremiah keep us well stocked with Cold Stone buckets.
I left the wheelbarrow for 5 seconds to get the corral key, and Clover decided to finish up my chores for me.
Cows:
Ace's favorite thing is to run with me. He's big and crazy, and it should scare me a little to see him bucking and coming at me full speed, but it doesn't. He just likes to play and have a good time.
The cows had their first vet appointment in January. Nothing was wrong, I just had a lot of cow questions about their weight, hoofs, worming, etc. It was a good check up, and I got all my questions answered. The cows were a little hard to get into the trailer, so that's something I'm gonna have to work on with them this summer. Once we got them in, they rode down to the vet like champs.
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| Any trailer door or window I opened, Ace had his face right there! |
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| 😂😂😂 |
Mark and I went to Florida and that was the longest time we've been away from the farm. I was nervous about leaving, especially during a cold month, but we had a great farm sitter. We met Caden when him and his mom stayed at our Airbnb over the summer when they were dropping him off at college. He loves Ace, and is a great worker. He was the perfect person to watch things while we were gone. Here are a few videos and pictures he took while we were gone.
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| Ace |
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| Opal |
The cows are the messiest eaters and end up wearing most of it on their heads. It's so fun to watch them eat though.
We have two balls now, so there is no more fighting for it. Ace is the one that loves it the most. When he jumps on the big ball, he bounces off, but when he jumps on the smaller one, it's the perfect size for him to get high centered. 😂
Opal has never shown much interest in the ball. The big one is bigger than her, so I'm sure it intimidated her. But she's watched Ace enough, that I finally caught her trying to jump on the smaller one like he does. It was the cutest thing! She does much better now.
I love Opal's cute little teeth!
Ace is a huge attention hog!
This is just a glimpse of why it takes me a long time to get through my chores. 😅
Goats:
The goats have just been hanging out being their usual weirdo selves.
Ginger has to walk RIGHT next to me; like touching me, and tripping me because she is so close. 😂
And this is what happens if the other goats want to walk by me. 😅
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| They love standing in half of the dog kennel. I kind of want to hook it up to the 4 wheeler and pull them around the snow in it. 😆 |
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| I was doing morning chores one day, and Dolly just sat there like a dog smiling at me. Do goats usually sit down? |
Chickens:
The chickens have done really good in the cold. Mark insulated the coop and I think that made a big difference for them. We put a radiant heater on the wall for them during the negative temperatures.
Before.....
After....
That's it for January!
