Cider Bend: August

 August on the farm was a blur! Probably because I was gone to the mountains so much. Our Airbnb has been booked up, and we've had really fun guests this summer. The animals have loved having so many visitors on the farm.

Cats:

Stormy doesn't hang around as much when the weather is good. She's off mousing and exploring. She turns up every couple days when she gets hungry. If she's hungry and misses dinner time, she'll come to the back door of the house and meow for us. She has me trained well because I rush out with a bowl of food for her. 😁

Floof and Michem are just as spoiled and good as always.

Cutest little besties!

Goats:

Nothing exciting with the goats. I've noticed them getting fat, so I need to get back to taking them on daily walks. Walking the animals used to be one of the best parts of my day, but I had a hard time doing it for a while once Reeses died, and then I just got out of the habit. I've set a goal to walk them a minimum of 10 times in October.

Here's a video I got of Dolly getting all tangled up in the donkeys rope toy. 😅

Cows:

The cows love their lives! They are so care free and friendly. 

Opal loves when the neighbors pivot comes through the pasture. She just hangs out under the sprinkler. 😆

I swore I'd be the type of person who kept her cows clean and fluffy all the time. I soon learned that would be impossible. I do brush them often, but keeping them clean is out of the question. They have a nice, big shelter, but they love to get wet and be out in the rain. I figure a good scrub down at the start of each season will have to be enough, so I'm learning to let go of some control and just let them live their best lives.

One of my favorite parts of morning chores is feeding the cows. They are so dang cute! Opal loves her food and is always in a rush to get to it. Ace saunters along until I encourage him, and then he'll pick up the pace. It's the same thing every morning and every evening, and it never gets old. The next five videos are basically the same thing, so skip right on by, but I love them so much I wanted them all on my blog.

Donkeys:

The donkeys have been rock stars this month! They have had lots of visitors, and they are so fun with people. I'm always so proud of them after a group leaves. Clover is the sweetest and demands all the love and scratches, and Willow is usually the comic relief. I just love them!

Sawyer has always been partial to the cows, and especially loves Ace. He's always thought the donkeys were stand offish. Once we explained some stuff to him about donkeys he decided to give them another try. Turns out, Willow adores him! 😁 She is stingy with her affection, but she'll give hugs to Sawyer. At first we thought maybe she thought he was Mark, but nope, she does it quite often. There is something about him that she has connected with, and it's so dang cute!

Hugs for Sawyer!

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He's starting to understand why the donkeys are our favorites.

Look how tiny Clover is!

We had some Airbnb guests, and their kids adored the donkeys. Their parents would take them to cool places, and they would just say they wanted to go back to the farm and play with Clover and Willow. 😆 Willow was such a good sport. The video below shows just how sweet and patient Willow is with kids.

Clover LOVES to run, and it usually brings out the sassy side of her, which is my absolute favorite. I wish I would have pulled my camera out earlier, but I caught the tail end of her sassy frolicking.

Bailey took this picture of Willow while they were here visiting, and it's my favorite. I always say that Clover is cute, and Willow is beautiful. Her eyes have always been stunning, and I think this picture captures that so well.

Can you guess who is responsible for this? If you said Willow you would be correct. 😆

Chickens:

The chickens have done awesome this summer! We have eggs coming out of our ears! We sell a bunch, and we've been eating tons of them, and we still can't keep up. 

I think I may have posted in last month's blog post about opening the coop door and having a bunch of pincher bugs (earwigs) fall on me. 😵 Well, that went on for about a month. I filmed it so Mark could see how bad it was. I have no idea why they picked that specific area to keep congregating. 

Harriette hangs out with me when I clean the coop. She was inside waiting for me, so she got to eat up the bugs that fell. 😋

One of the new chickens, either Idea or Chicken Moana kept flying over the fence to lay her eggs somewhere. Then she couldn't get back in, so I'd have to go catch her and put her back in the chicken run. We never could find her eggs, but I'm sure there is a pile of them in some random place on the farm. I was worried she was going to get snatched up by something, so we finally clipped her wings. We haven't had any problems since then, and she figured out how to use the nesting boxes.

My chickens lay the prettiest eggs!

The splash pad is still a huge hit. It has a few holes in it now, but we'll start cooling down in September, so I'll be throwing it away soon. $12 very well spent this summer!

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It makes Mark happy that the chickens are getting good use of the shelter he made them. 

Our neighbor Larry had a family reunion, and there was food left over. He brought a watermelon and a big salad over for the chickens. They love Larry! 😁

Fern is still my little shadow. She follows me around the barn any time she's out. She'll stare at me like that for a while, and if I don't pick her up she'll start pecking me. It's so dang funny! 😂

We've had excess fruit and veggies from our orchard and garden, so Mark put a pole in the chicken run. I load it up with extra food, and the chickens go to town. Once they finish one thing, the next thing drops down.

Random Stuff:

I posted last month about the raccoon family we've had on the farm. I have a few more videos from August, and you can totally see how much they've grown. They look like fat little rolly pollies!

We've also had a few fledgling owls hanging out. I love to hear them, and it's especially fun when we get to see them.

I love this picture of an owl sitting on the barn.

August brought the hummingbirds in droves! I started having to fill the two feeders every couple days. They aren't ever afraid of us. They are so fun to watch, and they've kept the cats entertained watching through the glass door all summer.

Our fruit trees did amazing this year. We already harvested the cherries, and the apricots, but August will be for the plums. The tree is loaded!

I posted about this in another post, but I want to document it here as well. We put a paver path from the house to the barn. I go back and forth so much, I was wearing a trail into the grass. This looks so much nicer!

Now that August has wound down, we are gearing up for Fall. Fall on the farm is my favorite!