Community Poop and A Quick Roll in the Sand

Sorry I've been away so long. I think I mentioned in my last post that I had lots and lots of chores going on.... I got a little overwhelmed with the gardening, landscaping, setting up my new antique shop space, doing all the Spring activities with the animals and so on. Throw in some family birthdays, moving my daughter and grand daughter into their own place, emptying out storage space, and well, talk about March Madness! I've had my share this month.

Now I'm back and I pledge to posting something every day again, or a least several times a week anyway!

So, what's been happening in my life? Well, I finally got all my gardening planted. I'll have some more updated pictures soon, but for now, below is a little look mid stride at some of what I was doing:

I now have all my fruits and vegetables planted.... I have tomato, peppers, cantaloup, lots of herbs, raspberries, blackberries, grapes, as well as pear, apple, peach and orange trees. I still need to get my potatoes and rhubarb planted though.

In addition to the garden plots and trees, I was overly ambitious about wanting a nicely landscaped area to the one side of my house. See, I had purchased all these plants and bushes and landscaping stuff, and it just had to get done. It's finally coming together and looking much more appealing to the eye when I drive up to my house. More eye popping colors instead of the basic green and brown. I can't wait to see everything mature and blooming! All in good time. Here's a look at the beginning of the project. Again, more finished photos coming soon:


I also took some time with the animals doing all those time consuming Spring chores with them. Got all the equines vaccinnated, wormed and trimmed. Got all the fowl dusted, cleaned coops out with disinfectant after the long winter months, and other general housekeeping adventures. My one hen hatched out 2 babies, but one of them died from pasty butt I think. This is the first time I have had that happen to a chick and I don't know why or how, but it did, and I hope it wasn't something I lacked in doing for it. The hen only hatched 2 out of the 5 eggs she was setting. So only 1 surviving chick that I'm pretty sure is going to turn into a rooster. Darn it!

I also have 10 more RIR hens I have to pick up this week. I lost one of my hens last weekend to that damn Bobcat. Right in front of me and my BB too! We weren't more than 25 yards away when the cat jumped over my neighboring property fence and grabbed one of my chickens. The hen initially got away and ran into a falling apart kennel built into the side of our property, where I promptly ran over to and trapped inside. While BB ran into the house to get the gun, I was watching it and guarding the door so it couldn't get out. Just as BB came back with the gun, the dang thing found a small opening in the kennel roof and in one smooth leap, was out that hole and running through the woods. Drats! Another missed opportunity to kill the thing. He didn't get his kill, but still, I lost a good hen to his shinanigans.

I've been very good about trying to keep all the donkey and horse poop picked up in the paddock and barn, but I admit there were a couple of days that I just didn't get to that chore with everything else going on. I grabbed a picture of the "community poop" pile that the donkeys leave if I neglect to pick up poop every day. I have never inquired from other donkey owners, but if anyone out there has donkeys, can you tell me: do your donkeys poop in a community pile? or do they spread their poop out over a larger area? I have always been amazed at the intelligence of a donkey, but I have to say, I'm baffled that they would do their poops in a large pile day after day... in the same place. It's like, they roam all over my 10 acres, but hey when it's time to poop, they take the time to walk to their poop pile to leave their gift, then resume what they were doing. Weird. But I weirdly admire that about my donkeys. Does that make me weird? Probably, but we've covered that in other posts before!


I grabbed a couple of shots of my one donkey, Doodle, doing a roll in the sand. It's always amazing to watch the horse and donkeys roll in the dirt and sand. They usually do it when they are wet from a bath and freshly groomed too. But I still love to watch them roll and then stand up and shake like a cat! Funny animals.


Well, you can see I've been busy. Life on a farm is never dull or boring, that's for sure!