What's been happening on Our Tiny Farm

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It's been a really long time since I posted an update on Our Tiny Farm. It's been an interesting and busy time as we continue to work through our transition from a very small working family farm with crops, bees, and animals to something more suitable to two mature adults who don't want to work quite so hard anymore. Last time I posted, we only had our two donkeys, Chester and Meadow, and an "unintentional" hive of bees. Well, it's still that way. The photo above is of Meadow in her blue coat and Chester in his red coat last winter. You all know what a beehive looks like, so no pic of that. 

We had a population explosion in February and March as we helped some friends as they adopted two mini-donkeys and a mini-horse. Meet Wilson, Forrest, and Harold in the photo above. They settled in very quickly.

Harold the mini-horse is quite the character! He tried to be the alpha of the herd, but he was no match for the donkeys. He reluctantly accepted his position in the herd and everyone got along well. These three stayed with us for about a month and a half while their new "parents" finished up the fencing and paddock for them on their own little farm. The three of them are now at their forever home and we follow their antics on social media.

So, now we are back to just our two donkeys and that has created an unexpected problem. We have never had so few animals on our farm, and that means there is WAY too much grass for the donkeys to eat. The paddock area, which was always our sacrifice area and had little for the donkeys or horses to eat, became as lush as the pastures. So the donkeys have put on some weight which is really not healthy for them. We now limit their pasture time even more than before, weigh the nightly hay and provide it in a slow-feed hanging hay ball, and keep the paddock closely mowed. Meadow also wears a grazing muzzle anytime she is on the pasture. We are strongly considering making the paddock all gravel.

It was an interesting spring and summer here with extremely high temperatures and an extended drought followed by days of endless rain. The donkeys handled it well. They have fans in their barn and access to fresh, cool water at all times, and the fly masks keep the flies and gnats out of their eyes and ears.

I have been working to increase the donkeys exercise now that they don't have pasture friends to run and play with. In the picture above, you can see the rubber chicken I got them sitting on top of their treat tin. There are lots of fun videos of other donkeys playing with squeaky rubber chickens, so I bought two of them. My donkeys LOVE toys of all sorts. BUT they are terrified of these squeaky rubber chickens. They won't get near them. I still use them to exercise the donkeys, though. I throw the chickens and the donkeys run!

Because of all the unusual weather conditions across the nation, a hay shortage is predicted for the coming year. It felt very good to get enough hay put up early for our two donkeys. If we board any donkeys this coming year, arranging for adequate hay for the boarders will be part of the agreement!

With donkeys, we know to expect the unexpected. Like the morning a few weeks back when I walked out of the house and saw the donkeys on the pasture! We put the donkeys in the double-fenced paddock at night for protection (from coyotes, dogs, and bears); so they should not have been on the pasture. Well, I found the pasture gate on the far side of the barn standing open (we rarely use that gate) and two donkeys with HUGE grass bellies looking at me with little smirks on their faces. We have no idea how they got that gate open. 

I just thought this was an interesting picture from the barn camera one evening. Hubby was in the tack/feed room filling the hay ball, and Chester had followed him in and his shadow was reflected on the barn floor.

We love our two little donkeys, but it is clear to me that they need the company and stimulation of having additional donkeys or horses on the farm. So in the coming months, I need to spend more time with a business consultant and a CPA to figure out how to set up our business to be in good order for taxes and insurance, lower our risk, and be profitable. We definitely want to offer boarding again and donkey visits from time to time. But after our first small business consultations, we learned that the structure we had been working under for 17 years, put us under too much risk. I hope to fix that soon.

Recently someone asked us what else we are growing on the farm. Right now we don't have any other crops or animals on the farm. With everything else going on in our lives (mine in particular), that has been good. But I am looking to maybe partner with some nearby farm or someone without their own land to make use of parts of Our Tiny Farm that we aren't currently using. Doesn't make sense to me to be mowing a pasture! Hope you have a wonderful autumn and get to enjoy sunsets like the ones we are so blessed to have often here in western North Carolina.

Happy New Year from Our Tiny Farm

 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Our Tiny Farm! It was a very soggy and warm Christmas this year. Chester and Meadow did not enjoy having to spend so much time in the barn (they both HATE to be wet). But we went out to spend time with them and give them treats, and today it is starting to dry out and they are back on the pasture.

We are looking forward to a quieter and easier 2024 on Our Tiny Farm. There are only two donkeys here now and we expect to just host a few fundraisers here for local non-profits. 

We plan to spend more time relaxing, gardening, playing with the donkeys, and enjoying all the wildlife who call Our Tiny Farm "home". This year we have deer, rabbits, opossums, raccoons, skunks, feral cats, hawks, several kinds of woodpeckers, many other birds, and for the first time in many years, we've spotted fox again, as shown in the pic above!

 

Temporary Donkey Home Available in Western NC

 

If you have always wanted a mini-donkey but don't have a place to keep it temporarily, it might be a good fit at Our Tiny Farm in Henderson county, NC. Miniature donkeys are preferred, but we will consider standards (we have had several here before). 

We are a very small farm and give our donkeys lots of attention throughout the day. We put on fly masks and grazing muzzles (if needed) each morning, carefully weigh out hay, use slow-feeders, and bring everyone into the paddock close to the house each night.

Temporary Home for Your Donkey

 

This doesn't happen very often, but we will have room for two donkeys, probably in late spring. Two of our donkeys are moving away and our donkeys are happiest in a six member herd. If you have donkeys and they need a home, or if you have wanted to own donkeys but don't have your own place to keep them, here is your opportunity. We are located in Henderson County, North Carolina. Contact us through the Contact Us tab in the right side bar, or email us at ourtinyfarmnc@gmail.com.

Our mini-donkeys are stars in this video!

 

Multi-talented book author, blogger, podcaster, and videographer, Laura Camby McCaskill, came to visit us on Our Tiny Farm last summer. She creates wonderful videos on animals, especially those in rescue and sanctuary situations. She heard about our "mini-donkey visit fundraiser" for Veterans Healing Farm and asked if she could do a video on Our Tiny Farm. Of course I said yes, so here is a link to her wonderful video on our donkeys which was released on November 1:

As for those donkey visits, our plan was to offer them as an agritourism business, but it has been a real learning experience on what all that entails. Structuring the business, finding affordable insurance, figuring out how to fit this into our already busy lives, and crunching the numbers to make sure it can be profitable for us but affordable for our guests has been a big effort. So, we are not ready for paying guests! I will let you know if we decide to move forward with it as a business.

 

 

Pause in the Mini-Donkey Visits

 

The mini-donkey visit fundraiser we held last spring for the Veterans Healing Farm was a HUGE success, and now we want to consider making mini-donkey visits a real farm business. But we quickly learned that we weren't really prepared to do that. Presently we are working with a local Small Business Center to structure a business and with our insurance company to provide appropriate coverage for our farm and our visitors. Once we are able to accept paying visitors, if we decide to go that route, we will post it here, on our Facebook page, and on our Google Business page. Thank you for your patience.

Plan a Visit with the Miniature Donkeys-A Fundraiser for Veterans Healing Farm

 

The mini-donkey visit fundraiser is over and we are not currently accepting reservations.

The mini-donkey fundraiser for VETERANS HEALING FARM raised $1,650! It was so successful that we are now considering making it a permanent part of our farm. We need a little time to work out the business, tax, and insurance end of things and will let you know as soon as we have made a decision. Thanks for your support!

Six Little Donkeys on Our Tiny Farm

 

It has been a while since I posted on our blog, so thought I would spend some time on this sunny,  Friday afternoon in February to catch up. As I mentioned last October, we had two new little donkeys join our herd. These are two beautiful true miniature donkeys. They are about three years old and just as sweet as can be. One is white with black spots. Her name is Pickles; she's the one on the far left in the photo above. The other one is a brown-grey and her name is Waffles; she is the second from the left in the photo above. They are now very much a part of the herd, and in fact, Waffles is the alpha jenny. In other words, she's the boss!

Interest in our donkeys continues to grow. We receive more inquires, questions, and comments about them every month. Today we had a journalist from Asheville come out to do a story on the donkeys. It was heartwarming to see the joy on her face when those six little donkeys gathered around her for pets and treats. We should probably give some serious thought to adding an agritourism element to Our Tiny Farm!

We did get a good snowfall last month, with 14 inches measured on the farm. It was very cold and blustery, so five of the donkeys wore their colorful winter coats (i.e., blankets) for a few days. We were a little concerned about Pickles and Waffles because they had just moved here from California and had never experienced real cold weather before. There was no need to worry, they did just fine.

But the snow was new to the new donkeys. The photo above was taken right after Waffles was let out of the barn and when bounding out into the snow for the first time. The look of surprise on her face was precious!

It was a very pretty snow that stayed around much longer than usual for our area in the southern mountains of western North Carolina.

We have had remarkable sunrises and sunsets for months. I don't know why they are so vibrant right now, but I am enjoying it. The sunrise above was on Christmas eve morning.

In addition to our little herd of donkeys, we have a trio of lively and entertaining cats who bring us joy and laughter every day. This box is now a permanent fixture on the table for "the queen".

And now I am going to sign off and give some serious thought to "mini-donkey agritourism"!

New Donkeys on Our Tiny Farm

 

We have two new mini-donkeys living on Our Tiny Farm! They arrived here from California in early October.

Their humans are moving to western North Carolina and needed a place for  their precious minis while they find a new home for all of them. Meet Pickles, the white spotted one on the left, and Waffles, the brown one on the right. They are really sweet donkeys, and settled in very quickly. 

We kept them separated in the barn and paddock from our other four until their humans arrived. Then we let them all together. It was rather anti-climatic. Pickles and Waffles on the left and Chester and Meadow on the right, just stared at each other for several minutes. Clara and Wilma didn't even bother to come over. I guess they became familiar enough with each other after nine days of being near each other, that it was no big deal. We are enjoying having a real little herd of minis on the farm.

A Quick Check-In from Our Tiny Farm in Etowah, NC

 

I can't believe that almost six months have flown by since I wrote a post on the Our Tiny Farm blog. You would think with all the COVID restrictions that kept me at home that I would have had plenty of time to write fun posts here. The reality is, working my NC State University job from home can be all consuming! And I am so fried by the time that I am done, that the last thing I want to do is get back on the computer. So here is just a quick update from the farm, focused mostly on donkeys. The picture above is of our dear small standard donkey, Meadow, protectively leaning over the neck of sweet mini-donkey, Chester. We continue to have several other donkeys living on the farm and dote on all of them.

I promised myself and the donkeys that we were going to make a special effort to control flies this year. It breaks my heart to see how the donkeys are tortured by biting flies and midges. So, I hang six strips of fly paper in the barn every month, put out fly predators monthly, put fly masks (with ears) on the donkeys every day, clean up manure in the paddock and barn daily and cart it to the other side of the farm, put fly spray or fly cream on their legs every other day, run the fans in the barn, and this year, I put out two of these Captivator fly traps. As you can see, they do catch a lot of flies! I will let you know how well this time consuming strategy works!

Our donkeys are always up to something new and different. Here is Chester, in his fly mask, proudly standing over the loose salt bucket that he successfully removed from where it was mounted on the wall of the barn. It doesn't matter how large the screws and washers are that we mount it with, eventually he will get it off. So, this time it stays off and can just be another toy for the donkeys.

Donkeys are very smart and easily bored. So we humans have to be very careful to make sure everything is well secured and donkey-proof. And when we get careless, this is what happens! I went out to the barn one afternoon and found the feed room door wide open and a full bale of hay scattered all over the room. Fortunately, this happened during the day when the two biggest trouble makers, Wilma and Meadow, had their grazing muzzles on. Thus, they were not able to get any of the feed cans open (even though they are held shut with bungee cords, I still think, given enough time, Wilma would get into them if she isn't muzzled) or devour enough hay to make themselves sick. 

Many people driving and riding their bikes by the farm stop and look at the donkeys, especially when they are in their summer garb of fly masks and grazing muzzles. Actually, only Wilma and Meadow wear the grazing muzzles. The muzzles slow down their eating so the two donkeys can stay on the pasture longer with their friends, Chester and Clara. Some donkeys are prone to putting on weight very quickly which can be very dangerous for them; thus the grazing muzzles.

Did you know that donkeys are part beaver? Not really, but they do love to chew on wood! In their natural environment, they have lots of shrubby stuff to chew on, but on Our Tiny Farm the donkeys get grass and hay. I do try to throw branches (from safe to eat trees) and bamboo into their paddock from time to time, but chewing on the barn is still a favorite activity. We had the barn wrapped in chicken wire for many years, but it was starting to show its age. So this spring we repaired the damaged boards and wrapped the barn in galvanized wire fencing. That should keep the barn standing for awhile longer!

And after harvesting a bumper crop of honey, Glen has decided to end his beekeeping career. So, until I come up with another idea, our farming efforts revolve around the donkeys.

And that's the quick update from Our Tiny Farm!

Our Tiny Farm During the Year of COVID

In December 2019 I wrote a post about how we were transitioning Our Tiny Farm for the next stage of our lives. I am still working full-time as a faculty member in the Department of Horticultural Science at  NC State University, but I am starting to think about what I want to do next. 

We also have an RV that we really enjoy exploring this beautiful country in. So raising cattle, garlic, and vegetables don't fit quite as easily into our lives and plans as they used to. 

We have decided that we will continue to raise our own donkeys and provide a temporary home for a few others. We enjoy them so very much. And when we travel, our very capable son, who lives on the farm, takes care of them for us. THAT is one of the keys to our being able to make this transition and keep the farm; having a young, strong son who enjoys living here with us. He gets free rent and we have built-in farm help.

These are our two donkeys. Chester is the brown miniature donkey on the left and Meadow is the small standard donkey on the right.

The farm behind us also raises donkeys and one summer day a baby was born right next to our fence line. This donkey is less than five minutes old!

We put up a nice supply of locally grown hay for our donkeys. We have a good relationship with our hay supplier and are assured that they use no persistent herbicides on their fields so we can safely use the manure on our gardens and provide it to others without risk to sensitive plants.

The plan for 2020 was to grow a small, manageable garden that would be easy to maintain and not put a guilt trip on us come harvest time. Well, old habits die hard and before I knew it, hubby had planted a sizeable garden. We enjoyed lots of fresh, homegrown tomatoes, beans, sweet corn, summer squash, zucchini, butternut squash, peppers, eggplant, and potatoes. 

We also froze and gave away much of what we grew. Now this big garden area, which we have managed following practices and using products approved by the National Organic Program, is sown in cover crops. Next spring our plan is to keep this area planted in soil building and pollinator friendly plants and build raised beds close to the kitchen!

We had a very special treat this summer. We had several elk from the Smoky Mountain National Park find their way into our community. People were posting pictures of them on social media from all over our area, and then late one afternoon, a big bull came to our area. Here he is just strolling across our farm. All the horses and donkeys just stood and stared. 

On a very sad note, we had to say good-bye to the most loving, wonderful dog in the world, Traveler. Traveler came to us from the Foothills Humane Society 12 years ago. He was our constant companion. He got along well (most of the time) with all the farm animals and the house cats. He is missed very, very much.

In addition to boarding donkeys, we will continue to be beekeepers and bottle honey.

It was an excellent honey year. Our friends and family will be enjoying this for a long time.

Easter night we had a terrible storm come through with high winds and a deluge of rain. Our Tiny Farm was hit particularly hard. We don't know if it was a micro-burst, straight line winds, or a tornado, but twenty VERY large trees were blown down in the middle of the night. We were so blessed. The only damage to the house was to the gutter on the corner of the porch.

Like many others, I became quite proficient at making many kinds of face masks for family and friends.

We till up the garden each spring using the Troy-Bilt rototiller that my mother, siblings, and I bought for my father when I was a teenager. They don't make them like that anymore!

Carpenter bees were making swiss cheese out of our barn, so we hung four of these traps on the barn this year. They really work!

These daffodils were here when we bought Our Tiny Farm in 1999. Who knows how long they were there before that!

We see beautiful sunrises and sunsets from our farm.

Our big excitement in January was going out to see the donkeys in the morning and finding that a bear had tried to push his, or her, way into the donkeys' paddock. Several years ago I had my husband reinforce the fencing on the paddock area where we confine our little donkeys each night. He moved the six-strand electric fencing to the outside and put woven wire fencing on the inside. The bear reached through the upper electric wires and pushed the woven wire fencing out of the big heavy staples on the corner post. We assume that as he/she pushed forward, he/she made contact with several of the electric wires and was shocked enough to give up (we keep that fence very hot). There was a footprint left in the mud that I asked some of my bear hunting friends to verify that it was indeed a bear (although, what else could have done that?). Since then, we have a trail cam mounted.

And that was our COVID year on Our Tiny Farm. Today I was planning for our very small Thanksgiving celebration later in the week. It will just be three of us this year but we are looking forward to Zoom video calls with parents, siblings, and my daughter and family. Aren't we fortunate to have such technology to get us through this pandemic. Stay safe.