November 20, 2024
Last week, I saw my neighbor out putting hay out for his cows and donkeys. I waved at him and then I picked Nox up so she could watch the cows and donkeys eating the hay. Nox loves watching cows.
Our neighbor came over to talk to me. I was glad he come over since I wanted to let him know we’ll be clearing our fence lines. It is always polite to let your neighbors know about these type of changes. I don’t want trees to grow up into our electric wires. I also feel it is wrong to let trees grow too close to a fence. The fence wires rub the trees causing damage to the trees. In some cases, the tree grows around the wire, damaging the fence.
After a bit, the donkeys came over to get petted, so our neighbor introduced them to me. I was delighted to meet Bryant and Gracie. I checked to find out if it was okay to occasionally fed the donkeys a carrot. He was okay with it and he thanked me for checking first.
I found out the rough spot in the front yard, the one I’ve been picking up rocks out of, was a hole, “big enough to swallow up that tractor.” Our neighbor has a small farm tractor. (I am used to big farm tractors since that was what my dad had.) Our neighbor had been bush hogging the front and the back pasture, so he knew about the hole.
The realtor, who flipped the house, brought in several truck loads of dirt and rocks to fill the hole. That means the fossils I’ve been finding were brought in.
I also let our neighbor know that we plan on keeping bees. He was excited to hear about that. He has planted several fruit trees and bees would be a good thing for him.
I mentioned I would like to plow/till part of the back pasture and plant buckwheat and then red clover. He suggested just try seeding the area with buckwheat and see how that grows, without plowing/tilling. I am planning to give that a try.
Blackberry Homestead 
Sowing without tilling? That’s new to me. It will be interesting to see how that goes.
Did Nox enjoy seeing the donkeys?
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She did. She loves seeing them. She almost touched noses with Bryant while I was petting him.
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I like donkeys too, Nox. Give ‘em a sniff for me!
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Next time they are in the pasture close to mom and dad’s, I’ll sniff them for you.
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I am happy to hear you have met the neighbors and talked with them. Sometimes people mean well by feeding donkeys (or any animal for that matter) but feeding them the wrong thing can kill them. I think it is wonderful that you are a good neighbor and doing your part in protecting the ecosystem there. Wonderful for the bees–can’t wait to hear about Julia’s honey…or will it be Nox Honey Farm? 🤔
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I would never feed a farm animal without getting the owner’s permission. You are absolutely right, feeding them the wrong thing can make the animal very sick or kill them. I really like seeing the donkeys, so I was glad to be introduced and allowed to feed them a carrot now and then. They seemed very friendly, but not knowing them, I didn’t want to pet them.
It will have to be Bruce’s Bees Blackberry Homestead Honey. The alliteration sounds fun!
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Donkeys can be very finicky about petting–even my dad’s who knew me well. BBBHH…that is a mouthful! Love it.
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The neighbor’s donkeys are attention hounds according to our neighbor. He said if you start petting one, the other one will show up and start nipping the one being petted so they can get petted.
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I can believe that!
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