Donna's mini horses do not mind the snow....they only come in to eat!

Luna loves the horses! She wishes they could come out to play....

"Hey. Lady. Make with the food. Hungry horses here!"

"Why isn't she getting us food?"

"Stop clicking that thing at us...go in the barn...and make with the HAY!"

"Don't make me come out there!" *

*no mini horses were starved during the making of this blog post

So I go to clean out the drying shed yesterday, and find a crowd of interested equines.



A customer arrives, adn I go to tend to them, and come back, and look what happened. The Minis are SOOOOOOO curious!!

I also started harvesting stuff to dry yetserday - some mixed flower and herb bouquets, and LAVENDER! This is our entire lavender crop - which is much bigger than it usually is. It smells divine!

some friends brought us black raspberries, which are HUGE and extra-delicious this year!

We also finally got the still up and running - distilled catnip - and did a ton of mowing and some planting. It's nice to finally have a lovely sunny day at the farm!!

So, I tried to pick some nettle the other day. I ended up having a LOT of help. It went something like this.

Head out to the pasture. Notice six small horses watching curiously. Notice six small horses following you.

Get to pasture, set down laundry basket. Horses immediately commandeer basket as their new favorite toy. They kick it, sniff it, pick it up, haul it around, and generally mess with it, ingnoring the fuming human saying "knock it off guys".

Horses finally get bored with laundry basket, until I bend down to start harvesting nettle. As soon as I put nettle in the basket, they eat it. This goes on for a while.

Eventually they decide to see if the laundry basket game is different/more fun if there is plant matter in the basket. Apparently it is, as they have a new round of mini horse laundry basket soccer. Complete with fuming human (being ignored).

Eventually the soccer match ends, and I can go back to picking nettle. This time *I* am the object of their attention.  They pick the clippers from my pocket, sniff me up one side and down the other, gently nibble my clothes and hair. At one point there was a snuffly soft horsey nose down the back of my pants (they gap when I crouch down). WHOO! that's an experience.

See little Del here? Note my hand? that is my pushing him far enough away to even get him in the picture. I got about 10 photos of just white horse fur before I pushed his head back a little. "Up close and personal" is the mini horse motto, apparently.

At some point the get bored with me and I can actually get some nettle harvested.

Some of it, my bunny ate. He likes fresh nettle. Some of it got put into a crustless nettle quiche, and the rest got blanched and frozen for later. Yum. nettle!

So...this is what I saw when I drove home from the post office yesterday.

As soon as I stuck my head in the door they were like "uh oh! BUSTED!" and they tried to hide. As if three mini horses could hide in a 24x30 room?!?!

I've been very lax about posting pictures lately - I'm sorry, everyone! it has been a busy few weeks. heck, it's been a busy month. I'm not sure where it went? We didn't even have time to do an October e-newsletter!!! Anyway, here are a few photos, taken yesterday. We had a "hard" freeze about a week ago, but have had gorgeous weather (almost 70! balmy, sunny - I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt) since then. Go figure. The cold-hardy herbs - mints, catnip, sage, thyme, are still green and lovely, but most of the others are either harvested or just - done. The photo above is a shot of our annual herb beds.

The farmers were delighted with the week of sunshine and dry weather - all around us, the fields are bare and empty, like this one.

And here are 2 of the "babies" - the miniature horse "kids" grow so fast! Baron is on the left, and Delafino is on the right.

More soon......

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This is SO exciting. Last year, we purchased a few saffron bulbs from The Rosemary House, just for fun - I mean, isn't it a great idea to grow the world's most costliest spice in your backyard? These little plants are amazing! They are a fall-blooming crocus, and are extremely easy to grow! We just popped them in the ground last fall, and pretty much forgot about them until *this* fall, when I noticed they had come up and - yes - even had actual saffron to harvest! I'm going to plant LOTS more! If you're interested in growing your own, I highly recommend it - they're inexpensive to purchase, grow beautifully in most places in the US, and are practically no maintenance.

And - just to show you how naughty Donna's little horses are - on these gorgeous fall days we simply leave the door of the shop open, to enjoy the sunlight and the breezes. Well, in their morning perambulations, the little horses just stopped on in to say hi! Delilah is on the left, and Baron on the right. Ollie, our mastiff-mix dog, is in the background - the babies are bigger than he is now!

NEW SOAPS! We have a new soapmaker, the wonderful Terri, owner of "Biscuit's Boutique Soaps". (Biscuit is her cat's name - isn't that cute?). She is from Des Moines, and makes wonderful essential-oil blend soaps. Now, nobody panic - Karla is not going anywhere! She's still making her amazing soaps and shampoo bars for us. She's just being kept very, VERY busy keeping you all in soap! So Terri is going to make a few new varities for us as well. I promise you'll love her soaps. They smell great, have cute labels, and have huge lather!

Speaking of cuteness. Here is the view from the front door of the shop, taken the other day. Donna lets her mini horses out to graze every morning for a few hours. They pretty much wander anywhere they want, and don't *usually* go too far. This day they decided the grass right outside the front door of the shop was pretty tasty. In this picture we see Contessa (the white one), Baron (the smaller brown with white markings), and Dutchess (Baron's mom).

Delilah is the oldest baby, she is a RIOT. She is SO inquisitive - she loves to investigate everything, and often does so by tasting things. (She loves to nibble - EVERYTHING). She has been known to pick up tools or items and just...carry them off. Why? We don't know. I think she is part puppy. Anyway, all the rest of the herd calmly grazed near the shop, paying no attention to the open door. Not Delilah. She looked up, saw the door, and walked right on in. What a funny girl! (She didn't stay long, just long enough for me to get this quick picture).

Last week, our fantastic farrier, Kim, came to trim the horses' hooves. This is a regular occurrence, for their health and safety. She's so great! A real animal lover, and an expert at her job. How many times do you suppose that such an operation is overseen by a Canada Goose?


The little ones frisked around, as their mommas got their feet cared for first. The baby horses are alot like human babies - really curious, affectionate, and they really like to TASTE their world. Delilah, the oldest one, is especially bad about that - she LOVES to nibble! Anything. clothes, arms, hair, tools - anything she can get her baby teeth on.


A closeup of Kim working on the hooves.


These are Baron's tiny little hooves. I LOVE the coloration. Aren't they fancy??


The dogs love to hang around and get bits of horse hoof to chew on. EEEWW!!!

Folks have been walking in the store lately going "hmm. why are the shelves so empty"? Well THIS is why. we've just been quite busy. This is today's haul to the post office - ONE DAY. 52 packages. 5 going overseas (Singapore, Australia, France and 2 to the UK). So, yeah. that's what we've been doing.


So, it was raining this morning. And mom's mini-herd is used to getting twice-daily outside romps - they get to get out of their pen, and wander around the farm, eating grass and being happy mini horses. But because it was raining this morning, she didn't let them out. And we kept hearing these LOUD, IRRITATED, DEMANDING mini-horse whinnys. They were MAD! So they got to spend extra time outside in the afternoon. This is Baron, and he has discovered that iris leaves are yummy.

This is Delafino, the tiniest new baby. isn't he just ADORABLE? And so tiny!!


For a size comparison, the one on the left is Delilah, the oldest baby, and Delafino is on the right.
Here Donna oversees her herd. The babies just run around in a hysterical little mini-gang, neighing and bucking and eating and playing really having the time of their mini-horse lives.

In sad news, we lost Pal today, our Jack Russel Terrier puppy. He will be missed.

Cuteness alert!

you have been warned.

This is Contessa with her brand new little colt! He is TINY. we think he may have been born prematurely, but, so far he and momma are both doing well. We're watching them very closely and giving them extra feeding and care as necessary.


Is this not the most handsome goose you have ever seen in your life? he's peeking through an old wooden fence.

We're furiously packing orders from our recent enewsletter/sale. Which necessitates lots of boxes, which we brought in, and put on the counter, and then were unable to use for SEVERAL HOURS while both Mo (left) and Violet (right) took a nap on them. sheesh. don't they know how their cat food gets paid for?

last but not least, can you guess which one of these items is NOT a gift set?

Contessa, our 3rd miniature horse, had her baby yesterday! A little cream-colored colt. Pictures will be forthcoming! We think he was a little premature, so we're watching mom and baby very carefully, but we think everything will be fine.