Apifera Farm - where art, story, animals & woman merge. Home to artist Katherine Dunn

Apifera Farm is a registered 501 [c][3]. #EIN# 82-2236486

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©Katherine Dunn.





Saturday, January 20, 2018

Opie bucks some hay, Boone celebrates Christmas again, and all is well



We brought in another 150 bales of hay today. I had purchased 420 at summer harvest but with the extreme and long lasting cold I doubled my output, so felt safer bringing some in now, and with the remaining bales we have about 300 and will get through safely until summer harvest.

Getting hay in the barn is one of the most satisfying, and comforting things to anyone with animals. I always take a big happy smile-sigh, glad that there is no need to scrimp on giving out hay. When we first arrived in Maine, we had trouble finding good hay but now are really happy with the two farms that supply us-and buck it and stack it. I'm done bucking hay! My shoulders are all messed up from all those years harvesting lavender, and of late, I've had real issues and pain doing certain movements. I will not quit moving, that is the death of a person, but I do have to do things more cautiously, deliberately and slower. So I just sit and chat, or listen to Boone eat while the young guys buck.

Boone loves hay delivery day. I think to him, hay delivery day is like Christmas to a little kid getting a pony. There are always broken bales so the animals get extra treats, and today we had to restock some bales near Boone, temporarily, and he was in hog heaven. Once we have the new barn, hay storage will be even easier.

We moved some hay to the front barn, Opie's barn, where the pigs and Marcella, Moose and Goose, Friede and Tripod, and the chickens...and the old cats all live. Opie was a real helper today. What a little monkey he is, I love that darn goat.

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