I’ve talked a lot about how and why chickens take dust baths. For those of you who don’t have hens, you can watch this video. (I made it four years ago, and there’s a cameo by the late, great Empress of the yard, Candy.) Of course, chickens aren’t the only animals that dust bathe. Tonka likes a roll in the dirt, too.

The summer brings good things, like warm days, growing grass and good footing for trail rides. But it also brings bugs. Around here, we have mosquitos, deer flies, green head flies, and an entire assortment of horse flies, gnats and stable flies. All of the horses get turned out with

, and Tonka get sprayed with . But, that’s not enough. The horses know how to alleviate the itches. They roll.

Horses do like to lie down. In fact, in order to have REM sleep, they must be lying down (which is why his stall has soft, clean bedding. Essential for a horse’s health!) But, horses are designed for running, not rolling. Getting down in the dirt is not the most graceful thing that a horse does. The other afternoon, I took this series of photos. Not the best quality – off my phone – but it gives you a sense of how awkward it is for a 1,000 pound animal to coat himself with dust. By the way, some horses are one-sided, but Tonka gets both sides done.

Before rolling, Tonka takes a few good whiffs of the ground. Despite their big, beautiful eyes, horses actually don’t have great vision and it turns out that they likely rely on smell more than sight for essential information. (I’ll write a post about that. Fascinating.)

 

 

After selecting the perfect spot, Tonka paws.

 

Lowering himself to the ground takes some maneuvering.

 

 

Once down, the dust bath begins.

 

 

 

 

Not exactly a view of the noble horse.

 

But content? Yes.

 

Now Tonka has relief from the flies and can take a nap in peace.

Back in 2005 I was about to publish a The Farmstead Egg Cookbook. Everyone said that authors now had to have websites. Most authors at that time put up what are called “static sites” with simple, unchanging, information. But, Steve, my husband, also known here as IT Guy, had an idea that we should livestream what goes on in the flock, after all, the book was about eggs and chickens. I said, Sure, why not? I had no idea what I was getting into.

Back then, there weren’t that many animal cams, and certainly very few run by individuals. There was no how-to manual. Steve had to figure out how to get it up and running. It wasn’t just a matter of buying cameras and plugging them in. You needed servers and hosts, and there was software to write. In addition to that, I couldn’t have the cams and use an off-the-shelf website. We had to have it custom designed for the cams. It was challenging! It remains challenging. The technology improves. The quality of the video has improved – as have people’s expectations. What we do here at HenCam is both time-consuming and expensive. IT Guy has written a FAQ to explain it. I’ve read it and still don’t understand it all.

Over the last decade, my life as a writer had changed, too, and much of that is because of HenCam. As soon as the cams were up. I got emails asking me to explain what was on the screens, so I started the HenBlog. Since May, 2006, I have written 1,900 blogposts. Some of you have read all of them. Nine years is forever in the blog-o-sphere. It’s an especially long time when you realize that I pretty much only write about what goes on with my animals in my backyard. But, every time I think  that I have nothing more to say, there is. I am grateful for each and every one of you that stop by my site. I now have more readers of my writing than I ever did as a book author.

The cams have a limited life, especially because they are installed right in the midst of chickens! Replacing them has given IT Guy the opportunity to tweak, upgrade and (hopefully!) simplify the set-up. What you see now at HenCam – the OutsideCam – has been a long time in the making. This camera has replaced the GoatCam. I know that many of you will miss seeing Pip and Caper’s furry behinds, but there’s a limit to the number of cams that we can run, and this view of the Gems’ outside run is something that I’ve wanted to share.

 

 

The installation of the OutsideCam is the first step in a number of improvements that you’ll be seeing here in the coming weeks. You read my writing, but you see Steve’s work. We’re both excited about what’s to come.

 

My writing has never paid the mortgage (it’s the rare published author who can make a living at it) but this site is finally self-supporting. The “coffee money,” the Amazon sales and the GoogleAd clicks bring in enough to keep the HenCam going. (Which is a very good thing, as there was a point when we thought about shutting it down.) Thank you to all of you who enable IT Guy to work behind the scenes, and for me to write what I do!

Two weeks after hatching, it was time to go. The Eastern Phoebes didn’t have any choice. They could no longer fit in the nest.

 

After a cautious venturing out to the nearest perch, the five hatchlings were soon gone.

 

The nest is now empty. The parents might return to lay a second clutch. I’ll be curious to see what sort of housekeeping they do before that. It could use some tidying up.

 

I have tidying up to do, too. The porch is getting washed down today!

 

To see the first post in this series (with photos of the beautiful eggs) go here.

Goats were never designed to be sleek animals, and my goats, being Nigerian Dwarf Dairy Goats, are especially… ahem…. composed of rounded contours. Pip and Caper are wethers – neutered males – which makes them even more prone to looking like beach balls on sticks.

Goats are designed to eat forage constantly throughout the day. Well, that is, when they’re not resting to chew their cuds and digest what they’ve consumed. They have four stomachs to contain and process all of that roughage. The largest is the rumen which can hold several gallons of feed. It’s rather obvious where the rumen is when you look at the boys top-down.

 

The rumen is not centered inside of the goat, it’s actually more to the left. New goat owners often panic when they see something the size of a volleyball protruding on one side of the goat. It’s actually a good thing to see a full rumen. And, it should be noisy! Inside of the the rumen are millions (billions?) of bacteria doing the work of breaking down the feed into usable components. Put your ear to the side of your goat and you’ll hear rumblings and grumblings. Silence is an indication of a sick goat.

often sets things right, although dosing is not tidy. I had to do this once for Pip. See his pink beard in this post.)

Given their druthers, goats prefer prickly browse and a wide selection of weeds. My goat boys have eaten all of that “good” stuff out of their pasture, but luckily for them, this year I’m giving the pumpkin patch a rest. I could have tilled it, or mowed it, but I knew that if it went to weeds that the goaties would be in munching heaven.

 

I try to get them out there for a half-hour a day. They’re on leashes, because as much as they love the weeds, they know that my rose bushes are not far away, and things with thorns are far tastier to them than this tall grass.

 

The other day I got out the tape measure to see how big around the goats were before their outing. Pip was 43 inches at the widest, Caper 45. They ate and ate. A half-hour later, Caper was 47 inches around, and Pip was 45 1/2 inches.

 

There was a lot of cud-chewing to do back in their paddock!

Fourteen days after the Eastern Phoebe eggs hatched, the babies were still in the nest. Or, as in the nest as they could be.

 

They were still hungry.

 

Both parents continued to feed their offspring.

 

Maybe I’m reading more into this photo than is there, but doesn’t this Phoebe look exhausted?