week 25: out of office

this week on the little dream farm

Well, friends, we finally did it! Chris and I were referred a sitter, we booked a vacation, our sitter came by the farm to meet all the animals and learn all the chores, we prepped the farm and packed a bag, and we got out of town for our first vacation since moving to the farm in October 2021!

I’d asked around a bunch and we’d done a bunch of searching on our own, too. We’d find someone, and then either they lived too far away or they couldn’t stay overnight on the farm. Then we were finally referred the woman who ended up sitting for us this time around. She lives in the next town over and works in our town, so staying at the farm is really convenient for her and she prefers that for her clients, too.

I asked her if things like notes on doors and the checklist that we use for ourselves might be helpful for her as well as photos of the animals so she knew who was who and who needed to be where—especially the cats during feeding times since Micro and Little Lady are still very much in their kitten phase and need to be separated from the rest of the crew when they eat. If not, they’ll try to devour all the food while you’re making up the bowls, then they’d eat their food and everyone else’s, too! She said those kinds of things were really helpful—a perfect match for Chris and I and our planning brains!

To give you an idea of the tasks she took on for the farm, here’s the chores list below. I even tried to put it in an order for her that would help get them done the fastest, and this really seemed to work to ensure the right stuff got done and that nothing got missed!

When we lived in Philly we had the most phenomenal sitter for the cats. She’d text us when she arrived and left, sent the best and most hilarious photos of the cats to make us laugh while we were away, and she was a pro at giving meds and working around the quirks we had with our cats at the time.

With the farm, there’s just so much more to think about. Every door and gate has to be latched just right or animals get out. The hens can go from healthy to sick really fast - so what are those first steps to take if it happens. If the cows or donkeys happened to get out you’d need more than one person to help get them back in. We never worried about whether or not someone could take good care of our animals…we mostly just worry about those little things that can turn into big things if forgotten.

I think if you ask Chris he’d tell you that not until we were an hours drive away from home did he think I’d actually go on vacation, haha! But truly it was all fine. We spent the Monday before we left getting everything in order and we’d planned to go away for three days and two nights and only a few hours away this time around—a trial run, if you will.

We chatted with the sitter each morning and evening and aside from the cats being scared of someone new and it being tricky to feed Black Kitty and Black and White Kitty because of that, everything else went super smooth back home while we enjoyed our vacation to the fullest.

We headed to Kennebunkport, Maine and stayed in nearby Ogunquit. On the way there we drove through a bunch of smaller towns and even went up to Portland, ME one of the days we were there, and then went a different direction on the way home and did the very same thing.

A wonderful beach vacation for the books!

We caught sunrise on the beach, walked the towns, did a bunch of window shopping, had lovely meals together, explored new places, and enjoyed being at the beach. It was a little cold to actually park our butts on the beach but thankfully we had sunny mild weather to be able to enjoy our time doing things outside, nonetheless. The week before we left it predicted nothing but rain in the forecast for vacation, so we were grateful the skies cleared!

We left Tuesday and got home Thursday to a farm just as we left it! This was a great first trip and a great first experience with our sitter who worked super hard and did an amazing job taking care of the crew.

We’re already planning our next vacation and thinking the next go around we’ll book a cabin on a lake somewhere north of us.

And that, my friends, is the goings on this week from here on the farm!

Are you planning any vacations this summer? Going anywhere special? Would love to hear about it! Where ya headed??