Meet the Animals
Every animal on this farm was acquired for a sensible reason that stopped being true within a week. Now they live here, eat here, and hold strong opinions about management — which is me, a man they regard the way employees regard a substitute teacher.
Each one has a name, a personality, and a criminal record. This page is where they get the celebrity profiles they are absolutely convinced they deserve.
Looking to add some chaos to your own property? Some of the crew’s relatives are occasionally available for sale, and yes, Banksy has his own page. He insisted.
People ask why we do this. Look at these faces. These are the fur babies, and the fur babies get fed — that’s the deal, that’s the mission, that’s where every dollar and most of my dignity goes.
⭐ NEWEST ARRIVAL
LeeLoo
Mini mule · one year old · kill auction rescue · funded by the first 19 book pre-orders
Day one. Off the trailer, onto the good side of her own story.
LeeLoo is a one-year-old mini mule we pulled out of a kill auction. She came home in September 2026, and she is here for one reason: people bought a book that didn’t exist yet. The first nineteen pre-orders of Hey! What The Farm! paid for this animal’s entire remaining life. That is a real sentence about a real mule and I still can’t say it out loud without getting weird about it.
The name comes from The Fifth Element, because I wanted something that was fun to say and made me smile out loud. In this case the fifth element is love. Hay is making a strong case for the title based on our monthly expenses.
She was almost named Judge Judy. Mariah vetoed it on the grounds that shouting “JUDGE JUDY, GET YOUR ASS IN THE BARN” across a quiet Ohio holler is not the peaceful country life she signed up for. The appeal is ongoing.
Meeting the big kids over the fence. She is a third their size and behaved like the landlord.
Known behaviors
- Walks trails like she has been doing it her whole life, which she has not.
- Has already decided Gus is either a rival or a mentor. Gus has not been consulted.
- Small. Aware that she is small. Completely unbothered by it.
- Proof that a bad start is not an ending.
Read the full story of the day she came home → — or pre-order the book that paid for her.
Gus
Mini donkey · approximately 8 years old · rescue · threat to civil order
This is the face of a creature who has never once been told no and would not recognize the phrase.
Gus is a rescue mini donkey, roughly eight years old, and the single most consequential resident of this farm. He arrived after a long, well-documented public search for a pasture buddy — a search in which I asked the internet, repeatedly, why a miniature donkey costs more than my 2009 Honda Element. Then Gus showed up and immediately made the question irrelevant.
He contributes absolutely nothing financially but somehow has the strongest personal brand on the property. Three dollars of every book we sell goes directly to his snack habit. He is aware of this. He considers it the bare minimum.
Ears deployed. Something has been detected. It is probably a snack, but it could be an opportunity.
Known behaviors
Head scratches. Accepts them constantly and without limit. Will reposition your hand if your technique is lacking.
Rolling. Drops and spins in the dirt like a break dancer at a 1984 block party. No music. No audience required. Fully committed every time.
Sedition. Gus is actively planning to overthrow the local government and is currently seeking support from the other hooved animals on this property. The goats are undecided. The horses appear sympathetic. We are monitoring the situation.
He is a troublemaker by nature and by choice. Somebody, at some point, decided this donkey wasn’t worth keeping. That person made an enormous mistake, and we get to live with the benefits of it every single day.
The shelter, now under new management.
Tristan
Conure · 30 years old · the senior resident · my personal nemesis
Pictured: eight ounces of pure conviction.
Tristan is a conure, he is thirty years old, and Mariah has had him since the day he hatched. That is not a typo. This bird predates my involvement in her life by a comfortable margin, and he has never once let me forget it.
He is mighty and he is small, and he has exactly one ambition in this world: to attack Michael at every available opportunity. Not Mariah. Not the goats. Not the pug. Me. He has been running this campaign for years with the focus of a creature who has nothing else on his calendar, and honestly, the consistency is impressive.
Everybody else on this farm sees a man who feeds them. Tristan sees an intruder who moved in on his girl three decades into a perfectly good arrangement. From his perspective, he is completely correct, and I have made peace with that.
He is the oldest animal on this property and, by a wide margin, the most committed.
The Original Ladies
The two who started it. They arrived in July 2026 as “two lovely ladies” with beards and opinions, and they have been running this property ever since. The original announcement is in the archive, back when neither of them had names and I had no idea what I’d done.
Ivy (brown) and Roxanne (white), doing what they do best and most often.
Ivy
The brown one. The mama. The day she arrived I posted that she “may have a little bun, or possibly a tin can, in the oven” — and barely a week and a half later, at 11 p.m. on a Saturday night, she quietly produced four kids while I slept through the entire event. She handled it like a professional. I contributed by standing nearby saying “huh.” She is the calm one, the steady one, and unquestionably the most competent adult on this farm.
Ivy and Roxanne on leashes, clearing brush the old-fashioned way. This is a service they provide free of charge and without being asked.
Roxanne
The white one, and the name that was supposed to be vetoed. I pitched “Roxanne” the week they arrived, management shot it down on the grounds that I’d sing it every single feeding, and yet here she stands, answering to Roxanne. I sing it every single feeding. Nobody has stopped me.
Roxanne, standing on something she should not be standing on. There is no photo of Roxanne where this is not true.
She is the climber, the instigator, and the one most likely to be found somewhere she was not left. If a fence has a weakness, Roxanne has already documented it and filed the paperwork.
Zero remorse. None. Never has been any.
“Rooooxanne… you don’t have to eat the red hay.” She hates it. I do it anyway.
The Goat Kindergarten
Four kids, born at 11 p.m. on Saturday, August 1, 2026 — while I slept and Mariah handled everything, which is the correct division of labor and everyone involved knows it. Mama Ivy is doing great, and the babies get weighed, fed, and loved on every single day. Two of them are looking for homes — reluctantly.
Mama Ivy and two of the four. Blue eyes clearly run in this family, along with strong opinions.
The lunch rush. Mama had four; the milk bar seats two. This is why the bottle shift exists.
Factory new. Still has that new-goat smell.
One naps, one keeps watch. The system works. Nobody knows what they’re watching for. He was here first.
The bios are coming. We are currently negotiating headshots with a group of individuals who eat camera straps. Sign up below and you’ll be notified the moment the crew goes public.
The Horses
Two full-sized Rocky Mountain Horses — the smooth-gaited, sure-footed, famously kind-natured breed that people buy when they actually want to enjoy riding. We’re members of the Rocky Mountain Horse Club of Ohio, which means there is now paperwork involved in our lives, and somewhere a registry knows more about my animals’ ancestry than I know about my own.
Freya
Freya, tacked up and waiting on the slowest member of this operation.
Our mare, four years old, dark chocolate with a flaxen mane and tail that costs more in conditioner than my entire grooming routine. Steady, patient, and the reason I’ve managed to stay on a horse at all. She is also the one who will eventually be legally prevented from having babies with the other one, which is an entire story of its own.
Off the clock. That mane is not a filter.
The face of someone who has seen me attempt fencing and chosen not to comment.
Freya in the barn, haltered and entirely unimpressed by the schedule.
Apollo
The colt — about a year and a half old, which in horse years means he is a teenager with hooves and no supervision. Currently the reason we spent an entire summer searching for a pasture buddy, because young horses need friends and the mare is off-limits until the Rocky Mountain Horse registry says otherwise.
Apollo, earlier in his career. Before the attitude arrived.
A current photo of Apollo is overdue. He is now large, opinionated, and convinced the camera is a trap.
Coco
Coco and Freya. Different tax brackets, same grass.
Our mini horse, and proof that scale is a suggestion. Coco stands beside Freya in the pasture like a footnote that wandered into the wrong paragraph, and the two of them graze together most evenings as though this arrangement is completely normal. It is not. It is wonderful, but it is not normal.
She is also the reason I stopped in the driveway one evening and had the entire emotional experience documented in this post. Nothing spectacular was happening. That was the point.
The Barn Cats
Three cats, rescued from three different homes, none of whom asked to be coworkers, all of whom now run security on this property. Two girls and a boy, and the naming is backwards on both counts — the girl is called Mr. Kitty and the boy is named after a woman. We do not have a system. They have a dedicated cat cave outside, which is more square footage per capita than the humans get.
Mr. Kitty
Mr. Kitty, mid-shift. She contains multitudes and answers to none of them.
The multicolored one, and — before anyone writes in — she is a girl. My stepson named her after the cat from South Park, which tells you everything about the naming standards in this household, and we simply never revisited it. Mr. Kitty spends most of the day horizontal and the rest of it judging.
“Barn cat” is a job title, not a housing arrangement. She is aware of this.
Ripley
Ripley, off duty. Mariah, also off duty, but less successfully.
The white and orange one, and the only boy in the cat department. He is named after Ellen Ripley from Alien — my favorite movie, and a woman who dealt with an aggressive creature situation on an isolated property with limited backup. So yes: the girl cat is named Mr. Kitty and the boy cat is named after a woman. Nobody here is confused except the guests.
Kalohe
Kalohe. This is not a bad photo. This is just how she looks.
The all-black one. Kalohe means “crazy” in Hawaiian, and she earned it before the ink dried. She growls while she eats — not at anyone in particular, just as a general statement of policy. Nobody has challenged her on it.
Affection, delivered on her terms, with teeth involved.
The cat cave is under construction. Photos to come, assuming the residents approve of the finished work — which, based on everything we know about cats, they will not.
The Dogs
The indoor department. They contribute nothing to the agricultural output of this property and are, without question, the most expensive per pound.
Banksy
Banksy. Blue panda pug. Believes he is the reason any of this exists, and has not been contradicted.
The blue panda pug, senior member of the indoor staff, and the only animal on this farm with his own dedicated page — which he did not ask for so much as assume. He has opinions about the goats, the weather, and whether the door should currently be open or closed. The answer is always the other one.
Banksy has an entire page of his own →