This morning I woke up to the mist blanketing the farm and surrounding hills. The low cloud cover seemed to spill down into the valley only to hush the song birds and cause the spring flowers to drip with morning dew. Dawn was bringing a new day whether I was ready for it or not and Pteridactal the rude hen took that moment to screech outside the nursery window successfully waking Sweet Baby Q. Good morning Melville.
I had to hustle my bustle to make it to to my day job by 7.30am. I may be wearing an outfit that resembles a certain purple dinosaur- for the second time this week-, I may have mis matched socks, I may be wearing a hat to cover the horror that is my hair, but Q and I began our office work shuffle right on time.  In the middle of finalizing a sizeable contract that sweet baby of mine began a powerful poo. She was in the front pack so I didn’t realise until it was too late how that poo exploded into the front pack, covered Q, and was seeping into my sweatshirt.  Grimacing, I pushed forward to finalize the contract and mail it, feeling the poo juice continue to spread. 
After I completed my office tasks for the day and opened the front pack to release Q it was worse than I imagined.  Unable to tackle the crappy problem in the back of my vehicle due to a 125 lb mineral block for the cows, or the back seat due to more farm paraphernalia, changing her in the front seat was a struggle to say the least. Q was then happy as a clam at high tide, but I remained aromatic and damp from our recent adventure.  Needless to say I felt very chic.
Q and I now push onward into our Friday.  We are off to feed animals, visit family, and attempt to “train” for the 5k I am running this weekend.  Poopy, happy, and busy I try to treat every day like a new adventure because ready or not the world is bringing me another one tomorrow.

A few weeks ago Melville Farms welcomed two hair sheep into the meat- growing- melee for 2015.  I brought the twin lambs home pleased as punch with my purchase and settled them into their temporary pen. We named them Batman and Robin and sweet baby Q and faithful dog Ted were over the moon with the new animals.

Unfortunately, within the first 24 hours Hubby Dearest and I made the worst rookie mistake – we separated them.
Sweet Baby Q was in her front pack as Hubby Dearest and I set up the two strand hotwire fencing , shelter, feeding area and mineral block for Batman and Robin, the spunky twins waiting to be turned out onto pasture.  They were by no means tame, but Hubby had no problem grabbing Robin first  and carrying him over to the fenceline. After putting down a seemingly happy sheep Hubby turned around to walk back up to get sheep number two and wouldn’t you know it, Robin got anxious and ran back up to where I stood with Batman. This is where we should have recognized that if we led the contained sheep to the pasture and waited for the other to come over they’d be happy. Did we realise that? Nope.
Hubby tried to chase Robin back into the pen which spooked Batman who attempted to ram into me (and baby Q) so I jumped out of the way to save the babe and successfully let both sheep out of the pen.  Not overly fond of the way events were unfolding Hubby Dearest got a little testy.  He attempted to herd those mischievous ruminants as they tried to become best friends with our pigs, tore our hotwire down, and  spooked the pigs.
I was ready to help when Hubby told me to back up. Easier said than done.  I became tangled in some blackberries so when I turned for a split second to step around them, that was the moment Batman and Robin made a break for it off the property and down the county road.  Oh the things that came out of my sweet husband’s mouth as he sprinted down the double yellow line.
Luckily Toby, the majestic neighbor horse, distracted the sheep and they tried to break into his pasture instead of continuing down the road.  From that point on the situation seemed to unravel at an alarming rate.  Many of our neighbors came out to help catch our sheep as we chased them all over Melville. 
Batman and Robin ran up and down the county road, neighboring pastures, logging roads, landscaped back yards, horse barns, apple orchards, cow fields, timber land, and faced off with a pack of aggressive dogs.  At one point when we lost them into a young stand of Douglas-fir, all the neighbors looked at us with pity.  It was cougar country and there was nothing but 8 ft tall trees and brush as far as the eye could see. Through sheer luck and perseverance Hubby Dearest not only found the sheep but herded them back towards our crew of neighbors and friends.  As he came back through the brush the ‘Friends’ theme song began playing in my head. We were two idiot young farmers and a baby, at dusk, chasing sheep through everyone’s property, and here were our neighbors happily helping us. 
“It’s like you’re always stuck in second gear when it hasn’t been your day or week or month or even your year...”
As the sun began to set we were able to herd the twins into a corral, rope them, and get them back home.  We were all tired, frustrated, but bonded in a way only friends and neighbors can be after a 3 hour sheep – chasing ordeal.
“I’ll be there for you…. cause you’re there for me to..”- the Remembrandts.

This weekend Hubby Dearest flew off to a conference for work and I along with sweet baby Q were left to our own devices. The first morning after his departure we woke up to farm animals yelling for attention, fog horns drifting in along with the morning mists, and chicken sh*t getting dragged into the house on Ted’s paws.  As a mother of a blossoming baby who’s goal in life is to put everything in her mouth, the chicken poop had to stop NOW.
After completing the circus of bringing Q into my office for a morning of emails and paper shuffling we continued our journey of errands. I’m not sure I will ever be able to replicate the packing of t-posts, fencing, pig food, groceries, and day – job paraphernalia into my little SUV cross over. Baby Q was thrilled with all the new “toys” shoved around her carseat and giggled as she poked at melting ice cream on the way home.
We arrived on the homestead to find the warm coastal sun cooking the chicken doo onto my front porch. I attempted to dodge and weave the land mines and pooping chickens as I unloaded the car – strengthening my resolve to eliminate the poop on my porch for good.

Thus, I strapped sweet baby Q into the back pack and began fence construction.  I pounded t-posts, I put up fencing, I cleaned the coop, washed the baked butt juices off my porch and wrangled chickens all the while my sweet little babe slept peacefully. 

Needless to say when my chicken run was complete I felt pretty bad ass.  A temporary solution until we move the coop across the creek, but well worth the few hours of labor to keep my baby from ingesting chicken sh*t as a snack.

A special happy birthday to Frank with all his grace and dignity.

Pigs need protein to gain the lbs. We feed them outdated dairy products and veggies that we collect from local convenience stores to minimize our feed costs. Feed, whether it is GMO free or just your average grower variety, gets spendy.
The other day Hubby Dearest took over pig chore duties for the evening. While he was attempting to lean over the fence to pour the milk into their tray he lost balance and high-centered on the hog panel. He was flailing for many minutes trying to get vertical. Apparently the ground wasn’t close enough so he used a pig (who was coming to investigate the milk) to push upright.

While he was taking one for team and doing nightly chores, I was inside- completely oblivious to his misadventure- consoling a very cranky Baby Q by rapping a pig-centric version of Sir Mixalot’s “I Like Big Butts.”

My version: “I Like Pig Butts”

I like pig butts and I can not lie
You meat eaters can’t deny
When rump roast wafts up in my face
And it’s salted just to taste
I get hung – ry
Want to feed you up
So that butt gets plumped
Pasture grazed pork fairing
I’m hooked and I can’t stop staring
Oh piglets I’ll jump in with ya
And take some pictures
I’ll get my oven warming
Because that butt you got makes me so hungry
Oh those markings are akin
To a duroc Hampshire cross
Well keep eating, eating, you ain’t a light weight piggy
I’ve seen you grazing
Pastured hog raising
You’re heat, meat, keep growing fatter please

So farmers YEAH farmers YEAH
Has your piggy got a butt?
HELL YEAH
Well give them milk
And veggie scraps
Even vegetarians gotta shout
Piggy got back

My butcher don’t want none unless they’re market weight son
Piggy got back

Baby Q was thrilled with my performance. She even giggled throughout the encore for Hubby Dearest. He was not nearly as impressed.

The Hubby Dearest, Baby Q and I have had quite the eventful weekend.  We began our adventure at 4 pm Friday night when we decided it was about time to construct the pig pen since we were getting them Saturday morning (in less than 18 hours). We thought it would be ready in an hour, a piece of cake, walk in the park. Oh how foolish we were.
We ran down the road to the barn to pick up the hog panels and tools to only realise that the panels were too long for our pick up. No problem, we called my parents to let us borrow the utility trailer and wouldn’t you know it, the panels were too long for that too. So Hubby Dearest ran to the neighbor and returned to the barn with a man in a heavy duty pick up hauling a 12 ft trailer! My husband is a miracle worker but the fun didn’t stop there.
The sun had set as they loaded up the panels into the trailer and drove to our farm. Upon arrival they realised that all the panels had bounced out of the trailer onto the road at some point during the mile and a half journey.  Meanwhile down at the barn, my loving father was scrambling to get the panels out of the road as an oncoming car headed his way – the panels didn’t even make it 50 ft from the barn driveway! The crew of men reloaded the panels delivered them safely to Melville Farms and we began to construct our pig pen at o’dark’thirty, but the fun didn’t stop there.

The next morning sweet Baby Q woke up with pink eye- goop so thick she couldn’t open her eyeballs and when she did green goo leaked out. She needed the doc. So Hubby headed out to pick up the pigs brought them home and put them in their paneled hog heaven.  They were a little younger and smaller than we anticipated so we thought it might be a good idea to put up some chicken wire along the panels with larger gaps. I left to pick up meds for Baby Q and a few more zip ties to secure the chicken wire and Hubby calls to say that our golden retriever is playing with our pigs in the front yard -apparently having the time of his life.  Hubby Dearest ushered them easily back inside their pen, but the fun didn’t stop there.
Obviously the extra chicken wire hadn’t done the trick so we secured all the fencing we had to the pen, left to the barn to pick up more substantial fencing and upon our return – pigs were gone. We searched until after dark with no sign of them and called in my parents as reinforcements for an early morning search.  Hours later, after searching over acres of timber, brush and brambles with no sign of pigs we broke up the search party, but the fun didn’t stop there.
My sweet mother went to a neighbor’s house to ask them to keep an eye open for our escapees.  She called me to let me what houses she went to and then she started screaming that she saw the pigs walking down the double yellow centerline! I grabbed baby Q, yelled for Hubby as I put on some boots and went running down my driveway onto the road. By the time I got there they were trotting down a gravel road behind our house headed for the hills with my mom trying to call to them. As a last ditch effort I started calling to them, “a pig pig pig suuuueeeeeee” and I kid you not they stopped, turned around,  and started coming back to me!  Meanwhile Hubby had run all the way around our field, into our neighbors field, dove through a fence to cut them off and when he popped out onto the road the pigs had already headed towards me – the pig whisperer. Next thing we know they had walked back into their pen as docile as could be.

After days of pig adventures we have three little piggies snuggled into their hay. Hopefully they will take pity on us and stay in their pen. The day is not over, but I’ve had enough fun to last me a while.