Raindrops fell into the dewy grass and created a quiet hush in the early daylight. Or at least it was hushed until I brought my tired baby and rambunctious kiddo kicking and screaming out of the house to wrangle some birds before 7 am.

Our pastured poultry are raised in pens that we rotate over fresh grass at least once per day. These pens provide plenty of space to forage grasses and grubs, focus the nutrient-rich manure, and most importantly provide safety. Our birds live out their days happily without a care in the world. That’s usually what happens. After having cattle with these pens all summer, our docile mama cows decided they wanted to rip apart our pens, push around the frames and become chicken bullies. 

A few days prior to the general destruction we noticed the girls slightly rubbing and nudging the pens. We attributed it to curiosity and decided to keep an eye on it. Costly mistake.  After wrangling nearly 100 birds, two times before noon I decided the remedy was happening that afternoon once the hubby dearest came home with the pick up. We moved pens, chickens, ducks and kids back and forth across the road countless times.

Bed-time seems to be something normal families do for their children, but as a full-time mama dragging children around as I go about my lady-farmer business there seems to be a trend of working until dark and throwing multi-grain cheerios or Graham crackers at them for a snack. Hubby Dearest helps where he can, but often times that means we are working to dark as a family unit. 

Thus we were moving chickens, ducks, and pens at 8.30pm with kids starting to fuss (Cue more Graham crackers) and the sun starting to sink beneath the treeline. 

As I start to feel the season change from summer into fall I am anxious to see what the peak of our season will bring. I know we will have over 300 broilers, 8 pigs, our first sow, 13 cattle, an incredibly handsome horse and handful of laying lady ducks/hens in September into October. It may not seem like much, but it’s our biggest year yet and it has me giving pep-talks to myself and self high fives on the daily. So many unknown trials, adventures, tantrums, animal escapes, and special moments to come.

Getting pumped for the peak of our 2017 season. Bring it on fall. 

(Smiling instead of getting frustrated)

​This summer has been the season of revolting farm animals. It is like they have sensed my need for them to stay in their designated pastures, pens, and paddocks and done the exact opposite -somehow knowing how hard it would be for a 9 month pregnant lady and toddler to wrangle them. Between rebellious pigs, mischievous sheep, and curious calves I am happy to leave the summer season behind us.

The decision to do a pig project this year was fairly easy. Pork is delicious, we were able to lease new woodland/pasture perfect for foraging pigs, and my hubby agreed to help with the heavy lifting as my pregnant belly grew to new extremes. As our tried and true method to contain pigs we were confident when we released the hogs into a hotwire paddock. What we did not foresee was the pigs lack of respect for hotwire which became apparent when they were GONE during a morning pig check. Pigs are clever creatures and I had assumed that they would come back home when they were hungry later that day, barring any predator involvement. I was wrong. Very wrong. 

To my embarrassment I had to claim my pigs from the Sheriff’s Department. Our neighbors are extremely helpful and without knowing for sure who the rascal pigs belonged to, put them up in style while a day passed until I knew how to find/claim them. I considered myself lucky, grateful to my neighbors, and mortified that my ‘free to forage’ piggies had caused such a stir. After making some slight adjustments to the hotwire we again left the pigs in their paddock to eat, forage, explore and live the good life. Big mistake.

Just a day or two later I get another call from a neighbor letting us know the pigs were out again. Luckily Hubby Dearest was home and was able to swiftly meet the neighbor and walk the pigs back into the paddock with ease. Before I could pack up the kiddo and meet up with them (as it all happened within minutes), I got yet another call from the Sheriff’s Department. Thus, to my utmost horror and embarrassment I was admonished by a very understanding Deputy about containing the pigs. I was grateful that the Deputy came out, talked to us, and saw our set up. I take pride in treating our animals with respect and it was important to me for them to see that it wasn’t a lack of water, food, shelter, treats, or area to roam that our pigs were escaping. A simple case of rebellious swine. But, after having my bacon saved by neighbors not once but twice and now knowing the Deputy Sheriff personally we decided it was time to seriously revamp our hotwire plan. Needless to say, the electric shock that the fencing now contains is far superior and is keeping the hogs in swimmingly.

If our pigs were rebellious our sheep (however cute and fuzzy) were openly mischievous. Though they didn’t escape the pasture, they harassed the laying hens, were too friendly with my two year old, and smashed one of my pastured meat chicken tractors  to smithereens. I would manage to patch up the tractor to only have them break it to pieces again. So, I waddled around attempting to wrangle my meat birds in the 98 degree coastal heatwave, sweating-panting-struggling to bend over, while trying to keep the sheep from accidentally trampling my chickens. 

Our farm adventure continued into this afternoon, while I was lulled into a false sense of “winding down” for the season on a sunny Saturday. I relaxed with my toddler in the recliner as she snuggled close to my 38.5 week pregnant belly asking if the baby was coming as she fell asleep – and our calf Norman walked by the window.

I stared in disbelief, fearing the herd was grazing in our yard as I tried to call dear Hubby Dearest for back up. Thank my stars the Hubby was tinkering in the garage and came running around back with me. Luckily for us it was only the calf Norman frolicking and luckily Norman loves people. He loves treats and pets and was completely unconcerned until….a chicken walked in his general direction. Slightly spooked after the chicken’s close proximity we calmed him down with more treats, ushered him back into the main pasture with the rest of the herd and said goodbye to our relaxing by the river plans as we committed ourselves to finding and fixing whatever weakness our fence has. Hubby patched the fence to only have Norman show incredible agility and jump the fence. Norman, time to put on some lbs and stop horsing around.

As fun as our busy summer has been, I am ready for it to be over. I am ready for foggy days, slower paced chores, welcoming our sweet baby boy into the world, and enjoying a tasty homegrown roast on a rainy day. We thank our neighbors for their support, help and understanding as they saved our bacon and watched our young family struggle through the adventures of farming.

(After a long afternoon we visited Toby the neighbor horse – Q’s one true love) 

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.