​As I laid awake before dawn it was silent. My toddler had finally decided to sleep, the house was quiet, and I even considered trying to fall back asleep for a few more blissful moments. Then the first rays of light struck our little farm.

At first it was just one or two birds tweeting their good morning tune in the distance, then a few more trickled into the medley, and soon it was a cacophony of bird calls next to my window. Then the cows chimed in. I could hear them chewing, slurping, and mooing mere feet from my window. Laying hens began crowing at the sun and I basked in the awesome music my farm was making as it woke up for the day, while cursing the daybreak and begging it to be quiet so my kid would sleep just a little longer.

I just tried to keep up with the day from that moment on. Attempted to be a functioning member of society between farm chore rounds. Chores- play date- chores- lunch- chores- nap time- chores- farm visit- chores, chores, chores… and even still, throughout all those rounds of farm related activities, the moment folks come out to visit the farm the animals seem to revolt.

We had customers for a maximum of 20 minutes and in that time the sheep managed to poop in their water, likely the same troublesome sheep re-broke the meat bird tractor, the poults in the brooders made an escape and were wandering off our front porch to their impending doom, and the kiddo took off her boots (which have yet to be found) and was running around like a wild child covered in mystery manure. It was chaos.

Of course the friendly folks did not seem to mind the hullabaloo, but I was frazzled as I waddled around after chicks trying to put them back into the brooders, as I wrangled my poop covered kid and hosed her down for the 10th time, and as I tried to make a short term remedy for the chicken tractor that had been crushed by wooly ruminants! Poultry transport cages were in the front yard, a half done chicken tractor awaited completion in the back yard, and toddler toys littered everywhere in between, it was indeed chaos at the Melville Farms homestead. 

But it’s my chaos. Beautiful chaos. As much as I strive to have things perfect for farm visitors, I’m glad my kid runs wild and free not worried if she has dirt under her nails or if she’s using her dress to collect rocks and dirt clods. I love raising my meat birds in the pasture where they can forage fresh ground every day. Sheep, though they drive me nuts, are all part of the fun. The tiny poults have over stayed their welcome in the brooder, but will be moved into deluxe accomodations on the morrow.  When we finally got around to dinner we ate beef that we raised, fresh peas and cabbage our family grew. After dinner we didn’t watch TV we worked until the sun went down, Hubby Dearest completing the chicken tractor in all its glory, our toddler helping in a helmet so she “was safe.”

Now as quiet falls on the farm and I say goodnight to Melville I’m exhausted, thankful for my Hubby who works so hard on and off the farm, and naively hopeful that my kid will sleep better tonight before our beautiful chaos begins again with the rising sun.

(Play date on the farm with a few good friends!)

 (Bubbles, the ring leader of sheep related debauchery) 

When it rains, it pours. Yes here on the Oregon coast we often experience a deluge of precipitation, but as our small family farm operation  Melville Farms stretched to grow meat and egg production for 2016, it now seems like I bring home a new farm animal daily.
As if offering direct to consumer sales of pork, lamb, chicken, beef and eggs wasn’t enough, I decided that this was the time to expand into restaurant and pre-packaged meat sales. New licensing has enabled us to work with local restaurant Street 14 Café which is thrilling. Needless to say that when I saw our tiny little farm mentioned in the restaurant’s newsletter I was over the moon, when I saw our chicken featured on their social media I fell over, and when they ordered MORE chicken I was knee-slapping happy!
Then it began to pour. I brought home the largest round of piglets we’ve ever raised, we secured 2 new pastures to lease, and are expecting 4 more heritage Irish Dexter cattle delivered tonight! We get our next round of 50 meat chicks in a week and will have over 100 chickens on the farm at once. Hubby Dearest may think I’m out of control and he might be right. Poor Hubby been building me new fence line and new pens for weeks to accomodate our expanding endeavors.
All together it is an exciting, busy, and joy – filled beginning to summer. However as I glance at my dwindling funds and growing pregnant belly I am sincerely hoping that Hubby Dearest is excited as I am about our little farm’s growth and that I’m not in labor on butcher day this fall!!

(Sharing a little bit of PNW farm magic with our mid-western family)

(A few blue eyed piglets that are part of our pork peoject this year)

(One of the many, many chicks for the next round of meat birds)

Spring seems to be turning into summer faster than I can keep up with.  Life is changing even faster as my pregnant belly bumps into chicken coop doorways and attracts unwanted attention from elderly strangers at the grocery store. But what has remained constant over the past few extremely busy months is that it seems that at least once a week I find myself thinking, ‘this has been the happiest day of my life.’
More than a fortnight ago Hubby Dearest built me a cross fence for our little homestead by the house.  True to form we waited until the weekend that we were getting the lambs to start putting posts in the ground.  Family came out for days of beer, laughter, sweat and fence building as they put together the sexiest fence I have ever seen.  Minutes after the gate was hung I rounded up the husband loaded the kid and we were off to pick up the lambs.  Hubby unloaded the lambs into the field and as I brought dinner into the lawn I found my sweet toddler Q hugging Hubby so tightly and talking to him about the sheep.  The heat of the day started to wane, our bellies were full, and as we watched tiny lambs frolic I couldn’t help but think that it was the happiest day of my life.

A week ago I had a surge of pure happiness as we welcomed the long-awaited first calf born at Melville Farms.  I watched in a hushed awe as she labored, toddler Q even spoke in whispers as she perched on my hip. Hubby Dearest kept bringing out the heifer Molly so she’d settle down and stop trying to mount poor Mable during contractions. I scuttled off to get more grain to distract the excited heifer and in the 5 minutes I was away the calf dropped as a healthy baby bull.
We watched the first wobbly steps, the bonding between cow and calf, and welcomed friends and neighbors as they took peeks at the new addition to the neighborhood.  Eventually the calf worked it’s way onto the fence by the road so even those who weren’t gathered to welcome the calf were able to take a good look.  The sun set as our little bull Norman nursed for the first time and I had never felt more thrilled or happy with our family farm. 

Yesterday the toddler refused to sleep, Hubby had a miserable day at work, a dozen meat birds escaped their chicken tractor and were meandering around in sticker bushes.  I was alerted by excited squawks and thundering paws as helpful dog Ted attempted to play with them, chasing them deeper into 8 ft high blackberries.  I brought a screaming crying Q out to watch as I gently removed the chickens and brought them back into the tractor to find that our laying hen Hotlips was INSIDE the meat chicken tractor gorging herself on the meat birds high-protein grain. It started to rain, my cuts from the blackberries started to bleed, Q began throwing herself to the ground in a tantrum into many piles of poultry, livestock, and dog poop. But later that night when the family sat around the table and laughed at the adventures of the day and we all could see and feel the baby boy growing in my belly roll around in around attempt to join the moment I felt my heart swell, tears pop unbidden into my eyes and I swore it was the happiest day of my life.

So many days are hard, stressful, seemingly impossible. Kids scream, laundry doesn’t get done, clutter becomes part of household decor, animals escape, budgets get tight, toddlers rub horrifying mixtures of poop and mud on their face while you’re not looking. I consider myself incredibly lucky for the brief pauses between the hullabaloo that I can slow down and notice my healthy, happy growing family in those moments of simple joy.

Fog creeped between trees and slunk through fields this morning. I could see a breath cloud surrounding little Miss Q as she perched on my hip with a handful of hay ready to feed the cows.  Though we had been outside for nay 5 minutes her clenched chubby fist was red from the cold. 
As Q helped call them in I beamed with joy as she touched the nose of Molly our Dexter calf and began trying to hand feed hay.  Only after had she successfully fed the cows every last particle of hay were we able to move on to other chores.  She already takes such pride in her work.

Later as she showed a few of her toddler friends the complete Melville Farms tour, I beamed with pride as she demonstrated the way to feed the chickens.  Like a seasoned pro she walked through clucking hens and scattered grain in different areas so even those lower in the pecking order could have a snack. At the age of 1 she’s in love with raising animals and I could not be more estatic.
I know there will be many times in our future when she will whine about farm chores or dread going outside on a stormy morning, but for now I will revel in her excitement, encourage her love of farming, be patient as she feeds the cows one blade off grass at a time, and try to smile when she wakes up 2 hours before dawn yelling “COWS!!!!”

It was easy to forget the summer drought as our Melville neighbors experienced flooding, landslides, and vibrant pastures as a result of the fall rain. But as our family purchased our first cow/calf pair and tried to source local hay, it became apparent how the weather had affected our normally extremely productive hay crops.
Though we were not able to source Melville grown hay, we were able to secure local bales from a family farm on the other side of the county -for a premium price of course.  Once delivered those hay bales were unloaded and tightly stacked quickly with help from 3 strapping men and we waved a thankful farewell to the friendly farmer who delivered. 

As we began moving on with our day, Hubby Dearest began looking for his cell phone.  As luck would have it, it was NOT in the pickup, the shop, or the barn, but vibrating innocently from within our haystack. 
We stared in horror at the perfectly stacked bales and feared that the slender smartphone had slid through the stack into the pallets at the very bottom.  With a sigh Hubby Dearest and my Father Dear began disassembling bales attempting to find a cell phone in a haystack. 3 layers of 70 pound bales later, they found that dang phone and began restacking.  Even Hubby’s exasperated look and intentional irritated sighs (directed my way) weren’t enough to dampen my excitement for the arrival of our first cow/calf pair the next day!
It felt like Christmas when Mable and her calf Molly arrived at dusk and were ushered into their pasture corral that a neighbor let us borrow.  Even after 10 hours of trailered travel they were calm, approachable, and responsive to a bucket of oats. These well-bred heritage Dexter girls were healthy, happy, and loved by their previous owner and I was so excited to have my first breeding stock I was practically skipping! 

A few days later Mable and Molly have eaten from my hand, let me pet them, and have officially become part of the Melville Farms family!