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)

I grew up on a small farm in the Pacific Northwest.   It wasn’t a ranch the size of a small country.  My parents didn’t run 1000 head of cattle.  We didn’t muck out stalls from dusk until dawn. It was 10 acres backed up against timberland. It was beautiful.  It was perfect.
Now, my tiny little homestead is an exact acre, we’re attempting to increase our acreage, but who knows if or when that will ever happen. No matter though, I have been slowly but surely turning this abode into a working small farm.
Thankfully my parents have allowed me to raise a variety of animals on their farm (just down the road) as well as my own so I can follow all of the best management practices I preach on and on about in my day job -water quality this, soil integrity that, compost is the bee’s knees,  and so forth.  But, our acre is being put into production this year!
Part of our increased effort is expanding our layer chicken flock.  These birds have it good. They have the entire acre to literally range free and they even sneak over into the neighbor’s horse pasture to mix it up every so often. Yesterday morning however they took their ranging to a new level.
The ever faithful dog Ted likes to let himself back into our house when I forget to push the door shut all the way. Try as we might, he refuses to learn to shut the door after he comes in! Thus, when he came bounding in the house pleased as punch and I was changing sweet baby Q in the back room, the door was left wide open and those free range cluckers of mine let themselves into the house!  I came back out to the living room to find our lead hen drinking out of Ted’s water dish and Bertha the Wyandotte relaxing in our kitchen. Luckily the gals didn’t poo, but it was quite the ruckus as I attempted to shoo them out, Ted tried to help, and Q was laughing at us all.  Very lively start to our morning in Melville.

Later that day Q and I went to try out her new swing and as the flock came running towards us, she began giggling uncontrollably. Squealing.  Reaching for those pesky hens. So of course, like every good farming mama would do, we spent the next 20 minutes chasing the chickens around the yard.

There is no doubt in my mind that our chickens are spoiled rotten, beloved by babies, and range perhaps too freely. Expanding our flock will be an adventure!

(Welcome to the flock wee little Ameraucanas!!!)