The time has come!

Hip hip hurray! They're here! And more importantly, so are our wonderful hired pickers.
Wednesday was our big start day, which thankfully for the sake of easing into the process, picking was only until lunch. Lynn was down in the field with Katie, mentoring her and showing her the ropes. Marc and Cliff spent their morning 'sorting' the blueberries, and the pickers did the most important job of all - bringing in those ripe plump berries! We don't want to brag (well, yes we do) but these berries are HUGE. Excitement is growing, and we are striving for a stellar year poundage-wise.
Heather is here now to help look after all these rambunctious kiddos around here, and we are certainly glad to have her help! The kids love her, and it always makes the day flow so much smoother if the kids are happy and enjoying playtime. We recently made some home-made playdough, and it was a huge success! It has helped keep the kids entertained for hours at a time. We highly suggest this activity to other moms out there. :)
Our piglets are no longer piglets anymore, and are getting bigger and bigger as they days go by! Liz recently discovered that they all really enjoy getting their ears scratched. They seem to have lost their fear of people, and now leave her muddier than when she went in for feedings. Pigs may be a 'clean' animal, but our jeans and boots say otherwise at the end of our time with them!
Our new horses are settling in nicely. Duchess and Kipling seem to get along well with the other horses, however Liz has held back from putting some of them all together in the field just yet. Horses can be funny about who they want hanging around their backside, and if it's a horse they don't quite know yet, she may wind up with a horse who's been kicked. Safety first!
The cow we acquired most recently (January) was sent off to the butcher about a month ago, so we are now back to the original two cows. They don't seem to notice she's gone, (poor January) but then again you can never tell with a cow. Beady eyes and all.
Lastly, Liz, Katie and Laura tried their hand at making some blueberry and raspberry jelly the other night! It is quite amazing how much juice you can get out of those berries. It was quite a success, and we enjoyed home-made jelly on our toast this morning. Some of the left-over juices and berries were turned into home-made popsicles as well. It's amazing the things you can make when you put your mind to it. Next? Blueberry fruit leather!

Turning Blue!

No, we're not going blue. But our berries are! Our (and your!) wait is almost over!
Something fun we did several nights ago was carefully, and precisely (ha) release ladybugs onto our blueberry plants. This is a natural and safe way to take care of those pesky little aphids that so love the plants. The tricky part? There were 2000 of them, and they all wanted out of the bag!

The trick is to even distribute them. So ideally you want one lady bug per plant. Did I mention there were 2000 of them?

You also need to do it at dusk, and preferably when it's cool, so they stay 'asleep'. 

Saturday was a fun day for the Farmily! We celebrated Elijah's first birthday, Charlotte's first birthday, and Jeremiah's third birthday! Marc stayed up all night making a Thomas the Tank Engine train for the party, and it was well worth it. Family arrived at 2ish, and we all had fun with the kids in the pool, on the deck with bubbles, and generally enjoying being outside in the beautiful weather!

The pool wasn't very warm, but the kids enjoyed themselves.

Goofball Gabriel!

Jess was very diligent with the kids.

Hannah blowing bubbles with the new wands!

Cake and present time! Charlotte opens a present with daddy.

Cake. For the first time. Of course, most of it was just something to play with, but some got to his mouth!

The little suit Mike and Wendy bought him!

He loved the candle.

Goofy grin!!

Marc's amazing cake!

Jeremiah got a super cool Thomas station, which has been entertaining him non-stop since he got it!

Overall, it was a very successful day. Kids had fun, and the grown-ups enjoyed some time with their grandkids. Stay tuned for more updates on the blueberries!

The waiting game..

The title says it all!
We continue to enjoy watching our blueberries grow, but at the moment the work is minimal. We will be looking into our 100% organic aphid removal service shortly (lady-bugs!) since we are starting to see some here and there. The lady-bugs are lean mean aphid killing machines, and are just what the blueberry bushes need to stay bug-free.
Katie did a stint at work this past week, and the household got a taste for what the summer could be like, in terms of child-care. Never mind hiring pickers, harvesting blueberries, getting the farm work done, and doing the regular chores, who's going to watch these crazy children of ours??
Heather, Liz and Katie's sister and her friend, have decided they can think of nothing better to do with their summer than to watch a bunch of hyper-active children all day long. With some help, the two girls are ready to tackle entertaining 7 children. One has to wonder, will they come back next year? ;)
Another exciting bit of news is that we received our first batch of pepperoni and breakfast sausage! The  pepperoni is AMAZING. Hands down, some of the best we've ever tried. We enjoyed some of the breakfast sausage Father's Day morning, and were not disappointed either. We are starting to like this whole home-grown side of things, as opposed to 'who-knows-where-this-meat-came-from'.
Lastly, we are excited to welcome two new horse boarders onto our farm. Liz's patience for the right people paid off, and our newest members of the farm will be moving in August 1st.
I imagine once the season really takes off, there will be lots to write about, so hold on until then!

Pigs!

They are here!

And you have to admit, slightly cute. Piggy squeals and all, we unloaded them from the truck this afternoon, and let them run free in their piggy enclosure. They've already napped, and are back out in the long grass, snorting and snuffling around! They are still fairly people shy, but very curious. If you sit in one spot for long enough they will come up to you and sniff around. Marc showed them where their food and water was, and it wasn't long before the shuffling and pushing to get at it ensued!

Name at your own risk...

We have four in total, and we will have them until about October. Then it will be time to assess if we think we should get more or not! According to Marc, they grow faaaast. I will post more shots of them in a week or so, and you will be able to see for yourself how much they've grown!

Jon and Marc also spent some time this morning digging up and re-locating some of our 'home-grown' manure for our garden. It's very handy having such a bountiful supply of good soil. Once you dig past the stuff that was added yesterday...hehe.

Summer is here!

Sometimes, it feels a bit like the calm before the storm.

The blueberries are growing ever bigger, and the crop is looking promising. The bees continue buzzing around, doing what they do best, and we wait patiently for the fruits of their labor. Literally!

Meanwhile, since there isn’t a while lot to do in the fields these days, Marc has been busying himself with mowing, weed-wacking, and working on his newest project, the pig area! That’s correct, Meadowbrook Farm is getting some pigs!

Marc did his research, and brought it to the business meeting several weeks ago, and we all voted to do a trial run. We’re starting small, just 4 piglets to start off with, but they’re due to arrive on the fourth, and we won’t lie, we’re a little excited. Marc and Katie designed and built a shelter for them, and after some red paint, you would think it was there all along. They will be hanging out near the cows, in a lush green pasture just waiting for those cute little noses to start exploring.

With the cooler weather, the house-hold has been mostly inside, entertaining children and tackling some of the housework that may have been ignored when the weather was so beautiful. When the weather was nicer, Marc spent a couple days cleaning and filling our pool! It’s going to be a life-saver once the weather turns hot for longer periods.  Pool party anyone?

Unfortunately it's still a little chilly! We obtained some solar panels, thanks to Liz and Katie's dad Mike, and we hope to set those up soon. 

Liz has been working on a fun project recently, which is running around the property and the house with a video camera! She hopes to put together enough footage of entertaining farm and farmily goings-on that she can make a mock reality show episode or two. Watch for a preview here, and maybe a video tour of our farm!

Coming to Life.

Meadowbrook is buzzing.
Literally.
Our bees arrived last week, and they have set the fields humming with their wonderful pollinating skills. Blueberries, here we come!

The bees aren't the only things roaming around our little farm. Liz spotted some baby geese paddling along the pond the other day, and at times the birds and frogs can be deafening. Spring has certainly sprung!
Marc has been hard at work around the farm as well. The grass, although not high on the priorities list when blueberry bushes are concerned, still needs mowing, and now that the bulk of the work (for now) is done in the fields, he has moved on to other projects around the place. A big job he recently tackled, with the help of Jon when he could, was to clear away some of the brush from along the edges of the fields. These bushes can hide berry stealing birds, so it was important to try and clear away as much as we could. And who knew there was a fence hiding under there?

The Farmily has taken full advantage of the nice weather as well. Last Friday, Katie, Laura and Liz packed up the kids and headed to Island View beach for some much needed vitamin D. We couldn't have asked for better weather - the water was calm, and it wasn't too hot. The kids immediately grabbed their buckets after wolfing down their lunch, and went to hunt some crabs. Here are some shots from their adventures on the rocky shore!

Can't...eat...fast....enough!

Yogurt? What yogurt? I'm done.

Charlotte relaxes in her carseat.

Elijah, the maharajah, takes a cat-nap in the shade.

Evelyn, the goof, just finished eating her lunch!

Jeremiah: "Come on!" Ethan: "Ewwww." (He's been stopped by some offending seaweed.)

The offending seaweed. Apparently a beach deal-breaker. At least for a while...

Evelyn and Elijah, having some cousin bonding time under the umbrella.

Gabriel, looking slightly worried. Maybe his crabs escaped?

There they are!

Unfortunately, our beach trip ended on a sour note, with Elijah scaring everyone to death by not breathing for several seconds, and then was later admitted to the hospital when it happened again after dinner. Some antibiotics, and 5 days in the hospital under observation, and he's right as rain. Thank the Lord!

Elijah and Liz got home just in time for 'chicken Tuesday'. Marc drove up with our hefty chickens at 7 in the morning, and arrived back home with...the chicken. We knew we were in trouble when we opened the first box and weighed the first chicken in at....10.08lbs. Liz reminded everyone that she wasn't kidding when she said we should have advertised them as turkeys! Most people were quite forgiving. Thankfully, the chicken leftovers make excellent soup!!

Josh Upton's Entry

Well, here we are!  This is Josh's blog entry for our Meadowbrook blog.  I have been here almost 4 months now with my wonderful family (Liz and Eli) and my wonderful family (the Godbeer's and McIlveens).  I was surprised at how normal it all seemed so quickly.  At the same time, I am still learning so much about how to work a farm and how to get along in a house of 13 people.

What specific stories to tell?  Or, should I stick to the general?  General first, I suppose.  Bryan and Lynn have been incredible mentors.  Not only do they give us all kinds of information, they help out, AND they loan and give us all kinds of things we need as new tasks come up.  Pretty awesome!  Life in the house runs pretty well.  We husbands definitely leave more than half of the housework to the ladies, in stereotypical fashion.  They do so much for us, and we try to be grateful (when we notice...).  We, in turn, try to do what we can.  It seems like enough, most of the time.  I know for myself, it's difficult to balance job work, house/family work, and farm work.  There's a lot to be done!  

One thing that I DID get done was a set of gravel steps leading from the outer property up to one of the blueberry field entrances.  It was a slippery muddy slope all winter and ever since I first saw it, I wanted to put steps there.  Being good friends with Aaron, Bryan and Lynn's son, who used to live on the farm is valuable for more than just having his companionship.  Once I mentioned the steps he confided that people slipped going down that slope often.  I hadn't done that yet and I planned not to!  It took me around 2 months of near-constant trying and I finally got the gravel on site for the project.  The next day, my friend Dave helped me put in six BEAUTIFUL steps.  This was one of those rare times when what I imagined came out pretty darn close to what became reality (as opposed to when I try to draw (I have Liz for that anyways.  Why would I need to draw?)).  Yes, I savor this small victory.  And yes, it is sweet!

Speaking of sweet, I am really looking forward to blueberry season!  Probably because I don't understand yet how much work it is going to be.  In September I'll think "Ah, poor naive Josh of May 5^th.  How young and free and unawares he was."  I think it's okay to be condescending, as long as it's only to myself.  I do plan to eat as many blueberries as I can handle, though.  I wonder if it's possible to get a blueberry gut.  I aim to find out!

It has been such a great ride so far.  I still find myself driving home and thinking "Hey!  I own a farm!"  I correct myself "I own part of a farm" (Yes, I'm not just critical of others speech.  I give myself a hard time too.)  Still, even dwelling in the realization that I own part of a farm is a pretty joyful place to be.  God has been so good to us to this point.  I can't wait to see what He has waiting around the corner.