Miss Molly joined the farm shortly after 6pm Sunday, March 10th. JJ had a hard delivery and is taking extra time to heal. JJ is being a great mommy! Molly is a healthy, happy, polled (no horns naturally) little girl. She is very light in color and looks like her daddy. She will be our first baby that will carry the Miller Micro Farm name on her registration papers. Her name has a sentimental meaning as it was my great-grandmother's name. Therefore, we saved Molly for our first Miller doeling. 

We hope to introduce Molly and Emmy within the next few days in hopes of bonding them as friends and family within the herd. Mabel's babies are due in just shy of two weeks from now. We are anticipating the arrival of at-least two maybe three babies. Mabel has already begun to have some contractions and false labor over the last week. She is finding it hard to get up and move around, therefore she is spending a lot of her time sleeping and laying under the feeder. She can't wait for kidding season to be over, miserable would be an understatement. 

Cami gave us a gorgeous doeling in February, Miss Emmylou. We are impatiently waiting on JJ and Mabel's kids to arrive this month. 

We have 2 events coming up:
March 9th Joseph Badger Arts Fair
April 6th Sharpsville Middle School Spring Craft Show

Upcoming Articles:
Another article will be coming out in The New Pionner soon. 
As well as I signed contracts with Mother Earth News for an article coming this fall.

What else is new?
Scott has been crazy at work leaving more and more of the buisness and farm on my shoulders. Noah has taken a job off farm also adding to my daily work load. Sammy has moved out to her own apartment, leaving the farm a bit emptier. I was invited to present at the Coop Dreams Boot Camp in Indinapolis, but sadly had to turn it down due to other obligations. Life is good! Everyone is happy and healthy, which is all you can ask for. 

Our first breeding season has come to an end. It was an exciting experience and look forward to next year. We had a herd check up yesterday with Dr. Elizabeth and everyone was pregnancy tested except the Pygmies (pets only), babies (to young), and Ginger (retired).

THE RESULTS ARE IN!

Color Denotes the Collar Color of each Doe.
Cami Pregnant by Sugar-run ??- Due Unknown (within the next 30 days)
J.J  Pregnant by Harry- Due 03-06-19
Mabel Pregnant by Harry - Due 03-26-19
Gizmo Pregnant by Harry - Due 05-18-19

Ginger not tested (to soon) if pregnant by Harry - Due date would be 05-28-18 if she didn't take she will be officially retired. 
​
Harry has been a very busy boy and is officially off duty for the season. His new favorite activities include eating, drinking, sleeping, staring at all his sexy girlfriends, and picking on Mikey. 

We have confirmed pregnancies! 

J.J is due March 06, 2019

Mabel is due March 27, 2019


Ginger is not confirmed but is looking like April 17, 2019

Cami has not been bred yet but hopefully soon!

Izzabella and Zoey will wait until next fall to be bred, we like our does over a year old before they are bred. 

​Harry is doing a great job and is also very sweet and gentle with the girls, couldn't be happier with our buck choice. 

Today, I found a little time between projects to catch up with all of you!

So, what's been up around here?

Writing
I have been writing like crazy to finish three up coming magazine articles. One for The New Pioneer and two for Chickens Magazine. I have fallen behind on the weekly blogs for Mother Earth News, Grit, Community Chickens, and Homestead Hustle, therefore I am working hard to catch back up. 

Around the farm
We are officially in breeding season for the Oberhasli girls. J.J has had 1 date with Harry and we should know in a week or so if he did his job. The rest of the girls are waiting until their next heat cycles to come in. Harry, Mikey, and Cami have all settled in well to their new home. Izzabella and Zoey are continuing to grow and thrive as we come into winter. Their winter fluffy coats have come in already making them super duper soft to pet! We are in the heart of wood season causing many sore muscles to say the least. The young chickens were introduced into the hen house with little to no aggression from the other girls. 

The skin care line
We lunched a few new fragrances and products recently with more on the way! Dragons Blood and Sweet Pea Vanilla fragrances were made into lotions. Irish Springs soap was cured and made available  last week and the lotion is soon to come. Orange Valencia essential oil has been made into a lotion and the soap is curing for a release date soon. New wax melts were also placed on the online store. We are getting ready to launch a few new lines Foaming hand soap, body wash, lip balm, and a secret product that we are still perfecting! Most will debut at the Sharpsville, Pa craft show. 

Personal 
Scott and I both celebrated our birthdays in October and happily became one year older together. We survived a very cold and rainy pumpkin festival in October as well. 

We had so much fun putting this amazing little coop together. It has to be one of the most well thought out manufactured coops I've ever seen. Amazing ventilation and easy cleaning is just the beginning! Our kitty Ollie has decided it should be a kitty condo instead...lol. We may be fighting with him over this for awhile. It took us 45 minutes to put the run and base together and 30 minutes to assemble the rest of the coop. The well thought out design includes a chicken door that can easily be transformed into a motorized door, removable nesting boxes, and an easy open top for access to the chickens or cleaning. The house easily lifts off the base for easy moving or simply taking it down to pressure wash out. We will update as we get a chance too use and experience all the features and design. 

want more information? Check out www.ultimatecoop.com by Hampel!

On 04.21.2018, we received an amazing gift from Gizmo. She blessed us with a gorgeous healthy doeling, Izzabella (Izzy for short).  Momma is doing great! Gizmo had an unassisted birth with no complication. Baby and Mama have bonded amazingly. 

On 04.22.2018 we received another gift, Mabel came to join our little heard. We also adopted Ginger from The Stover Homestead. This little girl is a first time freshener who is producing an amazing quality and quantity of milk. She had twins this year, both were retained by The Stovers. She is sure to give us some gorgeous babies next year. 
​

Meet Gizmo our newest member of the family. She comes to us from the amazing Pratt Family Farm in NW Pennsylvania. She is a four year old Oberhasli who is due to give birth around April 16,2018. We are so happy to have had the chance to meet the Pratt's, two more doelings will join us from their farm in the next few weeks. Gizmo is a very sweet natured girl, she is going to bring positive traits to our growing herd.  

This week started like so many others lately, I accepted yet another writing project. I'm beginning to feel a little overwhelmed. I never planned to be sitting at my desk eight hours a day writing, blogging, and answer oh so many emails. Yet somehow it has happened, spare time seems to be a thing of the past. I'm managing to keep my one promise to my husband when this writing adventure began, the weekends and evenings are off limits. It's so important to be able to set it all aside for quality family time. 

I find myself flooded with ideas and concepts during my down time and even while sleeping. A notebook seems to be attached to me at all times. In the notebook, I write my thoughts down so that I don't forget. The love for writing has totally taken me by surprise in life. It was never my intention to become a writer. To be bluntly honest,  other than being a mom and wife I had no idea what I wanted to do for a living. 

There are so many benefits to working from home, my favorite being the ability to stay in PJ's all day. Unless I'm on a video conference, its pretty likely that I will be caught in my jammies all hours of the day at least in winter.  On occasion I will get spunky and actually get dressed. I take breaks for my brain throughout the day using the time to clean house, do animal chores, and accomplish the darn laundry. I so want a laundry fairy! I'm learning to sit back and enjoy the ride. Anyone who knows me, will tell you that's a huge step for me. I am extremely OCD, my life has always been very structured, schedules are in place for each day of week. I still have schedules but now sometimes things get pushed back a day or two. I'm learning to be ok with that.  

Growing Pains
We are growing and expanding rapidly, please bear with us through our growing pains.  As I'm sure many of you noticed our farm name has been changed.  As we have grown we find the need for legalizing our business and herd name.  We now do so much more on the farm unrelated to chickens, we thought it would be a good idea to take on a well rounded name.  

Website Changes 
Our new website will be going live next month!  If I have set everything up right this site should auto route to the new site automatically.  Our email will be changing to a true business email at the same time.  All these changes will hopefully go off without a hitch.  

New product Line?
Over the summer we will be introducing you to some of the great new products we have in the works.  All the products will be produced right here with only ingredients produced or grown right here on our farm.  Which means all the products will be 100% CLEAN

In Other News
I accepting a bloggers position with Community Chickens and a contributors/writers position with The New Pioneer.  I am so excited to be writing for such amazing publications companies.  We have taken on our first affiliate thank you Sloggers.  

Thank you,
To all our supporters