Melissa & Marks – March 2026

We arrived at Melissa & Mark's on March 10th. It was a beautiful 80º day. Melissa and Mark met us at the Garage property and we quickly got set up.

Then we went over to their house and were amazed at the renovation they completed at the Carriage House. It's the cutest little apartment with all the modern conveniences.

Their whole family can sleep there, Tripp in his room on the main floor, Evelyn and Piper share the loft accessed by a library type sliding ladder, and Melissa and Mark can sleep on the couch that folds out into a bed. It really turned out beautifully.

As the weather gets nicer, they will most likely take turns sleeping in their 32' trailer as well, which is fun, spacious and comfortable.

Their brood of animals had grown substantially since the last time we were here. They recently had 11 new baby goats over a four day period. The Guinea Hens started at 15 and now they have upwards of 40.

They have done an amazing job of eradicating ticks, to the point where we don't even check for them any more.
They have numerous chickens that are currently producing 10 - 15 eggs a day. It fluctuates quite a bit. They also still have their three pigs, six dogs and I don't know how many barn cats.

While we were there we had quite the wild weather ride. We had two big storms. The first one was super windy, with a tornado watch. The second one was on Sunday, March 15, at 2pm it was about 70º. At about 2:45pm, it got windy and we had a thunderstorm with a tornado watch. By 4pm it was 45º and by 5pm it was 38º and snowing. But it was the wind that was tenacious, 50 to 70 mile per hour gusts that lasted all night. It got down to 17º that night and didn't get above 28º the next day.

While we at Melissa and Mark's, we made some great memories:
Played uno with Evelyn and Tripp
Invited the whole family over for breakfast at the trailer. We had what the kid's call "grandma pancakes", plus sausage and eggs.
Karen went on base with Melissa and Evelyn
I helped Mark jack up the house in preparation for their remodel
Melissa made a spaghetti dinner
Ate pizza from Dog Patch
Karen went birthday shopping with Melissa for the upcoming birthdays
Heard a sonic boom that turned out to be a meteor that landed in Ohio
Went for walks in the countryside
Had lunch with Melissa and Mark at 28 Shots