Country Living Magazine Honors Osterville Woman

If there ever existed a human antidote for today’s often cynical and drab world, then Osterville’s Melissa Caughey is that person. 

The recent recipient of Country Living Magazine’s Blue Ribbon Blogger Award for her web site www.tillysnest.com, Caughey has had a whirlwind past 24 months immersed in just about every project imaginable, including being flown to Manhattan a few weeks ago for an overnight stay to receive her award from Country Music singer Cooper Boone at a luncheon in the Hearst Tower. She’s featured in this month’s (Dec./Jan.) edition of the magazine.

“The reason why I started the blog about the chickens was that I had learned a lot about life from studying their behavior and the way they interacted with each other,” Caughey explained yesterday afternoon over coffee in her quaint, welcoming kitchen. “I just immersed myself into the blog.”

About eight years ago, Caughey and her husband Dr. Peter Crossen of Emerald Physicians moved to Osterville from Los Angeles, CA, where the couple had met during Peter’s residency at UCLA and Caughey was a nurse practitioner.

Two children later and two years ago, Caughey’s kids expressed their yearning for a family pet and that request turned into, well, chickens.

Yes, nestled into the side of their property is a custom-made chicken coop replete with eight unique and lively hens, some from as far away as Asia and Australia and each of them with their own unique personalities and names like "Oyster Cracker" and "Tilly." In a large mixing bowl in the family refrigerator? Naturally laid eggs ready for cooking.

But owning chickens and winning an award for her web site about them isn’t remotely one-tenth of what this energetic and cheerful woman does when she’s not busy taking care of her young family – Caughey serves as the project coordinator for the incredibly successful community garden located at the Barnstable Community Horace Mann Charter School on Bearse’s Way in Hyannis (http://thegardenatbchmcps.blogspot.com), has helped author a pamphlet on Keeping Backyard Chickens available at Barnstable Town Hall, serves on the Barnstable Agricultural Commission, teaches an enrichment cluster at BCHMCS, and she played an integral role in helping coordinate the donation of fresh produce from the BCHMCS Community Garden to the NOAH Shelter.

In season, the school donates over 75 cucumbers twice weekly to the shelter, over 100 tomatoes, and baskets overflowing with massive beets, carrots, Swiss shard, potatoes, broccoli, cilantro, parsely, beans, sage and cauliflower.

Caughey takes little credit for the garden’s success, however, and wanted to note she was asked to help by since retired BCHMCS Principal Ken Keenan. She also said that Country Gardens on West Main Street and “Farmer” Tim Friary of the Cape Cod Organic Farm were instrumental in the establishment of the garden.

A “self-professed Type A personality” (although to meet her you would never think it), Caughey’s somewhat recent devotion to a seemingly newly formed quasi-agricultural lifestyle was actually spawned in her youth in Hackettstown, New Jersey where she would spend much of her time helping out a neighboring Dairy Farm that has since been razed and become a “development,” much to her chagrin.

Caughey also keeps a unique collection of various vintage chicken-themed knick-knacks and trinkets displayed around her home. It appears in her adopted home of Osterville, and in her endeavors around town, Caughey has recreated a bit of that “Country” magic and optimism that comes with learning to rely on one’s self-sustenance.

Having her own chickens has helped redevelop the unique qualities Caughey was raised on and it’s snowballed into having an effect on everything she seems to do or volunteer for. She goes as far to say that today’s culture would benefit by returning back to some of the simple ways of life that this country was built upon. One would be hardstruck to disagree with her.

“They (her chickens) are united,” she said. “They may not always get along, but there’s a clear pecking order… if you watch them, you can learn a lot from them.”