Mendip Mind in Oil

The Mendip Mind has been immortalised in oil thanks to Kate Lynch, amazing local artist. See the picture here. It's called 'Andy blade shearing on the Mendip Hills'. See the real thing at the Somerset Rural Life Museum, Glastonbury, until the 4th July. The painting is part of the exhibition 'Wool and its creative uses by Somerset artists and craft people'

Let us know what you think.

The Mendip Mind

Just to let you know of two events that are coming up. We are having a Machine shearing course on the 10th & 11th June 2009 and a Blade shearing course around the 12th 13th & 14th June.  

Running along side the blade snipping is our peg loom weaving course that allows the fleece to be woven into a thick, chunky, comfy rug while it is still hot off the sheep!  

Peg loom weaving 10 am to 4:30 pm Saturday June 13^th

£40 includes materials

Home cooked Farm lunch

Nibbles & Hot drinks

Experience peg loom weaving while sheep are sheared using blades; in a beautiful light airy barn on the Mendip Hills. Call Sylvie on 077 48 48 58 76 or Jen on 079 03 58 46 95 

The Mendip Mind

History of Fernhill Farm

We’re often asked about the history behind Fernhill Farm and it’s quite a long tale as you can imagine. But the best place to go and read about it in an easily digestible format is at the Big Green Gathering website, here’s the link. We wrote it a few years ago now (it mentions Kyle but not Seth our youngest!) but it gives a really good picture of the Farms history. Get a cup of tea and a few biccies, sit down and have a nice read.

The Mendip Mind

Listening

Remember we had all those school children up at Fernhill a few months ago learning about keyhole gardens and listening to Jane the Ugandan Farmer? Well you can listen to a great interview with Helen Kongai, Send a Cow's Agricultural Development Officer for eastern Uganda, when she was interviewed on BBC Radio 4's Midweek programme. Really good background. Helen Kongai is a Ugandan farmer who received a cow and training in sustainable agriculture from the Send a Cow initiative after the death of her husband. Since then she has become their Agricultural Development Officer for Eastern Uganda. She was visiting the UK to help promote Grow it Global project, encouraging schoolchildren in the UK visiting farms and learning about sustainable farming.

Wild Whittling Walks

Wild Walks, now there's a nice idea. You could do lots around the Farm - we've got loads of different habitats here. Mini-beast trails along drystone walls, willow and water, amazing meadows, let alone the really Wild Walks you could have over the weekend when the Big Green Gathering is here! Our friend Adrian Boots is the local wildlife guru. He only lives around the corner and has helped us here at the farm with doing some wildlife walks for groups. He's written the new Wild Walks leaflet for the Mendip Hills AONB Service. You can get it from the Gorge Outdoors shop in Cheddar for a fiver. Very good and interesting.

Adrian runs Walk the Mendips where you can have mini-adventures camping out and learning bushcraft stuff.

The Mendip Mind is off to whittle a stick

Racing Stock

Fernhill's fine racing stock at the North Somerset Show

Sheep Racing at the North Somerset Show

Fernhill Farm shetlands go to the show for shearing and sheep racing:

After moments of intensive attitude training, 24 of our keenest shetlands were transported in their luxury vechilcle to North Somerset Show to be the main ring star sheep racing attraction. At 2.30pm, the first 6 jockeys mounted their woolly steeds and the public placed their bets. The tension mounted and the gate swung open....bounding, leaping and jumping, our Katmoget-go-go winning sheep crossed the line in just 7 seconds to win the first sprint and the lucky gamblers taking a chance, doubled their money.

A further 4 races followed with our Moveover Morrit & Black Flash trying their best but Katmoget-go-go's time could not be beat. To rapturous appaulse, the courageous racers left the ring and a respectable amount of funds had been raised for a local Mendip charity.

 

Thanks to all the helpers with our sheep and to the Show stewards

The Mendip Racing Mind

The Source

Or should that be The (Mint) Sauce? Lambs are still popping out all over the place up here at Fernhill.

The Source though is a really good 'green' paper coming from Bristol. They're going to feature Fernhill Farm in an upcoming issue. I went to look at their website and have found an amazing resource and bank of knowledge. There's a whole section on Farming and Food! Kept me amused for hours. I think they're going to talk to us about the impact of the Big Green Gathering on the farm. We'll let you know when it's going to be in the mag.

The Mendip Mind 

Sharing Fernhill

We had our first proper residential group staying for a whole week! 24 people spent their time getting actively involved on the farm; feeding the pigs and our 18 baby piglets, attending to ewes & newborn lambs, collecting their eggs for breakfast and watching their first sheep being shorn with a few brave enough to have a go at shearing / sheep wrestling! They then spent their evening turning their freshly shorn fleece into a rug for their common room.

 

We had a team spud planting mission with a Mendip rain cloud for company, cooked sausages on our fuel-efficient stove in the garden. Then back to work using our home-grown willow to create pea and bean supports ready to take back for their own allotment project.

 

A true Mendip memory was their night nature walk with local ecologist Adrian Boots as their guide - discovery by starlight!

 

Next morning a lucky few opted to see dairy cows being milked, a visit to the cheese factory and ending up in the shop to buy their local cheese thanks to farmer Nick from Farmlink.

 

For their final evening here at Fernhill with the instruction from Alex (Chew Valley Charcoal) they completed the whole process of making charcoal ready for their party with their own hand made sausages and burgers. All washed down with the real taste of Cheddar ales and Somerset Perry. They even created their own entertainment for their party after a techno-team day VJ-ing using video images taken around the farm and mixing music and images, followed by an evening by the campfire with a sing-a-long.

 

A truely moving experince for all of us and one which we hope we can repeat. We love sharing with others the wonder of our lives at Fernhill Farm. 

 

Since then we have just recovered from our biggest function yet - the in-laws Golden Wedding Anniversary Party. A sit-down lunch for 75 and buffet supper with music. 

The Mendip Mind

BGG and the CLIC24

 We've been very busy lambing recently, it's that time of year.

The Big Green Gathering is coming back. The dates are 29th July - 2nd August. Music, dance, theatre, kid's area, sustainable homes, permaculture, crafts, healing field, food and farming, earth energies, campaigns, green markets, workshops, discussions ALL powered by the wind, sun and the people. Tickets are available at www.big-green-gathering.com

Another big event coming up is the CLIC24. Mendip's charity mountain bike endurance event. If any of the riders need accommodation before or after the event or want to come back and sample the great mountain biking in the area they can stay at Fernhill Farm. We're perfectly situated for riders to get on to Black Down or any of the other bridleways in the area. For more details about accommodation at Fernhill Farm go to the Stay page and click on the Mendip Hills Camping Barns link.

The Mendip Mind is back to the lambing sheds now to see how those contractions are progressing!

 

Letters from the Children

Alongside our 'normal' farm life, the accommodation barn and being an active part of Active Mendip we're  also involved in the Send a Cow and Grow it Global campaigns. You've 

probably seen in past blogs that we've had Jane over from Africa to help local children understand global farming. We thought we'd share with yo

u some of the 

letters the children sent about their visit to Fernhill Farm with Jane.  

"Dear everyone at Fernhill Farm,

Thank you for letting us visit your Farm. I really enjoyed seeing the animals, making tip taps and bag gardens

. I also enjoyed digging up the mole hills and the tour around the farm.

 

I learnt that pina

pples grow on trees, Ugandan boys and girls sleep in separate huts, they had to walk two kilometres to get 

water and a child had to grow their own food and sell them for clothes.

 

Yours sincerely

Joe

Longwell Green Primary School"

 

"Dear Jen,

I am writing to say thankyou for inviting me to your farm. I really enjoyed the trip.

 

The thing i enjoye

d the most was the tip taps and making it. I liked the African dance it was really fun and funny and walking around the farm.

Thankyou again

Ryan

Birdwell School"

 

"Dear Jen,

Thank you for having us around your farm it was really fun. My favourite part was making the tip taps.

 

When we were doing gardening I liked planting the runner beans and peas and when Jane was carrying the bottle of water on her head.

I like the walk with farmer Nick and when we got our hands really really really muddy. I like it when we made

 tip tap and after we play fottball with the plastic bag ball.

Yours faithfully

Dominic"

 

"Dear Jen,

Thank you for letting us go and see your farm and the Ugandan farm.

 

It was very cool, i liked the tip tap and all the farm animals. Jane was verry nice and the way she sang was very good.

 

I made a bag ball but it didn't last very long.

 

Yours Sincerly

Lenny Chilcott

Birdwell Primary School."

 

I have many more with some lovely drawings to go along with them so would love to get them onto our website / blog soon.

 

Sorry have to dash now - we had 729 children involved (this project was conducted here, in Stratton on Fosse and Cornwall so many more children benefitted) but have to go and look after all the other bits of the farm now.

More soon from the Mendip Mind

Aardvarks on Zipwires

Aardvark Endeavours are one of those outdoor adventure comapnies that we're involved with through Active Mendip. In fact Ian who runs Aardvark is a Director of Active Mendip like me. Aardvark are proud to announce the opening of a permanent archery range and air rifle range at Fernhill. Both archery and rifle ranges have been designed to be mobile as well, so subject to a suitable venue you can have these activities at your function or event.  Coming soon to Fernhill will also be a zipwire, so the facilities on Mendip's newest venue just got better!

I might try some of our sheep on the zipwire but they're rubbish at archery, no opposable thumb you see.

The Mendip Mind

Jane on Mendip

We're up to our eyeballs in school kids this week. Hundreds of them have come through the farm to visit our African farmer Jane. She's been amazing with them and very inspirational. I'll post more details next time. Here are some pictures of her and the children. Back to work!

The Mendip Mind

Glory Hole Garden Gets Growing

Springs nearly here and our Glory Hole Garden is showing the first signs of the soil warming up. Green shoots are starting to emerge. These are great signs of the feast to come. The garden's provided quite a lot over the winter months but there's nothing like spring and summer for the proper bounty. 

Jon the chef is getting all excited as well. He's in the lucky position of being able to wander or wonder from garden to kitchen prepping ideas and food in his mind.  Then turning them into a reality for our guests. We get to sample them of course. Quality control, you see. As much as possible is grown and reared on the farm. What's not is made and bought locally like the cheese.

Take a look at Jon's menu on our website. This is just a sample of what he can do. It also includes his award winning Royal Smithfield menu. 

The Mendip Menu Mind

Active Liaison

Many of you probably aren't aware of our involvement in Active Mendip. I'm a Director of this Community Interest Company and Fernhill is right at the heart of it. Active Mendip is a group of all the outdoor adventure companies on mendip. They've come together to help themselves but also help Mendip. My role as a director is now 'landowner liaison'. Fancy indeed. But it's important. Go down Burrington and you'll find umpteen minibuses and kids scaling all over the rockfaces. That's great - people are getting active, staff are being employed, companies are growing. But let's not forget that it's a privilege to use someone else's land for our fun. We don't have a right to continue to use these rockfaces and caves for our fun. I'm going to be working hard to make sure local landowners see the broader benefits of activity on Mendip and how this area of outstanding natural beauty can benefit from it.

Keeping active. The Mendip Mind 

Stone Dancing, well sort of

Blagdon races, Lucky Seven, Chanctonbury Ring, The Carousel, Timber Salvage Reel, Half a Sixpence, Ealing Broadway, Nottingham Swing, Strip the Willow, Swedish Masquerade, Gay Gordons, La Russe, Bridge of Athlone, Clopton Bridge, Black Nagg, Dashing White Sergeant, Witches Reel, Double Snowball, Twelve Reel, Square Frenzy, Oxo Reel, Apple Tree Square, Old Jo, Circassian O. What are they then? Would you believe they are the dances that 60 of us did at the Fernhill Barn dance last Saturday night. We all stomped and tripped out way around the dance floor with different degrees of commitment to the whole dance thing. But hey, we all enjoyed ourselves.

And the weather's looking good for this weekend when we've got an exhibition of stone carving ceramics and sculpture. There's a flyer with all the details on the home page for you to have a look at. Or there will be very soon when i've created the link!

Mind your Mendips. The Mendip Mind 

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Brrrrrr

Snow, ice, frost, windchill, the Farm sits at about 300m above sea level so it's always colder and windier up here. Mind you the farmhouse and accommodation are nestled in a natural hollow around the pond. Putting the farm buildings in these slight depressions does take the sting out of the wind, Swallet Farm near the Castle of Comfort is just the same. People have always adapted to their natural surroundings and built their settlements to take advantage of these things; high on a hill for protection, next to rivers for power and food. 

Following on from that principle we try and use the natural setting of the farm to our advantage in other ways. Sustainable living you might call it. Grazing the limestone grasslands, taking the wood from our land to renovate the barns and fuel our heating system, vegetable from our garden that's in a sheltered quarry behind the barn. Wool from our sheep insulates the place and pro

vides clothes. It's not normal to have standing water in ponds on Mendip, the porous limestone means it sinks away quickly, but we've created a series of ponds known as a Wetland Ecosystem Treatment to clean our waste water. It's definitely not natural to have tankers coming up to take your waste water away.

It is however natural to have some parties in our barns, we've lit up the trees in our hollow  to create the right atmosphere. What do you think?

The Mendip Mind, keeping warm by the fire!