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!