Meet Mendip Meat

Get your orders in for our amazing meat boxes - just right for family get-togethers, Christmas parties and the like. All the meat is reared at Fernhill Farm to the highest natural standards. We're not officially organic as our herds are used to graze different areas on Mendip and although these different sites are generally nature reserves the owners, like Somerset Wildlife Trust have not got organic status because they're not in the line of meat production.

We've got;

Aberdeen Angus Beef Boxes - 10kg boxes at £8/kg. Selection of Fillet, Sirloin and Rump Steaks, Braising Steaks, Mince Meat, Prime Roasts and Slow Roasts. 

Shetland and Shetland X Lamb, Hogget and Mutton Boxes  - at £7kg. Selection of legs, shoulder, chops and breast. Whole and half lambs available.

Pedigree Saddleback Fresh and Cured Pork Boxes. Mixed boxes from £7/kg - £10/kg. Chops, roasts, gammons, bacon sausages, hams, salami and chorizo.

Please place your order with Jen on 07903 584695 jen@fernhill-farm.co.uk

Available from 17th November onwards.

 

Here's a bit of feedback from our Woolly Weekend. 

We welcomed 4 families along and transformed 120kg of fluffy sheepskin off-cuts into colourful patchwork and luxurious woven rugs. Mums and children grappled with peg looms to weave strips off their favourite colours to make dense, warm, cosy bed rolls and bum rugs. They took all these home to treasure. 

There wasn't any time for felting this weekend and sadly our spinning lady (she does stand still sometimes ;-) was ill. So the dads continued contentedly sewing patchwork masterpieces using large suture needles and thick leather threads. 

Fun in the fluff den entertained younger ones and until a candlelit dinner with lots of drinks enticed the weavers away. Fantastic food from Jon the Chef left everyone warm and cosy. The teenagers then put on an impromptu play on 'the love of wool to take the chills away', a great little play.

We've also been donated an old piano that makes a fabulous echo around the wooden barn while many fingers fiddle and play!

The Mendip Mind - here to stay and play

 

International Fernhill

Back from paradise now to welcome international visitors. On the 30th October we were pleased to welcome a delegation of regional agricultural advisors, from Vietnam, led by the Vice-Minister of the Ministry of Planning and Investment! They were on a study tour in England. Their interest with Fernhill lay in the way our farm has engaged with the public through farm diversification. The methods we use to source and use national and regional grant funding, like Environmental Stewardship, were talked about a lot. Our WET reedbed system for purifying waste water and our other sustainable features like the wood boiler and wool insulation were also keenly discussed. 

We took them on a farm tour to see the saddleback pigs, the grassland and woodland management systems, the Aberdeen Angus beef production and how we're establishing a new orchard. Then back to the Camping Barn for an innovative lunch.

Jon, our resident chef cooked a Mendip/Vietnamese style lunch - pork, veg and noodles went down a treat. Digestion was helped by local cider. Our guests remarked that 'the meal was the best they had had during their stay.'

The Mendip Mind

     

Welcome to Paradise

The Mendip Mind and family are off sunning themselves on a beautiful island this week. Normal service will be resumed next week. In the meantime have a look at the new pictorial tour of the accommodation barn on our website.

The Mendip Mind

Meaning is in the person not the word. But these are a few words we're using to describe our accommodation as we're struggling for a better name for our 'camping barn'; arcadian holistic warm cosy hyggli (Danish, pronounced 'hoogly', no direct translation but it's the feeling you get when safe, comfortable on a big warm sofa during a winter's evening with a cup of hot chocolate and a smile on your face) woolly woody relaxed earth contented natural entertaining nook touch look welcome comfy family sharing happy flexible double pond settle glory source home conscious insulation projection meeting fair calm underfloor instinctive sustainable curious different adventure practical simple peaceful plateau story tale eat meal content rest breath curve dry envelope local history myth friendly unusual untreated free kindling art paint russet tranquil undisturbed content stable soft sheltered protected listed generations full pleasurable satisfying

See if our meaning fits your meaning, stay at Fernhill Farm

The Mendip Mind

Woolly Weekend

It's a Woolly Weekend ahead! We've gathered a selection of materials, tools, ideas and wool enthusiasts to get creative with a mass of fleeces and sheepskins. All we need is you! Try your hand at spinning, knitting, crocheting baby booties or use a peg loom to make a bum rug or double bed roll. Try your hand at delicate felt making or go bigger and make a mighty wall hanging. There really will be something for every age and ability. 

And all this will be happening in the unique camping barn. Prices start at £40 for the Woolly Weekend. To book or for more details contact Jen on 07903 584695 or jen@fernhill-farm.co.uk

The Mendip Mind

Digital Training Farm?

Viral campaigns, email marketing, rss feeds...the Active Mendip bunch are holding their first training seminar here next week to explain all of this. One of the members is a lecturer for the Chartered Institute of Marketing as well as running a communications company and organising the CLIC24 mountain bike marathon. Busy bloke. He's going to do an overview of Digital Marketing for the members and others. 

Digital marketing is crucial during the credit crunch. Effective marketing is definitely vital now and digital stuff can be virtually free - you've got a website haven't you? Make sure it' working effectively for you, that's what we're looking at now. Updating all the images to reflect the changing farm adding new downloads etc. Dead important at the moment.

If you want to come along the seminar is next weds 9am - 12noon, costs £30, what a bargain! Call the Active Mendip secretary to book a place on 07590 687537 or email jim@vmcg.co.uk

The Mendip Mind - digitally developing the farm!