The weather forecast this Saturday was not as optimistic as the attitudes of eight GoodGymers who showed up at the morning session at Horsenden Farm. Even without the pre-task cup of coffee, everyone would be buzzing with excitement, ready to begin the day with a dose of exercise in fresh air with earthy, rural notes.

Among the team, there was an impressive number of new starters - but you would not have guessed they were not seasoned GoodGymers! Owen was no stranger to farm work and proved his experience later, suggesting that mattock was the best tool for heavy digging. Jenny was thrilled about all sorts of jobs and was the first one to learn the new skill of wood splitting. Eleanor was equally happy to take up different challenges, including carrying a heavy, damaged picnic bench out of the seating area.

The rain held off for most of the morning. Sevan and Owen kicked off the session by moving poles to the pig enclosure area, where they would be used to secure the fences. The piglets started turning into strong, clever beasts, who began planning their great escape, so prevention was key.

The rest of the team was guided by the volunteer boss, Elsa, to the timber storage spot in the woods. The job was to move firewood down the hill, while not getting eaten by the Gruffalo, to the pizza oven area. After all, there's no pizza without fire. Steph, Eleanor and Jen were wheelbarrowing the logs, Maxime and Kash took turns splitting the wood, and Penny was arranging the split pieces into the storage bays.

When Owen and Sevan rejoined the team, log splitting became a bit of a bottleneck, so part of the crew was sent on a quest to relocate an old picnic bench. Later, another small squad was formed to attempt to remove two tree stumps from a soil heap. That ambitious plan had to be cancelled as the tree trunks - although chopped - were well-rooted and far from rotting.

The first raindrops started to fall when the GoodGymers were finishing organising the last logs and sticks of reasonable sizes into the wood storage bays. It was time to order coffee, pizza and craft beer and sit around chatting about all things GoodGym and beyond.

Whether you enjoyed or missed this Horsenden Farm volunteering day, worry not! The sessions come back every first Saturday of the month. and you can sign up for the very next one here. We hope to see you in July!

Sunny Saturday morning and 2 usual Goodgymers Penny and Steph Ducat were joined by Mira who ran 5km and new member Ashley for his 1st mission. Small group but very efficient on the day. Elsa welcomed everyone and gave us a task. Todays mission was to wheel barrows with some manure down to the car park and spread a thin layer on the pill of building up green vegetation. Once layer done, time to wheelbarrow woodchip from the bottom of the carpark on top of the manure hill. Seems easy, but the hill was a challenge as uneven, steep and with fresh manure. The 4 goodgymers relayed each other with filling the wheelbarrows, running up the hill and spreading the different layers. Our trainers not smelling nice today and have some different colours added to them. We produced a layer cake style hill. After a group photo, we went to see the new pigs that have been introduce at the farm. Obviously that wanted a belly rub and the dogs also kept following us looking for treats.Then it was time to relax and get food ....pizza for most of us.

On a sunny Saturday like this, what could have been better than spending the morning amongst the lush green wilderness of Horsenden Hill? A recent report by WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) found that spending 20 minutes in nature each day can brings incredible benefits to our mental health like reducing stress and anxiety and improving mood, self-esteem and confidence.

Members of WWF UK, Annie, Emma, Kat and Ferozah, visited Horsenden Farm as a part of their Prescription for Nature campaign to experience a GoodGym-style workout outdoors and encourage communities across the UK to do the same.

Not everyone has equal opportunities to enjoy physical activity in nature. For some communities being outdoors is not considered the norm, for others, barriers may involve access to transport or living in a nature-deprived area. Our special guest at today's session, Haroon Mota, the founder of Active Inclusion Network CIC and the Muslim Hikers group, actively works to empower the underrepresented communities to engage in the great outdoors.

The guests and nine GoodGym regulars met Elsa, a Friend of Horsenden Hill, who prepared a unique activity: a conservation-type task! Our job was to clear ash trees and brambles in the woodland area. How cutting back vegetation is supposed to help nature, you may ask. The benefits were twofold. Firstly, clearing the area of overgrowth was aimed at promoting the growth of grasses which would become habitats for various species, increasing the biodiversity of the hill. Secondly, we were making the feed for the Horsenden cows out of ash trees.

"The cows are going to eat wood? No way!"

Challenge accepted! We served lunch to the cows, a bull and a three-week-old calf by throwing the trimmings over the fence. And how they munched on those branches! Just like us on the pizza from Horsenden Loaf we treated ourselves to after the session!

Elsa was impressed to see how much space we cleared in 90 minutes, thanks to the power of teamwork. The session in the woods gave everyone a boost for the rest of the day. It was a fantastic opportunity to connect with nature, meet new people and do something good.

If you want to join us next time at Horsenden Farm, sign up here!

Horsenden Farm is like a neutron star of West London - its gravity pulls in the GoodGymers from areas near Ealing and they just cannot escape its allure. This Saturday the farm stole three people from GoodGym Hounslow: Gus, already a Horsenden regular, and two quite new adventurers: Pezhman and Maxime.

Maria from GoodGym Ealing was another novice to the most popular Saturday session in the area. Gaby and Simon were well acquainted with the farm, meadows and woodlands of Horsenden Hill, but new to the volunteering days. Steph Ducat, Sevan and Kash on the other hand, have seen all the animals, tried all the pizza flavours and kept the farm in motion almost every month, moving all sorts of things that needed moving: from unglamorous soil and manure to heavy objects like safes and logs.

Today's task was on the heavy-duty side. Nick, being in charge of volunteers while Elsa was away, thought GoodGymers might be perfectly suited to remove wood and fence panels from the area that was going to become an enclosure for fell ponies - the newest addition to the farm!

"When the ponies arrive, they will be helping us move the logs from the woods." - Nick
"What the GoodGymers will be doing then?" - Kash
"You will ride the ponies!"

The fence parts were to be stacked against one of the sheds (the one that still had some space behind it). There was one problem: the panels were very big and very heavy, also awkward to carry with hardly any grip. Pezhman came up with an idea to use ropes, which was trialled. Eventually, the most utilised tools were muscles and brains. Once all the panels were miraculously fitted around the shed, leaned against three walls, the heaviest log made its way out of the future pony enclosure on a wheelbarrow.

The GoodGymers completed the challenging task with 30 minutes spare (before the pizza oven started!). No one felt like sitting down and relaxing - that part happens at noon! Nick offered our team a bonus task: wheelbarrowing woodchip from the car park and dropping it alongside the greenhouse. That kept us busy until the pizza gods summoned their priest to fire up the oven and feed the hardworking folk.

That is the way of Horsenden, the ritual that happened regularly in the past and will happen again in the future. Make sure you are a part of this tasty and rewarding future and sign up for the April session now!

Our monthly visit to Horsenden Farm included more horns than recent tasks as we were in close quarters with the Horsenden goats, Yogi and Alfie. As we had such a large group of 9 GoodGymers today, we were given 2 tasks on the farm to achieve.

Happy As A Pig In Mud

Those who were happy to work with and around the friendly goat pair were digging a trench for new fencing for the pig pen. The cunning pigs had learned how to escape from the pen that GoodGymers created last year, so an even more secure barrier had been designed. The fence was going to go under ground level and be secured in place, so a trench needed to be dug to take the fencing and lock it in place, so the new team of pigs wouldn't tunnel out.

The ground was quite muddy (as the other group would discover later) so wellies were the order of the day to keep feet dry. Everyone managed to find a pair to wear apart from Steph, who soldiered on with his custom brown Asics. The fencers worked quickly around posts, trees and their new goat friends to prepare the trench, ready for Horsenden volunteers to put the new fencing up later.

A Great Disappondment

Elsewhere on the farm, there was a plastic pond which wasn't sitting flush with the ground. Task owner Elsa wanted to dig out the dirt below and secure the basin at ground level. Once the GoodGymers emptied it of rainwater and lifted out of the ground, the team found there was more water underneath too.

After a quick assessment of where the hole needed to be bigger, shovels of sticky, wet, clay soil were scooped out. Wellies were needed again as those in the hole were shin deep in mud and frogs. Yep, there were frogs camouflaged in the mud, so Christos became their saviour, relocating them to a safe bucket during the operation.

After a lot of muscle work, it was time to put the plastic basin back in the hole, fill it with water and pack the sides with mud and hard core to keep it stable. The water filled slowly, so everyone waited. After around 20 minutes, it looked like the tub had risen out of the ground. Sure enough, there was a big puddle of water underneath again, so disappointingly the pond achievement wasn't unlocked. There may be a leak in the basin or something else environmental, it was hard to tell. Still, we had a muddy lot of fun.

Today's Mission brought six GoodGymers to Horsenden Farm on a sunny, fresh and frosty morning. Steph, Mohamed, Christos, Sevan, Kash and Kymm met at the Horsenden Farm courtyard, warming hands up at the fireplace a little before being greeted by the Friends of Horsenden Hill team.

After making our way to the changing shed, two tasks were briefed for the 2 hours on the farm, with some nice and mucky work clearing the old hay from the barn, as well as spreading straw evenly across the fields. Kash, Steph, Christos and Kymm were happy to get mucky, first changing shoes for good old wellies and then grabbing a pitchfork and wheelbarrow each. Supervised by the farm cat, Billy, the team made light work clearing the barn of old hay and stacking it all into a nice and tall heap outside. Kymm nicely created an extra treat, topping a pile of hay in the wheelbarrow with a chunky cow pat! The barn was now ready for fresh hay to be laid out for the cattle to come back to.

Meanwhile, Sevan and Mohamed busily spread out the straw evenly across the field, helping to spread seeds out for the wild flower season, and for ponies to enjoy eating later on in the year.

With our GoodGymers making light work of these tasks and after the barn was cleared of hay, the team were chaperoned to a huge compost pile that needed turning and moving from one plot to another, to help with aeration. One word of caution before we get started... Mind the RATS! And apparently... Potatoes!?

We finished just in time for another lovely Horsenden Farm wood-fired pizza for a team lunch complete with coffee and craft beers... Another successful task at Horsenden Farm!