We had a great session at Surrey Docks Farm once more. On arrival, Taskowner, Kate, assigned us various tasks. Jeni and Abby packaged manure, filling 17 large bags in total. Kate was very impressed 💪. Monica and Gabriele swept the pathway and tidied up. Lucia, Marta and Laura tidied some shelving to help the local cafe before learning the farm’s secret recipe to mix the perfect compost. After 90 minute’s hard work, we were treated to some downtime with the goats who were busy demolishing a Christmas tree. 🎄 🐐 Nothing goes to waste on the farm! After a quick tour round the shop, which Kate opened specially for us, we headed off home. Extra cheer for Abby for her first GG mission. We are all looking forward to returning to the farm soon 😀.

Five GoodGymers came out on a gloomy, but light Saturday morning to assist Luigia with some spring bulb planting at our first Galleywall Nature Reserve community mission of 2022!

Luigia had bags and bags of tulips and daffodils to be planted as well as a few snowdrops and Jerusalem artichokes.

The main aim was to get these bulbs into the ground as they were starting to shoot after a mild (and still quite mild) winter. Luigia had strategically thought this out as Emma, Emma and Lucia teamed up to plant yellow daffodils near the entrance, Rianna had white daffodils and snowdrops to plant near the seating area for the scouts and school kids whilst Sam planted a mixture of tulips near the beehive box as Luigia created a new woodchip path to get there.

It only took an hour to plant over 250 bulbs (i reckon), but still having an army of volunteers, Luigia got us to turn the compost and start pruning the trees.

It was great to be back at Galleywall Nature Reserve and catch up with all those who I haven't seen yet.

What a day at the Farm! It never disappoints to spend two quality hours helping out at Surrey Docks Farm and in turn spending the last 30 minutes cuddling sheep, goats and petting the young calves. What's not to love?

Firstly, I would like to welcome Ema, who chose wisely to do her first ever GoodGym mission and in turn, getting her first Good Deed at the Farm! Welcome to the GoodGym community and hopefully, you had fun today despite the tasks that we were put up to. Those new gardening gloves had quite an induction today 😂

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Tasks at the Farm

Gemma (the task owner) had let us into the Farm with a smile, asked us to do the usual - lock up our bikes (those who cycled over), wash our hands and provided gardening gloves to those who needed it AND THEN she told us we were going to be dealing with 💩 today! Which to my surprise, everyone was up for it 😲

First Task: £2.50 Bag of Manure

The first task was to bag the manure from the muck heap, which had mature manure baking in the Sunday ☀️ to our delight! Each manure bag gets sold for £2.50, but Gemma showed us where we would have to put the final product (on this pallet) and there was this sad looking bag of manure, that hadn't been filled to the top...giving us an example of what not to do 😉

There's money in 💩 - Gaby

We had a system in place as well as Gemma showing us one of the devices a volunteer made out of two bottomless buckets and a wooden stool. We would put an empty bag in one of the bottomless buckets and then put the other one on top (sandwich it in) to keep the bag open and in place. Lucia and Claire paired up at first as well as Ema and Gaby, but by the end of the hour we were all helping each other either bagging the manure with the pitchfork, holding the bag open/tying them and/or transporting the bags of manure in a wheelbarrow to the pallet. The efficiency produced 13 bags (unlukcy for some) of manure in 50 minutes....try to automate that! 😂

There's a mouse! 🐭 - Claire

Second Task: The Endless 🐐 Sweep

After an hour on the muck heap, we were rewarded with being in the presence of the 🐐s in their pen. Their courtyard was particularly filled up with 💩 and Gemma had asked us to do a thorough job in sweeping. Yet, as we swept, we wept as we witnessed the goats spoil our efforts in keep their home clean. Still, we couldn't stay mad at them as today they were friendly instead of scared of us. Sometimes they were a bit too nosy or just in the way of our task! 🙄

Treat: Cuddles with 🐑,🐐 and 🐄

Even though we had 30 minutes left, we felt like we deserved more time with the animals after our shoes and clothes were covered in their 💩. Gemma agreed and did a small tour of the farm, where we spent time with the 🐑,🐐 and 🐄! Just what you want to end the weekend! 😊

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Future tasks at Surrey Docks Farm will appear once again, but we are having a break from them for the next few weekends! We hope to help them out and I am sure they will be in touch, late Autumn and into winter! Look out for these missions on the website!