Anna, Rebecca, John, Lindy, Markella, and I arrived at Surrey Docks Farm at 10:30am for our introduction with Pat. It was a beautiful Spring day with the sun shining and new lambs recently born on the farm. Our first task was to move large plant pots in the greenhouse which involved heavy lifting and was a good warm-up task. Our second task was moving woodchip (a Goodgym special) from the Orchard to the other side of the farm. After a lot of shoveling and wheelbarrowing, we managed to complete the task. Our reward at the end was to visit the newborn lambs and to say hello to the older orphan lambs which require bottle feeding at the farm.

Beata, Joe, and Maria spent their Sunday morning at the Surrey Docks Farm helping out with packing up manure.

They needed to pack 16 bags that had been pre-ordered for pickup on Monday. After changing into appropriate footwear and getting the hang of the tools, they tackled the task speedily, leaving enough time to shift some woodchip into bags!

As a reward, they got to meet Custard and Cream, the two black cows at the farm, and feed them some rolled barley.

Today, 6 goodgymmers (and a boyfriend!) came to Surrey Docks farm to help out. We started in the goat pen, sweeping up the poo. And then we chopped down some christmas trees and tidied up the logs near the pizza oven. We finished early, but not before feeding the goats and holding some bunnies. What a treat, and what a beautiful day for it! ☀️

We had 5 hardy Goodgymers at the farm on Sunday despite a few late dropouts (likely due to the weather forecast). Luckily, there was only a light rain while we completed the tasks that Pat had lined up for us. We started with collecting the fallen leaves on the Thames Path for mulch. We then split into two groups. Paulin, Sander, & Nirmay split off to bag up manure while Emma & Daryl tackled the hops on the fence at the edge of the farm. An hour and a half flew by and today we got to hold and see the ferrets in their ball pit while their cage was being cleaned.

Emma, Lily, Maria, Sam, and Vic braved the weather and showed up to help out Surrey Docks Farm on Sunday.

They took on a variety of tasks on the day, including carrying cleaning supplies to the tower, cleaning up the harvest, shifting soil, and packing up and moving manure.

This was a couple people's first time handling farm equipment and, unsurprisingly given the title, manure.

The task wrapped up and they all jumped on the opportunity to meet the kids (baby goats) and sheep of the farm.🐑🐐

We arrived on the farm at 2pm and were met by Kate. After washing our hands for biosecurity we collected our tools were told about our task for the afternoon. There was a large hedge which needed trimming back so we set to work with secateurs and loppers trying to trim it back into a neat shape. While doing this we had to save the hazel which we could feed to the goats later on and had to separate the other components of the trimmings into piles of brambles, holly hawthorn and maple. We were very speedy with sorting the hedge and set to work on another smaller one adjacent to us. Kate was very pleased with our work as she was expecting it would take multiple sessions to sort out the hedge! Our reward for our hard work was to feed the goats the hazel which they devoured. After this we had a tour around the farm visiting all the animals including the adorable 5 day old piglets. We all had a wonderful afternoon and left feeling accomplished.