Today five Goodgymmers went to help out at Surrey Docks farm. As usual, lovely Pat met us at the gates and quickly put us to work! This time, we needed to move a few tonne bags of soil. The soil was due to be moved into new raised beds but unfortunately they hadn't been built in time. Meanwhile the soil was in the outside classroom, but that space was needed for a corporate event in a few days time. Our task was to move the soil to another space that was not in the way, and closer to the eventual location of the raised beds.

In 90 minutes, between the 5 of us, we managed to move 4 tonnes of soil. We used 3 wheelbarrows, 5 shovels and an uncountable number of muscles - this was definitely a full body workout!

With half an hour left at the end, Pat treated us to the task to picking up windfall apples then feeding the pigs, as well as feeding the goats and cows with oats.

New pigs were arriving at the farm and they were due to be in a new pen facing the road and our job was to clear the overgrown fences to make sure that the pigs were visible to passers by.

The job took a couple of hours to complete, followed by collecting some apples and feeding some of the pigs.

Summary: A great experience working with the lovely team at Surrey docks farm.

Yesterday, Lobo Isaac and Paulin went to Surrey Docks Farm to help out. Pat from the farm met us at the gates and quickly got us pulling us grass to make one of the paths wider and more accessible. As usual, wise Pat shared her encyclopedic knowledge of plants and bugs. Meanwhile, Isaac shared his repertoire of (very accurate!) farm animal impressions and got licked by a cow many times. The task took a surprising amount of time, and before we knew it, our time was almost up.

As a treat at the end, Pat gave us some willow and bags of oats to feed the goats and the cows.

Today, 5 Goodgymmers went to help out at Surrey Docks Farm. After a slow start, we found Pat, who gave us a series of sweeping tasks. Pat told us that was particularly impactful because the farm some troubles with drainage, so sweeping the paths meant that dirt and hay won't get washed away in the rain causing blocked drains.

We worked like a team on one of those cleaning transformation shows on TV, turning paths, gutters and goat yards sparkling clean. We made 5 wheelbarrows of dirt/poo/hay and we took them down to the muck heap. The goat yard had baby goats in, which was different to usual.

At the end, we had a special treat to see the "orphaned" lambs and then we fed the sheep and the goats.

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.