The Stream Farm Open Day last Sunday was our best yet. Over 1000 people came from Taunton, Bridgwater, Bristol, Bath and London and spent the day enjoying our organic Dexter beef burgers (with Polly’s increasingly famous chutney), our smoked trout ( ‘the smoked trout we have just eaten was the best we have ever had – I can see why your range gets so many awards’) and trying samples of all of our produce.  The organic apple juice seemed to be just the ticket for such a hot day, especially with a slice of some of the many cakes that were made locally for the occasion.

There were boat rides and tractor rides, baby lambs and calves, chicks and piglets to pet, face painting, colouring-in and trampolining for the children and a nature trail through the farm, taking in all the new life – goslings, and ducklings, the newly-laid hedges and freshly-drilled fields. Different share farmers on the land gave talks on, or exhibitions of, the rainbow trout ponds, the bees and the apple orchard.  James Odgers, the farm’s owner, did 12 tractor rides during the day – taking about 30 people each time – and described his vision of how rural communities could be brought back to life if more farms followed the Stream Farm model, He also received considerable support for his concerns that supermarkets, badgers and the European Union had stripped small-scale farming of its opportunity to be profitable and is leaving whole swathes of the countryside ever more mechanised and ever more reliant upon chemicals and sprays and animal interventions that cannot be sustainable in the long term.  As one of those who came wrote: ‘It’s really good to know that you are doing such an important job facilitating a far more appropriate paradigm than mainstream farming. It’s important on so many levels, including helping regenerate society towards ecological sustainability’.

PS There was a very sharp storm first thing which meant that we could not use the field exit from then on but that was followed by glorious sunshine for the rest of the day.  As a result, and because we had so many more people set on coming than last year, quite a few people had to be turned away and several faced parking delays,  We will change that for next year and apologise to anyone who was inconvenienced.  Anyone sent away is welcome to call us up and come on another weekend.

Why not check out some pictures from the day?