Meanwood Valley Urban Farm

It was such a lovely day here yesterday that instead of spending some time getting the allotment in order, which I should have been doing, we decided to visit Meanwood Valley Urban Farm.

Opened in 1980, the farm provides environmental education services to schools and runs holiday playschemes as well as working with 13 - 16 year olds who experience problems in main stream education, and 16 - 18 year olds giving entry to employment. The farm also works with adults with learning disabilities. The public are able to visit every day for a nominal entry fee.

The first animals we came up on were the sheep. The farm has White Faced Woodland Sheep which are also known as Penistone. This is one of the largest of the Hill breeds of sheep and provide tasty meat as well as an excellent wool quality for hill sheep. There are also Southdown sheep which are a woolly-faced breed and are dual purpose providing tasty meat and a high quality wool.

The farm has two donkeys, Pedro and Ned, which have been with them since May 2003. They were making lots of noise yesterday, they obviously wanted more attention than they were getting.

Mick's favourite animals are the Dexter cows. This is a short legged minature breed which is bred for both milk and meat. They're really gentle and will feed from your hands, licking their lips after they have done so.

The pigs were making the most of the sunshine, lazing about in the mud. This is the only animal which Archie was nervous about. He turned on his heels and tried to run when a particularly big pig came trotting towards us.

There's also an indoor area housing rabbits and Guinea pigs as well as some newly-hatched chicks.

Something new in the indoor area is the hedgehog sanctuary. We didn't actually see any of the juvenile hedgehogs as they were sleeping, but it looks like they have a good area to snuffle about in until they're ready to be released in spring.

In an area which is closed off to the public are some bee hives. We noticed the bees collecting nectar from the spring bulbs which had newly opened.

Another area in the farm is given over to allotments which members of the public tend. Most of them have installed raised beds, probably for the best as a lot of them are on a slope.

It's well worth a visit if you're in the area, and just to add that dogs are allowed too, which Archie was pleased about.