Report on The Blackwater Wild Food Festival
6th October 2012
What a wonderful day we all had at the The Blackwater Wild Food Festival at Abbots Hall Farm
The Farm is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), Special Protection Area for birds (SPA) and Special Area of Conservation (cSAC).
The Farm is also the head office of Essex Wildlife Trust. It links together over 3,000 acres of wildlife-rich land along a 25 km stretch of the Essex coast. The farm is situated on the Blackwater Estuary. The 700 acre farm shows how sustainable coastal defences can lead to the creation of coastal marshes which are vital for the future of both wildlife and people. This is a working farm where Essex Wildlife Trust is aiming to show how wildlife can flourish alongside profitable farming.
Although a working farm there are many footpaths for visitors to enjoy. Essex Wildlife Trust has made changes to the farm, such as improving the farm for wildlife.
We arrived at 10.30am to see all member of the trust busy about their work preparing for the day ahead. This was the first outing EESG had attended with no animals in tow and it seemed very strange! Today was to show people the other end of the EESG spectrum,
What we produce!We had only had a few weeks to decide and organise what we were demonstrating but in true EESG style all hands to the “The grind stone” a perfect day was soon put together.
The Trust had kindly provided a marquee with electrical supply!
With in no time at all, the scene was set and the tea was flowing and soon people were arriving.
Danni, Phil and Toni were doing “sausage making “from preparing a Hand and Belly of pork ready for mincing, to the end product, a string of wonderful homemade sausages which the visitors to our area were most impressed with, resulting in a round of applause! Phil did mention that Maria has never given him a round applause at home for his sausage making!
Georgina was the star of the day.
She sat preparing Partridge for many hours with a crowd around her most of that time. Old and young seemed to be amazed at her skill one little lad asked to take some feathers for school on Monday so he could tell his teacher what he had been doing this weekend.
Wonderful that so many people seemed interested and more importantly, inspired by what we do as a group
What’s our slogan ............
“The Only way is East Essex”A big thank you to everyone who help make it such a wonderful day.
