Meet the Farmers: Patrick & Catherine

Meet Patrick and Catherine, some of the local farmers who breed pigs for us.

Patrick and Catherine are based in West Somerset and have been pig farming since 2014. Having moved from the city on the hunt for the ‘good life’, the couple were drawn to pig farming due to their interest in food provenance and the lack of it in the UK. They breed Mangalitza pigs and you’ll regularly find piglets running around the fields on the farm.

Their pigs spend all of their lives outdoors and are fed a delicious diet of oats, barley and maize as well as any overflow of vegetables they have and plenty of apples. This, along with the amount of fat they have as a breed, makes them fantastic for our charcuterie and gives an amazing depth of flavour to the meat.

Patrick and Catherine’s day usually begins around 5am when they light the biomass boiler  before doing the general early morning farm checks. The rest of the day is a juggle between opening and working in their farm shop, checking in their glamping guests and catering for all their needs along with looking after their own children. Admin is also thrown into the mix during the day and if there’s time after school and the weather is good, they often grab an hour paddle boarding on Wimbleball Lake as a family. Bed is usually about 9pm but not before a delicious home cooked meal – one of the favourite’s being BBQ’d hogget (their own, of course!).

Every day is rewarding in its own right but some of the recent highlights include when glamping guests leave raving reviews about their stay, seeing the long term results of replanting hedges and trees and best of all, when vegetarian guests buy their sausages!

It’s not all about reaping the rewards though, there are huge challenges in farming too and over the past 8 years there have been plenty to keep the couple of their toes; bird flu, foxes killing their free range chickens, mud, lots of mud, regular escape artists (sheep and pigs!) as well as the unpredictability that comes with keeping animals and having guests on the farm.

If Patrick and Catherine weren’t farmers, you’d probably find them growing vines to make wine, owning a larger farm shop where they’d stock their favourite Somerset Charcuterie product, Coppa or turning their hand to art.

If you ever fancy a stay on their farm, you can find out more here – https://www.middlestonefarm.com/.