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The News - by Carolyn Bray - 8/5/2004

Imagine a place where you and your kids can order delicious ice cream frappes, sit outside and visit with a friendly donkey and pot-bellied pigs, and also pick up some produce for dinner at very reasonable prices.
That would be Swansea's Simcock Farm, on Marvel Street. Bev Simcock, a violinist and teacher, married into the farm life when she wed Jim Simcock, and loves it. "We call ourselves the Fiddler and the Farmer," she said, greeting customers with a ready smile.

Her husband was working with "farm boys" nearby, sorting through cherry tomatoes just in from the fields. The Simcocks hire four farm boys and eight ice cream girls to help them with the produce and the ice cream stand, and Bev's parents and father-in-law also pitch in at times.

Bev and Jim Simcock are the fourth generation, and the last, to run the 104-year-old farm, Bev said. They have no children, but they do have a family of animals on the farm who engage visitors, and have regular fans of their own. One lady comes to visit Eeyore, the mischievous two-year-old white donkey, every day. For amusement, Eeyore occasionally grabs the tail of Zeus, the placid male zebu - an antelope found in Asia and Africa - and yanks, trying to get Zeus to chase him around the paddock they share with Agape, a small and very friendly Nigerian goat.

Off in another field, pet cows gather to feed, as the family's white goat shoves them out of the way to get at the food. The goats run things, said the Simcocks. They also have a rooster in a cage, bunnies, and two small waggly-tailed Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs named Daytona and Sprint after Triumph motorcycles. The pigs have their own swimming pool for hot days.

The only downside to the farm's set-up, that offers seats by the animals so customers can visit, is that some local kids sometimes bother the animals, causing the beleaguered rooster to let out spectacular sounds if a stranger gets too close.

Bev Simcock also offers school tours of the farm, where children can learn how vegetables and flowers are grown, visit the animals, and get a little ice cream, too. The ice cream is specially made for the Simcock's, and includes a wide range of flavors from orange-pineapple to cashew turtle and cookies 'n cream. Townspeople rave about the ice cream stand, which is open along with the vegetable stand from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. from the start of May until Labor Day. In the fall, when the girls working the ice cream stand - "my little scoopers," Bev calls them - go back to school, the stand is open from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Bev Simcock said they like to do something different at the farm every year. They are working on a large decorated cart for an outside vegetable stand, and will have hay rides in the fall. "I love the fall," she said. "Everything comes in, the pumpkins and the corn stalks; it's my favorite time of the year. Everything's full force from the fields." In the fall she sometimes plays her violin in the back of the store.

Speaking of her husband and herself, Bev said: "We're very unique and very privileged because we're both self-employed." Grateful for the life she has, she added, "It's a luxury to have two careers you like, music and this. I love being outside."