THE week began with another chilly, windy day with air pressure rising just a little. Most days however, have been accompanied by a great deal of sunshine, but the lack of rain over the last month is now starting to affect the growth of crops.

Our fodder maize has all been planted, after which the three fields were rolled, to try to make sure the seeds are in contact with the soil. When the ground is so dry it can difficult to produce an ideal seedbed, so hopefully the rolling will help to give even germination of the crop, but what we really need are some warm April showers.

On Stowell Farm Kevin has finished planting all the spring oats and barley, following minimal tillage.

Minimal tillage usually only involves one pass of cultivation across the ground to be planted and does not alter the structure of the soil like ploughing, where the soil is turned over. There are advantages and disadvantages to the practice, with advantages being less soil erosion and reduced fuel and labour costs, and the disadvantage of having to use more herbicides.

At the beginning of the week, Richard and I visited our daughter Adele and her family in Devon.

Like us they have been busy preparing fields for grazing with a contractor arriving to plant their fodder maize while we were there. After planting Steve sprayed the maize ground with a pre-emergent herbicide , so if conditions become wet as the weeds start to grow, there will be no need to get onto the fields again. Their milking herd has been turned out to graze by day and the cows looked really happy out in the glorious sunshine. The in-calf heifers will soon be turned out as well, but they are spending a few days getting used to sleeping in cubicles, before they give birth in the autumn and join the milking herd.

Here on Manor Farm the young heifer calves have been given an anthelmintic prior to turn out. This is given in the form of a bolus, which is given orally into the reticulo-rumen, the first of the cows' four stomachs. Over a period of 140 days the bolus will release a controlled amount of active ingredient, thus giving first time grazers continuous control of worms throughout the grazing season.

During the week Richard has been doing some more repair work. First of all the automatic slurry scraper became caught on a door, bending it just a little. A new part had to be ordered and fitted, not a pleasant job.

Then the tractor with the power-take -off shaft problem was taken to the engineers for repair, being collected at the end of the week. Richard and Ian have also done some basic services on the tractors, changing oil and fuel filters. Another job has been the filling in of a form, to enable us to apply for the Basic Payment Scheme, following the recent reform of the Common Agricultural Policy. This used to be called the Single Payment Scheme but there are now a new set of rules , so filling in the form (which cannot be done on -line because of problems in the Rural Payments Agency) is taking some time.

On Stowell Farm lambing of the young ewes giving birth for the first time and the small flock of older ewes ,is now well underway. These sheep are in two fields adjacent to Melissa's home , where they can be regularly checked. Once a ewe has given birth the lambs' navels are sprayed with an antiseptic solution, to prevent infectious diseases. The ewes and their lambs are then penned in a small area of the field for a day or two , to make sure all is well.

Then the ewe- lambs are tagged, the ram-lambs ringed (for castration) and all the tails are ringed before they are moved to fresh pasture with their mothers.

Shortening the tails of sheep, keeps them clean around their hind-quarters, so helping to prevent fly-strike.