First of all I have to make a correction to last week’s diary. I told you that half our milking herd have calved since the end of October, but I meant to write the end of August. To calve 65 cows in one day would be an achievement worthy of note in the Guinness Book of Records!

Meanwhile it continues to rain, further delaying the planting of our last two fields with winter wheat. The earlier drilled wheat and barley crops have grown well, as has the winter oil-seed rape grown by a neighbour in two of our fields. Hopefully the winter will treat them kindly.

The recent flush of grass on Manor Farm is being grazed by an increasing number of sheep arriving from Stowell Farm. Prior to their arrival, Melissa and Kevin have continued to put up several more kilometres of electric sheep fencing.

All the sheep grazing on Manor Farm are being finished for meat. They are regularly gathered to grade and select those ready for sale.

The pedigree Llyen rams on Stowell Farm are now all in the fields with the ewes, previously separated into their family groups. Llyen sheep originated from the Llyen Peninsula in Gwynedd, North Wales. They are prolific, quiet, make good mothers, have a high milk yield and excellent white wool.

They are also suited to both upland and lowland grazing, making them a very popular breed with farmers, becoming widespread over Britain and Ireland in the past ten years. The Llyen breed society encourages uniformity in the breed, which means each animal must show breed characteristics such as a feminine head.

Midweek David, our nutritionist, paid us a visit to make some more adjustments to the rations as he had calculated we were over-feeding the milking cows. He said the nutrient levels in the forage – ie, maize, grass and wholecrop silages – are high enough that we could slightly reduce the amount of concentrates fed in the parlour.

Earlier in the week our two-year-old heifers were moved to a covered yard where they will spend the first part of the winter. At the beginning of December they will be artificially inseminated using sexed semen from carefully selected dairy bulls. This is to increase the number of heifer calves born next year, as we need these as replacements for the dairy herd and, if surplus, will provide some we can sell on to other farmers.

We take part in an environmental scheme called “entry level stewardship”. There are several options that a farmer can sign up to.

One of our options is overwintered stubble. This is the plant life left in fields after the combine harvester has removed a combinable crop, following which the straw is either baled or chopped and spread.

Overwintered stubble provides an important food source for seed-eating birds, habitat for hares and, if followed by a spring crop, breeding sites for ground nesting birds. For this option the farmer can make a light surface cultivation within the first month after harvest to encourage weed germination. The stubble must not be topped, grazed or have any pesticdes, fertilisers or manures applied before February 15 the following year.

When I walked across one of our stubble fields the other day I was amazed how many plants were growing. There was a thick mat including ryegrass, meadow grass, tillered and newly germinated barley, groundsel, sow and spear thistles, fat hen, chickweed, charlock, dandelions, mallow, clover, speedwell and pennycress.

Richard and I spent the weekend with our daughter Adele and her family in Devon. They still had quite a few cattle in fields but, like us, their time is mainly spent feeding, mucking out and bedding up cows, heifers and calves. While there, I went pony-riding with our granddaughter Bethany, Adele walked the dog, Richard had a farm walk with son-in law Steve, and grandson Dominic showed us his new bicycle.

It was a great weekend in beautiful countryside.