The event of the week had to be when Kevin was called by Wiltshire Police to help control a fire on the M4 at junction 17.

There was a lorry and drag loaded with large bales of straw , which had caught fire whilst travelling along the westbound carriageway.

Kevin had a police escort onto the motorway with his telehandler. Once he had arrived at the scene of the fire he began to remove the bales from the lorry.

Each bale was then doused with water, as were the hydraulics on the telehandler. This was to keep them cool and prevent the oil catching fire.

If Kevin had not been available the fire would have taken much longer to extinguish and the six- mile tailback of vehicles on the westbound carriageway, caught on the motorway before it was shut at junction 16, would have had to wait much longer before continuing their journey.

The other problem would have been the smoke, which would have kept both east and westbound shut. Once the fire was safely under control the outside lane was opened up to enable the traffic to move once again.

It was a long session for Kevin, who left the farm at 6pm, arriving back there at midnight.

It is the second time in recent years that Kevin has assisted the emergency services. The previous occasion was to help rescue a Jack Russell Terrier which had become trapped in an underground drain.

Once again it was a job for his telehandler!

Clear blue skies, sharp early morning frosts and days of endless sunshine lifted everyone’s spirits this week. Fortunately there wasn’t too much fog and what did appear soon dispersed as the sun rose in the sky. Another plus is that the days are getting noticeably longer and my garden birds are beginning to claim their territory in preparation for the nesting season.

The lambing season is now in full swing, with all those involved being kept very busy. Scanning doesn't seem to have been 100 per cent accurate as there are far more multiples being born than expected - several sets of triplets , quads and even one set of quintuplets, although one of these did not survive being very small.

By the end of the week over 130 ewes had given birth to some strong, healthy lambs. A night lamber arrived on Monday and is managing to cope with all the night time arrivals, giving lambs needing bottles a feed, topping up hay and water where needed and generally making sure that all is well.

The days are spent catching up with things that can’t be done at night. The ewes and their lambs are rapidly filling the post natal pens where they remain for a day or two to make sure there are no problems with the newborns or their mothers.

Looking after the sheep in individual pens makes a great deal of work as each pen containing a ewe and her lambs has to be supplied with fresh water, a net of hay, bedded up daily with fresh straw or shavings, and in pens with more than twins the lambs have to be offered a top-up of milk (ewes only have two teats).

If all is well with ewes and their offspring they are soon moved to a larger pen, the first already full with 60 ewes and their lambs. The six new pop-ups will now not be divided,but will each hold 80 ewes and lambs in one group.

Another job has been to put lights into the pop-ups and the concentrate feed ration into recycled large worn tractor tyres. Each one is cut into two rings, making two very useful, circular troughs.

The mix of barley, oats, wheat, peas and some balancing protein pellets is fed in the tyre troughs. The forage part of the diet is haylage, fed in big circular containers.

Kevin has to be very careful when feeding the ewes their concentrate as it is very tasty. They all rush towards him at the same time, so he has to make sure he doesn’t get knocked over. Kevin and Melissa put in the ear tags. Each lamb has to have an electronic identification ear tag with the country of origin and flock number, as these lambs will all be finished for meat and must be fully traceable for farm assurance.