The line on the barograph took a sudden dive at the beginning of the week, seemingly awakening from its recent becalmed state.

Falling air pressure lead to some wet and windy weather, with 30mm of rain falling over the first few days. The ground was becoming dry, so the rain is welcome, as long as it knows when to stop.

Even though all the planting has been completed here on Manor Farm and on Stowell Farm, there has been plenty of work to do.

The plough, having been put to bed for the winter, was hitched on to a tractor, hopefully for the last time this year, as Richard and Ian thought they might plant one more field, rather than leave it fallow.

They contemplated including hedges in our Ecological Focus Area (an element of “greening” in the reformed CAP) although, after some thought, decided maybe leaving the ploughed field fallow this year was the easier option.

The detail on hedges has not yet been finalised, but we do know they would have to be measured and mapped, which would delay the arrival of our Single Farm Payment.

During the week, Richard fetched our new slurry tanker, which has a greater capacity of the old one.

He also had to fetch a tractor from the engineers, after an oil leak had been repaired.

Every year there are a few cows we cannot get in calf, so these and some with persistent health problems are taken to an abbatoir.

It is not something we like doing, as longevity in the herd is one of the priorities of our business.

David, our nutritionist, called in to go through the feed rations. We have some homegrown rolled barley to include in the diet of the milking cows and needed to work out a balanced ration for them.

The yearling heifers and other grazing cattle also needed an increase in nutrients in their supplementary ration, as the quality of grass falls at this time of year.

The heifers that recently joined the milking herd, following the birth of their first calves, together with all those animals just having calved for the third time, have just been scored for conformation traits.

This will help the selection of bulls to be used when they are put back in calf.

At the beginning of the week, I helped move the yearling heifers to a new field, which fortunately took place without incident.

In the middle of the week, I was called on to help ease the workload on Chuggaton Farm. Adele and Steve are very busy calving cows, which means they have many calves to feed on milk.

Calf feeding can be quite time consuming, especially when, as Chuggaton did, they have two sets of twins and a single calf born the same day.

One set of twin heifers was born to their oldest cow. Her name is Rosebud, born on Manor Farm on September 22, 2000.

She was moved from here as an in-calf heifer on August 2, 2002, when Steve and Adele restocked their farm following the foot-and-mouth outbreak in 2001, which led to slaughter of their original herd.

Rosebud is now in her 12th lactation, having given birth 12 times, with an average yield of about 7,500 litres per annum. She has never had any health issues and still looks great.

To finish this week, I felt I must tell you that Wiltshire has hit the farming headlines recently.

On attending the AGM of the Marlborough Downs Nature Improvement area, I discovered Paul Holborow, the head tractor driver at Temple Farming, won three cups in the annual Avebury Ploughing Association ploughing match.

George Hood, the assistant manager, is an active member of Wiltshire Federation of Young Farmers’ Clubs.

He was presented with a cup at the county AGM, for his contribution to the county over the last year.

Congratulations to you both.