Another week of favourable weather has enabled planting next year’s crops here and on Stowell Farm to be almost completed.

The line on the barograph has remained reasonably high and unwavering, while the morning and evening air temperatures we recorded have only ranged from 13 to 14C.

On Manor Farm the first fields of winter barley to be drilled have germinated well, showing as lines of small plants standing about three to four inches tall.

The earlier planted grass seed has now formed a fairly dense carpet of young plants and the oilseed rape planted by a neighbouring farmer also looks to be growing well.

On Stowell Farm, Kevin has managed to drill all his winter wheat, with only one very wet field due to be sown with winter barley remaining.

He will have to wait to see if planting later will be possible, but with shorter day lengths going towards winter it is questionable.

However, farmers are grateful for the good summer and autumn allowing most field operations to be completed on time.

Later in the week the lucerne on Stowell Farm was cut for silage. Ryan, our new employee, went to help gather the crop.

His job was to run along the side of the forage harvester, collecting the chopped lucerne into his trailer.

Kevin was impressed with Ryan’s work as this was something he had not done before. Lucerne is a high protein forage that is drought tolerant and can give four cuts per year. It is rich in vitamins and minerals and has a high dry matter yield.

Last week I mentioned that the wethers (castrated ram lambs) on Stowell Farm were given a booster vaccination to protect them from a variety of infections caused by clostridial bacteria. They were also wormed, particularly to kill a common parasite called Haemonchus contortus – what a great name!

This is one of the most pathogenic stomach worms, which attaches itself to the mucosa of the abomasum in ruminants, feeding on blood. Infected animals develop anaemia and oedema, eventually leading to death.

Female worms can lay up to 10,000 eggs per day, which pass from the host in the faeces, following which more animals will become infected when grazing.

A Maedi Visna blood test was also carried out on the farm. This test is done every two years on a percentage of the flock, including rams over 18 months of age and any recently bought in rams.

Maedi visna is a lifelong persistent infection of sheep. It affects the lungs, lymph nodes, joints, central nervous system and mammary glands. It leads to encephalitis and chronic pneumonia.

Sheep work done this week has been to colour code the ewes into their family groups ready to go out with the rams.

The eight beef animals on Stowell Farm had to have a TB test during the week. Fortunately all the animals were clear, but the three-day wait between testing and reading the result is always a very worrying time for the farm. These cattle are the ones spending their first few months of life at Bowood. Once weaned, they go back to the farm where they are reared on. Testing these animals was easy as they become very tame meeting the visitors to Bowood.

Mid-week I went to Devon to give Adele and Steve some help, as they are very busy, especially calving cows. The day before I arrived they had three calvings, which turned out to be two sets of heifer twins and a single.

I was given plenty of chores to do including helping to move cows to and from the field for milking, walking the dog, cooking, painting the outside of a building and even some sewing! Having just taken charge of Melissa and Kevin’s children and large number of pets for four days, I have come home for a rest!