THE mostly chilly days continue, with strong northerly winds making it feel more like winter than summer.

It will not be long before the longest day of the year, so the downhill slope will soon be taking us towards autumn. Maybe, just maybe there will be an Indian summer but I do not think I will hold my breath.

On Stowell Farm vaccination of lambs over three weeks of age and those ready for their second dose has continued, also weighing them at eight weeks.

This year many of the lambs have lost their ear tags. These were button tags, supposed to remain in place, but this has not been the case.

The tags have been replaced free of charge, but this has done nothing to reduce the workload as the lambs have to be re-tagged and it is not always easy to find each lamb's mother to enable the correct tag to be used.

Melissa is now giving all except the youngest lambs in her creche only one milk feed of milk per day, which has made life a little easier. The lambs are all doing very well, so hopefully it will not be long before they can be weaned then put into a small grass paddock.

Kevin has been making hay. Last Sunday he cut all the grass around the greens and the fairways of Bowood Golf Course. He has been turning and spreading the grass during the week, to help it to dry quickly and evenly.

At least the conditions have been favourable with wind and sunshine, even though it has often felt cold.

Kevin hopes that the hay will be ready to bale at the end of the week, meanwhile he has attended the 2015 Cereals Event, held in Lincolnshire, taking with him our agronomist and two other local farmers. It is an annual event where all the latest machinery is on display, with demonstrations as well. According to Kevin, the machines continue to increase in size.

There are also many trial plots of growing plants, as well as representatives from the large agro-chemical companies on site to answer questions. This event gives ongoing training to sprayer operators, which gives them further NRoSO (National Register of Sprayer Operators) points.

On Manor Farm cattle work is routine, with young cattle in the fields to check every day and cows to milk twice a day, at 5am and 3pm. The only problem for most dairy farmers is the decreasing milk price.

Most farmers are being paid less for a litre of milk than it costs to produce. There does not seem to be any sign that the price is going to rise.

The latest Global Dairy Trade figures show that butter has been the hardest hit, falling by 10 per cent, with milk powders also showing a reduction. The auction value of butter has plummeted by 32 per cent in just three months. The NFU said that in December the number of dairy farmers had dipped below 10,000. This is a 50 per cent fall since 2001.

We have also been clearing recyclable waste from the farm. We booked a collection of plastic sheeting, plastic net-wrap, plastic drums, string, cardboard and paper, also a separate collection of used oil filters. These services have to be paid for.

The swallows that arrived at our house on April 13 have successfully reared their first brood of six fledglings, which are now flying.

I hope that we do not have a visit from a sparrow-hawk, who has already tried to take a young blackbird. Our resident house-sparrows make a deafening noise most of the day , as their young are leaving nests built under the tiles of our house.

On a recent walk around Manor Farm there was abundance of wild flowers, birds and insects in the hedge-rows, field margins and along the sides of tracks, with the sighting of a common blue butterfly being the highlight.