AT the beginning of the week the line being drawn on our barograph suddenly moved from its flat plain into a nose dive! This change in air pressure brought with it dark, miserable, windy weather and 31.25mm of rain. Then what a change, the barograph line started to rise, the nights became cold, and there was fog in the mornings but there was plenty of glorious autumn sunshine. What a mixture!

I have to admit that the great outdoors did not have much appeal to start with, but later in the week I had some enjoyable walks around Manor Farm, soaking up the changing colours of the trees and hedges. The dry cows and heifers were enjoying the warm sun, but were being worried by an abundance of flies, always prevalent following rain. The recently planted winter barley, winter wheat and oilseed rape have germinated well, appreciating the rain at the beginning of the week. An unusual sight was a group of birds sitting together in a field of wheat, two crows, a buzzard and a wagtail. I also noticed spindle berries in some of the hedges. Spindle is a small tree or shrub, which will grow in a variety of soils, being particularly noticeable in the autumn when its dark green leaves turn from yellow-green to reddish-purple. The flowers are rather inconspicuous, but in the autumn the poisonous capsular fruits are red, purple or pink. When ripe the four lobes split open to reveal orange seeds. The wood is very hard and was used to make wool spindles.

In the garden a pair of wood pigeons have been doing a spot of sun-bathing and our resident squirrel has been busy burying nuts in the lawn ready for the winter months ahead.

During the week Richard has been trying to do some hedge trimming, but pipes on the hedge-cutter keep breaking, probably something to do with the age of the machine. Some of the week has therefore been taken up doing repairs, but it has been decided that new flails will have to be fitted onto the spindle, which will then have to be re-balanced.

Several afternoons I went with Richard to feed the calves. We now have 21 Freisian/Holstein heifer calves, penned in a large barn on the farm. The calves are reared in individual pens whilst they are being fed milk so that we know if they are feeding properly and more easily detect any signs of illness.The calves are bedded on straw, given access to fresh water and specially balanced weaner pellets. When they are about five weeks old they will be weaned, as they will be eating enough solid food. At weaning time we cut out one of the two milk feeds given each day, so that the transition is not made suddenly. We are currently weaning four of the first calves to be born this season. At the beginning of the week Richard helped Charlotte, our niece who is in her fourth year of veterinary training, remove the horn buds from some of the calves. Each calf is injected with a local anaesthetic at the site of the 'buds', before the buds are quickly removed and the site cauterised. We cannot leave the horns to grow as cattle use their heads to assert their authority, as they may injure each other or people handling them. They would injure each other, the handlers and get caught when feeding . Disbudding is simple and the calves hardly notice the process, recovering almost at once.

After feeding the calves it was time to check all cows in the maternity area. They are in a field next to some farm buildings where they have access to a pre-calving feed ration. These cows are checked every four hours, day and night, in case any of them get into difficulties and need some help when giving birth.