OUR barograph has shown that air pressure over the last week has been falling and rising. Nearly an inch of rain has fallen during frequent, blustery storms with the arrival of chilly, more northerly wind at the end of the week.

At the moment Richard and I are being well entertained by our resident squirrel, which spends much of the days burying food in our lawn for the winter months ahead.

After our visit to North Wyke Farm Research Platform the previous week, Richard and I went to see friends living nearby.

They produce Curworthy Cheese, obtaining the milk from a few local dairy farmers. The cheese has been produced on Stockbeare Farm, situated in the West Devon countryside, for the last 25 years. The milk is first pasteurised, before lactic acid bacteria and natural rennet are added to set the milk.

The resulting curd, still cut and stirred by hand, is packed into moulds and pressed using old-fashioned cheese presses. After brining the cheeses are wrapped in muslin, then matured in a storage room, where they are turned weekly until ready. The only additive is salt, which acts as a natural preservative. In addition to the traditional full-fat, semi-hard cheese, a variety of flavoured cheeses are now on offer, including oak smoked and chilli.

Back on Manor Farm, the job of hedge-trimming is ongoing. Richard said: "The farm is now beginning to look tidier!"

Most of the dairy heifer calves have been weaned, with only two cows due to give birth to Friesian/Holsteins over the next few days. Over the next few months, the remaining pregnant cows will give birth to Aberdeen Angus x calves.

The milking parlour has just been given a full service, to check and if necessary replace any faulty working parts, valves, filters, pumps and seals. The rubber liners, situated inside the milking machine teat cups were also replaced, as were any other worn rubber parts.

We have just started to put our cows and two-year-old maiden heifers back in calf for the next calving season, which will begin late next August. The cows are artificially inseminated using semen from three selected Friesian/Holstein bulls, the heifers from two other bulls.

We have recently received forage analysis reports for our second cut grass and maize silages. The grass silage analysed well, but has a very high dry matter. This means we shall have to take care when we open up the face that it does not heat. This can happen as air is able to get into the ensiled forage, enabling aerobic spoilage organisms to start working. The faces on our silage clamps are narrow, so hopefully we can keep this under control. The pH is also a little higher than we would like, probably a direct result of the high dry matter not allowing good consolidation when ensiled. Despite late ripening of the maize cobs, ours and other farmers forage maize silage has analysed well.The dry matter is good, energy is high and non-digestible fibre low. Hopefully with these silages we can produce good productive rations for our cattle.

On Stowell Farm groups of sheep have been moved onto fresh pasture, some wethers (castrated males) were moved into a field of lucerne to provide a higher plane of nutrition, so that they will soon be ready for sale.

Kevin's brother Mark put sheep fencing around another field here on Manor Farm, in preparation for the arrival of a ram with a third group of ewes, these are from the orange family, identified with an orange mark on their wool and orange ear-tag. It means I now have three groups of sheep to check every day!

During the last week the cattle on Stowell Farm had their annual TB test. Fortunately the test was clear and took place without incident to animals or handlers.