DURING most days of the last week the weather has been settled with plenty of sunshine, although the breezes from a northerly direction were rather chilly. The last day, however, was dull, wet and chilly, with another 6mm of rain, just as cultivation of the ploughed ground was going to start. We did, however, manage to turn the in-calf heifers out for the second time, moving them to a field of fresh grass a few days later.

On the Sunday Richard and I walked to some of the further cropped fields on Manor Farm, to see how they looked. As on my crop walk with Rex, our agronomist, the wheat looked well, but the barley did not look so good. The cold, wet weather and disease has certainly affected large patches of the field, so one particularly bad field will probably be made into whole-crop silage, rather than allowing it to reach maturity. On our walk we saw a muntjac deer and some buzzards circling overhead making their characteristic mewing call. Reeves's Muntjac, small, primitive deer, were brought from China to Woburn Abbey at the beginning of the 20th century, from where they escaped into the wild. Whilst walking we came across Ian doing some spraying, as advised by Rex, and passed a pond surrounded by some trees and shrubs in the corner of the wheat field, which had the most beautiful display of bluebells and primroses.

During the week students James and Nathan mucked out the barn used to house the older heifers over winter and Richard fitted a new wheel-bearing on one of our tractors. An electrical fault on the automatic wash programme of the refrigerated, bulk milk storage tank was throwing the trip switch in the fuse box, so an engineer had to be called to repair it. The bulk milk storage tank is a vital piece of equipment, as it has to keep the temperature of the milk below 4C, before it is collected and taken to a dairy for processing.

During milking the warm milk from the cows is pumped through a plate cooler which lowers the temperature before it is stored in the refrigerated tank. Unfortunately the engineer had to pay us a second visit to check a faulty valve on the milking machine equipment in the milking parlour.

One afternoon Ian did the milk recording whilst Ruth was milking.This is when individual milk samples are collected from each cow before being sent to a laboratory for testing. Each sample is tested for its fat percentage, protein percentage and somatic cell count. The fat content will be very near four per cent and the protein 3.2 per cent for each cow.

The somatic cell count reading gives us an indication of udder health, with an increase indicating that there may be a problem. These figures are very important as we are contracted to sell our milk at pre-determined levels and will be penalised if we exceed or fall below the buyers' requirements.

The Field to Food Learning Day held on The Bath and West Showground was a huge success, very much enjoyed by pupils, teachers and stewards. The 'learning hubs' were situated in three large buildings, one of which was devoted to a large variety of modern farm machinery.

The other two buildings had on display a large number of different farming enterprises including pens of farm animals, some with their young offspring, also demonstrations of milking, sheep-shearing, spinning, bread-making and a butcher told the children about the cuts of meat using a lamb and a pig carcass.

Richard was a little apprehensive about his scheduled visit to the butcher as it was the first stop for his class. He need not have worried as the children found the session very interesting, as did my class later that day. A cheese tasting stop was also much enjoyed, where the children could try a variety of cheddar cheeses, from mild to vintage.

There were also displays of vegetables, bees and honey, also some hens, chicks and a variety of eggs. At each hub a farmer was on hand to tell the children about the display and answer questions. It was a great day.