IT'S been another week of unsettled weather. Here on Manor Farm we had 18mm of rain which mainly fell in stormy bursts. The rest of the time we had a mixture of cloud cover and light wind with bursts of warm sunshine. Air pressure has remained low, but fairly constant.

I recently attended a meeting at the Wiltshire Wildlife Reserve, Lower Moor Farm, Cricklade, which consists of Clattinger, Sandpool and Oaksey Moor farms.

This nature reserve has contrasting landscapes made up of lakes, woodland and meadows.

A wide variety of birds inhabit the area, including the great crested grebe. On a walk around some of the reserve I saw meadows pink with common spotted pyramid orchids, interspersed with white bugle, cowslips and adders tongue fern.

Where there was water large numbers of damsel and dragon flies were busy making the most of their short lives on the wing. One of these was the downy emerald dragonfly, which lives at the bottom of ponds for three years as various larval and nymphal stages, emerging from the water to become an adult for only two months. During this time it will mate and lay eggs to continue its life cycle.

On Manor Farm the week started with a Beaufort Pony Club Achievement Badge rally. Many of the badges are for equine topics such as saddlery, feeding, handling and grooming, but a number have been introduced to raise awareness of countryside and farming. On this occasion Melissa and I had chosen 'trees and birds' as the badges we would be doing. Sixteen children attended for a farm walk, finishing with a picnic in one of our barns. On the walk we spent the time identifying trees in the hedgerows and fields on one small area of the farm. We found the usual hedgerow trees including elder, hazel, hawthorn, blackthorn and maple. Other larger trees were oak, horse chestnut, ash and lime.

Birds were a little more difficult to spot, but around the barn were a family of pied wagtails, pigeons and chaffinches. Despite the appearance of some dark clouds, the rain did not fall until we were in the barn.

During the week one of the milking cows was found to be giving very little milk, so due to the fact she will give birth to her next calf at the end of August and had been in milk for much longer than the usual 305 days, she was dried off. This means that she will go on her summer holiday, joining the in-calf heifers and will not be milked again until her calf is born. Before joining them her feet were trimmed.

The time had also arrived for all our milking machine equipment to be serviced. An engineer arrived to check and replace if necessary any worn rubber connections. All the liners in the teat cups were replaced, milk and vacuum pumps checked, as well as pulse and vacuum levels. The plant is washed automatically, so checking the chemicals, especially usage levels, is important.

We also had a crop assurance inspection which took about three hours. First of all the inspector looked around all the storage areas on the farm, especially those used for fertilisers, sprays and grain. He checked the sprayer to make sure that it had been serviced and tested regularly, also that Ian, as the sprayer operator, has kept up to date with the training required by attending events throughout the year.

All field records including those for spray, fertiliser and manure applications were checked thoroughly, to make sure that everything on Manor Farm was being planned, undertaken and recorded correctly.

The highlight of the week was a visit to the farm by East Tytherton Women's Institute. We met at the farm buildings before Richard and I took the ladies on a guided tour of the dairy and barns, before looking across at the grazing cows and taking a close look at nearby crops of wheat and barley. The evening ended back at our home, where we all tucked into some home baking, with Richard in charge of making cups of tea and coffee.