THE weather continues to follow the same pattern as the previous week, with periods of cloud, wind, sunshine and showers. The line being drawn mid-way on our barograph is barely moving from its straight line course around the barrel. There has been, however, an opportunity to cut and ensile our second crop of grass.

This time we had about 100 acres of grass to cut, but it was decided that we could sell about 30 acres of this to a neighbour, who was looking for some more. Second cut cut silage making was delayed due to the unfavourable weather, but this had allowed the grass to continue growing and produce a heavy crop, which it was decided would be more than we needed.

However, delayed cutting starts to affect the quality of the grass, which was beginning to go to seed, but hopefully the ensiled crop will produce some good feed.

We now have a very large clamp of silage, which Richard says looks as if it will be enough to feed the cows this winter and next.

There was one hiccup as the grass was being brought back to the farm in trailers. One of the tractors had a puncture in a front tyre. This was not so much of a problem for hauling as another tractor was soon hitched up, but the tractor with the problem was the one with the loader so a new tyre had to be fitted quickly, in order for our cows to be fed their supplementary ration.

On Stowell Farm it was time to shear the main flock. A team of six shearers arrived at the beginning of the week and the was weather not always helpful, giving the occasional shower, which meant that shearing would have to stop until the sheep were dry.

Matt Smith heads up the team and apart from travelling around the world and most of Britain shearing, runs a large flock of breeding Romneys and Romney cross Lleyn ewes in Cornwall.

Matt is preparing for a shearing world record and hopes that the weather will be favourable on the day. The current record stands at 721 sheep shorn in nine hours, which is a sheep shorn every 38 seconds. Matt is already in training for the event, as shearing at that speed for nine hours will burn more than the calories used to run three marathons.

Everyone on Stowell Farm has been working hard to round up all the ewes. The sheep dogs have also been doing their share. Without them the process would have been more difficult.

Working especially hard for the shearer is a packer, who rolls up each fleece before before packing it into one of the large wool bags supplied by the Wool Marketing Board. The Wool Board is responsible for collecting the full sacks and finding the best possible market for the wool.

Our granddaughter, Natasha, loves to spend her spare time helping her father on the farm, so when Richard went to give a hand pushing the ewes along a race to the shearers, Natasha went with him to help as well.

Back on Manor Farm more of the milking cows are being dried off so that they can begin their two-month holiday before they give birth once again. Richard and Nathan have been putting an electric fence around one of the fields of grass cut for silage, so that the dry cows and in-calf heifers can tidy up the edges not cut by the mower.

One day during the week I walked to check the young heifers.

They are being fed extra food in the field, as they have grazed the grass right down and at present we do not have a suitable field for them to move into.

This is because the growing season has been rather challenging, with grass continuing to grow last winter, not growing well at the start of spring and recently growing rapidly producing tall, thick crops.

At this time of year the grass produces seed heads, making the crop less palatable for the young heifers. It was decided that we should cut all the well-grown fields for silage and hope conditions would remain favourable for regrowth, so that we will soon have some fields of good, fresh, young grass. Whilst on my walk I could not fail to notice the wonderful array of wild flowers, particularly the violet-blue blooms of meadow cranesbill along the field margins.