AUTUMN has truly arrived with two early morning frosts and a persistent chilly breeze. There has, however, been plenty of sunshine and the ground has remained dry, which has enabled many farming operations to be completed in good time.

In Devon, our daughter Adele and her husband Steve are trying to come to terms with the recent TB breakdown in their dairy cattle. One heavily pregnant heifer has been slaughtered on the farm and the other two reactors were taken to an abattoir in Taunton at the end of the week. Now Adele and Steve have to wait for the results of post-mortems on the three animals. They are at the moment prevented from selling any of their cattle other than direct to slaughter and will have to have two consecutive 60-day interval tests, before their herd will be declared TB-free once again, which may not happen for some time.

Meanwhile, their crop of forage maize has been harvested and is now safely covered in their silage clamp for use during the months ahead. The maize stubble grounds have since been ploughed and cultivated ready for sowing with winter wheat, which is grown for whole crop silage. Steve has just finished cutting all the hedges and has managed to almost empty his large slurry store before NVZ (Nitrogen Vulnerable Zone) regulations prevent the slurry being spread onto their fields.

On Stowell Farm, Kevin has continued to make sure all the field work is completed before the weather changes, applying fertiliser and a herbicide to earlier planted crops of wheat and barley. The new crop of lucerne has also germinated well.

Another job has been to gather the main flock of ewes with the help of the sheep dogs. Smudge, the youngest of the dogs, is starting to work well and is a valuable asset to the team. After the ewes have been penned they are colour-coded into the family groups ready for the introduction of the rams.

On Manor Farm, we have also been working to finish all the field work before the rain arrives. Ian, like Kevin, has been applying a herbicide to all our winter cereal crops and fertiliser to most of the fields on the farm, including the grass. The fertiliser used was phosphate and potash, which is more commonly known as P and K. This type of fertiliser has not been used on Manor Farm for the last four years and is only applied if the soil is found to be deficient in these nutrients.

Every year a percentage of the farm is analysed, which usually equates to taking soil samples from 6 to 10 fields. The samples are taken by our agronomist when walking the shape of a W across each of the selected fields. The samples are then sent to a laboratory for analysis. The last set of results indicated that the level of P and K had dropped, despite regular spreading of slurry and farmyard manure. We have to keep a crop management plan, which includes recording, when, where and how much spray and fertiliser are used. This is for both inorganic manures and chemical fertilisers, as their use is limited by regulation.

On one morning at the end of the week we were woken by a phone call, not unusual, but it was only 3.45am and we did not recognise the caller's number. The caller was a neighbour on the south side of the motorway to say that he had cows in his garden and one was in his swimming pool.

Richard quickly got dressed and went to find out if they were ours. They were!

He then called the fire service, Ian and Jenny, also Nathan and Ruth both due in for work that day. Ian discovered the escapees were from a group of milking cows that had broken a fence and walked about a mile to gather in Mr Michell's garden.

It was not very easy to see exactly what was going on as it was very dark, but after a great deal of searching we were sure all were accounted for. The 15 escapees were secured in a paddock next to the garden before the arrival of Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service.

Then began the task of removing the cow from the swimming pool, fortunately filled with water only a metre deep. It was decided the best thing to do was to put a sling under the belly of the cow and to call our farming neighbours, the Sealys, to ask if they would bring their telehandler to lift her out.

The cow was fortunately very calm and was soon lifted out of the pool, to be checked by our vet, who had been called earlier. I am pleased to say she was not injured and as soon as daylight arrived we all walked the 16 cows about a mile back to the farm to be milked, looking none the worse from their ordeal.

Our thanks go to Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service, John Mitchell, David and Max Sealy and the Manor Farm workforce who all helped us with the rescue.