THINKING spring had arrived was a mistake! Temperatures during the past week have remained low, feeling especially cold with wind from the north.

One afternoon during the week I was in Little Somerford hoping to enjoy a game of tennis, but before we could complete a set dark clouds loomed above. Then the wind blew, a mixture of snow and hail descended accompanied by thunder and lightning. It was, however, a local storm with dry roads a few miles away.

The lack of motorway noise is quite blissful, but we could really do with some warm April showers, but not before we have our cut grass safely ensiled.

As I write Nathan is busy cutting grass, which will be left to wilt for about 24 hours to reduce the moisture content.

We now have 60 acres of the hundred due to be made into first cut silage lying on the ground. This would only be one of a few times that grass on Manor Farm has been cut in April which, as on previous occasions, has been due to the dry conditions.

The crop is variable caused partly by soil type, lack of warm showers, also the lack of an early application of fertiliser when the ground was too wet.

On testing the grass it has been found to be low in sugars, a necessary ingredient for making good silage as it is the sugars that are broken down by a number of strains of naturally occurring lactic acid bacteria, during the silage making process.

Nowadays many farmers add an inoculant containing mainly lactobacillus plantarum, just to help obtain the right fermentation.

The reason for ensiling our first cut of grass a little earlier is the dry weather. Although we need rain it would make life difficult at this stage of growth for the ground to become wet and not be able to harvest the grass.

At the moment all the cereal crops are looking well. Hopefully they will get a drink of water, but not before we have our grass safely in store.

The oilseed rape has produced some landscape sunshine over the last few weeks, including on Manor Farm with two fields being grown by a neighbouring farmer.

Oilseed rape is a bright yellow flowering plant member of the Brassiceae (mustard and cabbage) family. Its uses are in animal feeds, edible vegetable oils and biodiesel. It can also be used as a winter cover crop and ploughed back into the soil, adding valuable organic matter.

During the week there has been a birth. Two heifers (young females having their first calves) were known to be due rather late compared with the rest of the group due to come into the milking herd last autumn.

They became pregnant after our Aberdeen Angus bull, Faithful, was put with the group after most of them had become in-calf using artificial insemination using dairy bull semen. The first of the two heifers to calve gave birth to an Angus x bull calf at the beginning of the week. The calf has some white markings, a star on its forehead, a patch under its stomach and a white tip to its tail.

Angus crossbred calves are usually black, but with our present bull some are born with small patches of white hair.

When Richard was walking around the holding pens next to the dairy he noticed a robin nearby. On taking a closer look he found that it had built a nest under a spongy foot-bath mat, which had been hung over the metal-work making up the individual stalls used to restrain the cows for any veterinary work that may be needed.

There were seven eggs in the nest and Richard has told everyone working on the farm where it is so as not to disturb it. Hopefully the robins will successfully be able to raise a family.