ALTHOUGH the ground has dried a little over the last week there was a top of 9mm of rainfall one day mid-week, which was delivered in a rather stormy fashion. To start with the days remained rather dull, with a chilly breeze. Towards the end of the week the air pressure began to rise steadily, bringing out the sunshine and a much warmer feel to the air.

As further cultivation of our two remaining maize fields was still not possible, Richard and I decided to make a trip to see our daughter Adele and her family on Chuggaton Farm in North Devon. While our grandchildren Dominic and Bethany were doing some revision in preparation for GCSEs and A-levels, Adele and husband Steve took us for a walk around part of the farm.

Like us they had some fields needing further cultivation before the maize can be planted. Also, like us, their grass fields have suddenly grown, making it difficult to manage grazing, which is getting ahead of the cows.

An added problem is that their ground is generally much wetter than ours, so there are areas in grazing fields where the cows can still make a mess of the ground (poaching), especially gateways. Adele and Steve also told us that they are hoping to improve the winter housing for their milking cows. Part of this project will be to increase the number of cubicle beds, at the same time improving the existing ones by providing mattresses for the cows to lie on. We were shown samples of the two layers of mattress that will be used to make the cows more comfortable.

On our walk we noticed the variety and abundance of spring flowers on the banks beside hedges and ditches. I am sure this is one of the best displays of spring flowers we have seen for a number of years. We saw primroses, violets, stitchwort, bluebells and orchids, just to name a few and as usual many of the grazing fields are brightening the days with their display of yellow dandelions.

Back home on Manor Farm, having turned our milking cows out to graze a few weeks ago, we decided on one nasty wet, chilly morning that they would probably rather be under cover for the day. We are usually quite flexible for a while after turnout, preparing the cubicle barn for the cows to return for a day if we think that they will be happier there than stood huddled up in the corner of a field. I am pleased to say they are now back out enjoying the sunshine.

Going back to our decision to give up the dairy herd, it has now been confirmed that we are under restriction following the positive result shown by only one of our cows when we had our annual herd TB test. Other than sending all our cows for slaughter, we now have to wait for two consecutive 60 day clear tests before the restriction can be lifted.

It has been a busy week on Manor Farm apart from moving the milking cows around. On the advice of our agronomist Ian has sprayed a small area of one of our winter barley fields with a herbicide to try and control a large population of wild oats. We usually control wild oats using crop rotation and 'roguing', which involves walking into the crop and pulling the obvious, taller wild oat plants up by hand, before destroying them. This job however becomes impractical when there is a very large number of plants, which are invasive and, compete with the cereal crop being grown, producing significant yield loss.

Another job done during the week was to clean tractors and implements following muck spreading. Servicing and oil changes were then done on the tractors to prepare them for silage making, also a few small repairs were undertaken.

To finish I would just like to congratulate Chippenham Young Farmers Club team, made up of Millie, Thomas, Rob and Harry, who won the jump rope skipping competition and will now be competing in the next round to be held in Blackpool.

DENISE PLUMMER