Has spring finally arrived? A rather cool start developed into a warm week of beautiful sunshine.

The crops have at last made some real growth, the leaves are bursting out on many of the trees and the flowers are blooming in abundance, especially the celandines covering many of the hedgerow banks with a profusion of yellow.

The warm sunshine also woke brimstone and peacock butterflies from hibernation, also a variety of birds are busy nest building or feeding their fledglings .

For most of the week I have been driving a tractor and trailer, taking visitors to Roves Farm on an Easter Bunny chase, which has been great fun.

Here on Manor Farm the in-calf heifers have been turned out once again into a field next to the barn so it was just a case of opening the gate and letting them go. Two days later the milking cows were let out of their cubicle barn into an adjacent paddock.

These cows will be strip grazing, meaning that an electric fence will be moved forward each day to give them an area of fresh grass. For some time the cows will be returned to the barn after afternoon milking for their supper so that their digestive systems have time to adjust to the change of diet.

In Devon Adele and Steve have also let their cows out for the first time this year, although not quite to plan as in their excitement of feeling grass under their hooves once again the cows broke through the electric fence.

Adele told me it took a little while to round them up but fortunately they could not get out of the field and have since remained in the intended grazing area.

Our young calves are being prepared to be turned out to grass for the first time and have been given their second oral vaccination to protect them against lungworm.

Fieldwork has been gaining pace on both Manor and Stowell Farms. Kevin has been sub-soiling some grassland and spraying it with a herbicide, before cultivation prior to planting spring barley.

The oilseed -rape has been given it's final application of nitrogen fertiliser and the winter barley a second dose. Some fields have been planted with spring barley , also some winter cereals sprayed with a fungicide.

Here on Manor Farm Richard has finished ploughing three fields which will soon be planted with maize . Before he could do this he had to replace a bearings and casing.

Now that ploughing is finished until the autumn he has cleaned and greased the plough, to prevent it going rusty, before putting it under cover.

The winter barley has been given its last dressing of nitrogen fertiliser and the winter wheat its second application.

A grass ley planted last autumn has had to be patch sprayed with a herbicide as there were patches with no grass, just a variety of weeds. Ian has since replanted these bare areas with grass seed and rolled the whole field so hopefully it will soon look better.

On Stowell Farm there are only a few remaining main flock ewes left to lamb. There are however two small flocks of late lambing ewes which have been brought back to fields close to the farm.

There are 250 older ewes and a smaller flock of 180 ewe lambs (young ewes due to have their first lambs ). Unlike the main flock which lambed in the barn before being turned out into the parks, the late lambing ewes will give birth in the field. Then the lambing season will be over for another year.