THE weather over the last week has felt wonderfully autumnal, with plenty of sunshine accompanied by a gentle northerly breeze. A few short storms on the last day were only a blip, with the sunshine always close at hand once the clouds had passed. This was a day I worked on Roves Farm, with a distinctly Halloween theme on the tractor ride.

The route I took with the tractor enabled the visitors to see lots of farm animals. A herd of beautiful mahogany red Sussex suckler cows, with their newborn calves, a flock of wethers (castrated ram lambs) in another field and Gloucester Old Spot pigs enjoying life outside foraging in the churned-up soil among the willow for anything they could find to eat.

Richard and Kevin have been busy erecting sheep fencing around several of our fields to be grazed and on a neighbouring farm, where a group of sheep have been moved. Some of Kevin's wethers have also been moved onto a new short-term grass ley on Manor Farm, which needs grazing before winter sets in. Another group has been moved onto a small field of permanent grass.

Since the rain the grass here seems to have grown quite well, so hopefully Kevin's sheep will be enjoying the fresh grass following the dry summer, which turned most of our fields brown. Kevin is also hopeful that in a few weeks' time some of the remaining wethers will grade for sale.

Whilst Richard and Kevin have been fencing and moving sheep, Melissa and I were given the task of checking all the sheep now scattered in fields around Manor Farm, which includes a flock of 80 ewes with a ram. I am pleased to say that so far we have not encountered any problems and walking around the farm in the sunshine has been quite uplifting.

There are also two groups of ram lambs in one of our barns, where they are being fed a higher quality diet. One group are those Kevin has selected to go forward for grading when they are two years old.

He will probably sort through them once more before then to make sure that only the best go forward. All the ram lambs are registered pedigree with the Llyen Society, but have to be graded before they can can be used. Once graded the number of replacements required will be kept and the remainder sold as breeding stock. The other group of ram lambs that will not be presented for grading will be reared on and sold as finished lambs into the meat trade.

There is also a flock of 200 ewe lambs remaining on Kevin's farm which were sold for breeding being surplus to requirement, but due to the shortage of fodder during the summer, the farmer was unable to continue with the purchase.

The dairy calves born on Manor Farm since the end of August are being looked after by Kevin and Melissa, who are now living on our farm with granddaughters Natasha and Annabel. The first calves to be born have recently been weaned, so Kevin has penned them together in a corner of the barn, which houses all the newborn calves. The calves are weaned when they are eight weeks old, which means up to this time they are fed milk morning and evening, plus an ad-lib supply of specially balanced feed pellets containing all the nutrients they require. At weaning time the calves will be eating enough feed pellets to supply all their needs. All the calves in the rearing unit, whether on milk or weaned, have access to fresh water and forage at all times.

On the last day of the week Richard helped Kevin and some friends prepare the stubble fields on Chivelins Farm for the Chippenham YFC ploughing match, due to take place the following day. This involved marking out a plot for each competitor.

DENISE PLUMMER