The Year Round: Dry spell helped us to prepare for the winter

Supplies of winter fodder were dangerously low, and feeding stuffs have become so expensive that some cattle feeders are not entering the trade. The price of straw for bedding adds substantially to costs.

Transporting fodder to these hill places is so high as to set at risk all calls for more meat and milk production.

We've had a full farm inspection to check that we are eligible for various grants. As usual we passed with flying colours; the only snag was some weedkiller that was locked away out of reach, but the inspector said it should have been inside a bucket.

We complied immediately but later received a request from Defra asking for a photograph of the bucket. My wife refused. She has a digital camera which she uses expertly, but said she had more to do than take photographs of an empty bucket, develop and post away. We could not understand in what way the country would benefit.

A batch of 20 Continental x heifers is in the process of calving. We had a setback with one. All were in a field near the house and there was a commotion one night which we went down to investigate.

It showed that one heifer had calved into a hollow which had a shallow pool of water at one end of it.

The newly born calf had dropped straight into the pool and drowned. The pool was little bigger than the calf itself.

Farmer readers will say that this is the sort of thing that will happen and anyway we mothered another calf onto the dam.

On Sunday week, November 7, a nursery sheep dog trial is being held on our Kirkby Stephen land and usually attracts 60 or 70 entries.

CW 30/10/10