MY father has yet to see the swallow, which is his sign that Spring is officially here! 

Typically he has a sighting in the first week of April so we’ll be keeping an eye out over the next week. 

That said the oil seed rape is beginning to bloom its yellow flowers and has shot up in height. 

It can grow up to 1-2 metres and in recent years is a big feature in the British countryside. 

It’s a good break crop for farmers, as it is not from the same family as cereal plants but it has the advantage of being harvested using the same machinery. 

I’ve recently been reminded how much we’ve come to rely on machinery. The tractor has been sidelined and is still awaiting repairs. 

We have one tractor that does everything -moving bales for feed and bedding, hauling muck trailers and everything that requires a bit more man power. We have got by and fortunately the timing has coincided with a downturn in log trade.

Lambing is now complete and they are springing around the field. We just have one being reared on the bottle this year, which is a good result. 

I hope that they are now big and strong enough to evade predators such as the fox, who was an unwelcome visitor last week. 

He jumped through a stable window and took a hen and her chicks in the night, much to the distress of my Mother.

We have continued to add calves to the herd, with numbers now at 108 . We have another new breed here with the addition of a Speckle Park calf, which is a beef breed originating from Canada. 

We are also imminently about to have a home produced calf as Betty, my Aberdeen Angus Heifer is due to calve in April. 

Teddy Rocks is now only 4 weeks away, do you have your tickets? It promises to be a great weekend and very family friendly. 

This week I’ve been helping trim back trees on the drive so the  Damory buses can transport people in and out. The morning's work was filmed by Meridian, who asked to interview me about having the festival at the farm. 

The festival has been a good reason to have a tidy up, and we also have a new farm sign in place. 

This is all good for our main diversification plan of Dorset Farm Party too!