The milking herd was finally housed on 20 November. This has been the best grazing season of a lifetime. Ten dry cows are still out, as well as 20 yearlings and 30 in-calf heifers. All are being supplementary fed, but they can’t come in until the buildings are finished.

We are currently erecting a second-hand steel-framed building, which we were given. It is true what they say – second-hand buildings are only worth it if you’re given them when compared with the price of a new building erected.

Having a son-in-law on the farm who comes from outside agriculture is quite useful as he thinks outside the box. We would have struggled with front-end loaders, whereas he hired in a cherry picker. I was amazed how quickly, safely and efficiently the building has gone up. Unfortunately he is now in the habit of wearing a high-vis jacket all the time, which has a surprisingly distressing effect on the cows.

Maize instead of grass silage

Due to the shortage of grass silage, exacerbated by the increase in cow numbers this winter, we have bought in 450 tonnes of maize silage delivered at £30/t. This will make the diet, grass silage, maize silage and possibly brewer’s grains.

I am constantly questioned on whether I am going to buy a mixer feeder waggon. The answer is no. One acquaintance of mine has two herds; one is fed with a feeder waggon, the other is fed a ration layered in circular feeders. One yields 10,000l, the other 11,000l – guess which is which!

We had massive coverage of the triplets born two weeks ago, partly because we had an old newspaper photo of my daughter and me cuddling our first triplets, born 34 years ago.

We recreated a similar pose with Ceri, me and the latest triplets for the press. It was picked up by five national newspapers – must have been a quiet news day! The headlines ranged from “Herd the news” to “Udderly fantastic”.

Political disarray

On the political front, there is now an admission from both the House of Commons and the House of Lords that they were totally unprepared for the result of Brexit – so much so that the following day the whole political system was in turmoil, as it has been ever since. This disarray is compounded by the fact that we have a weak government and a weak opposition.

However, the opposition is being strengthened daily by the young rebel voters who flexed their muscles on the Brexit vote and suddenly discovered they had some power – a bit like children with guns.

These are grim political times, with no-one on the horizon to effect a Churchillian rescue.

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