All is quiet on the sheep front at the moment. The rams are engaged in their annual business with the ewes and we are disturbing the newlywed atmosphere as little as possible.

We left in the rams on 19 September so they have a few days left to make their mark. Six weeks will be enough for us to be watching and minding them next February and March. Equally, having a few straggler ewes lambing weeks after the rest of them means straggler lambs still hanging around after the rest have been sold.

While we will probably cull a few extra ewes as a result, and we will not hit maximum output per hectare, it will nonetheless reduce the workload during the lambing and finishing periods.

Such quiet times on the animal front has allowed us to focus on infrastructure

There has been a shift in approach to calves, cattle, and cows on the farm, to put it mildly. More of that in future dispatches, but suffice to say the calves/weanlings are still out on grass and will not be moved to the rape for a week or two. So, not a huge amount of work with them either at the moment.

Such quiet times on the animal front has allowed us to focus on infrastructure, and in particular the cow cubicles that became a lambing shed. We repaired a roof that had rain streaming in for the last few years and rendered that part of the shed unusable.

Heaven forbid any job would ever be completely finished

Re-toothing the front of the galvanised sheets and new rain chutes have transformed the structure. There is a still a drop of rain dripping in at the joint between a new chute and an old chute, but a bucket is in place to catch those odd drops. Heaven forbid any job would ever be completely finished.

New tractor

The entrance to another span of the shed also has to be raised to get in at the dung with our new tractor. Let it go without saying that the tractor is new-to-us, and not new-new.

If our old David Brown 780 was five years older than I am, the new Deutz 6806 is a mere pup at 44 years old – coincidently the same age as myself.

What seems to be never-ending though is the CAP battle between the supposedly opposing sides of farmers and environmentalists

The cab on the Deutz is roughly 3in too high to fit through the entrance. No matter how many times I backed up to the door, and alternated between praying and swearing, it just would not do the decent thing and shrink to fit under. So, there is a little bit of engineering going on.

What seems to be never-ending though is the CAP battle between the supposedly opposing sides of farmers and environmentalists.

It is worrying if some think creating panto villains will somehow advance the issue of climate change or biodiversity loss

Leaving aside the fact many people are demonstrably both, perhaps the traditional broadcast media might show some restraint and engage their critical faculties before resorting to Jerry Springer-type baiting. It is worrying if some think creating panto villains will somehow advance the issue of climate change or biodiversity loss.

The irony is that the so-called responsible broadcast media of TV and radio is now far behind on agri-food and environment discussions compared to the various social media platforms, where people from all sides are to be found debating issues and sharing first-hand experience from their respective frontlines.