Despite the recent rain the ground is still fairly dry and the grass still seems to be growing. Lawns need a final trim but the grass has tended to remain quite wet for much of the day, but decreasing day length doesn't help.

Nearly all the Bramley apples have fallen from the grand old tree in my garden. I love all the delicious apple recipes and made a very tasty apple upside-down pudding for lunch the other day. The apples are huge this year despite the drought and don't seem to be afflicted with too much insect life.

I have continued to check the 600 sheep now grazing fields near Wootton Bassett and despite the wet days have managed to keep dry. They all look very contented and I only had to call Kevin on one day to report that three ewes had managed to get themselves the wrong side of the electric fence, despite the abundance of grass. On the same day one of the rams looked unwell . Kevin soon arrived to put the escapees back into their field and take the forlorn ram back to Manor Farm for some tender loving care. There didn't seem to be any symptoms to indicate it may have had an infection , so Kevin thought it had probably had a fight with another, larger ram.

Whilst walking across the fields holding the two groups of sheep I noticed the numerous dung flies enjoying the abundance of sheep faeces now spread across the fields. The dung flies were golden/yellow in colour, but other members of this family can be black, yellow or,grey or brown and even two of these colours. They almost resemble house flies, but many of them can look quite furry. However only a few species of dung fly pass their larval stages in animal dung, these are the Scathophagidae.

Ian has been helping Francis and Kevin with other sheep work during the past week. It was time to scan the flock due to give birth to their lambs in January, so on Monday, with Melissa and the collies helping as well , the ewes were gathered from Corsham Park, before being transported back to Manor Farm. After a night without food they were scanned, as the presence of food in their gut can make it difficult to see the developing embryos. The percentage of lambs being carried was 145 per cent,which was lower than usual, probably due to the hot ,dry summer. However out of the 505 ewes scanned only 32 were empty and to give them a second chance they were brought over to Wootton Bassett to join the later lambing flock running with the rams. The results for the rest of the ewes showed 223 were carrying singles, 232 twins and 18 carrying triplets.

It was also time to scan the small flock of pets, which have been looked after by my twin granddaughters Natasha and Annabel, who have now left school and are embarking on the next stage of their life. Natasha has gone straight into a farming job locally, where she looks after dairy calves and turns her hand to other necessary jobs, hoping to come home to work with her father Kevin in two years' time. Annabel has gone to Harper Adams University to study agriculture, after which she wants to be a journalist.

The ram used on the pet flock was Ed, bought onto the farm two years ago. Snowberry, Blackberry, Ivy, Snowdrop and Hazel were found to be carrying twins. Palini, now 12 years old and Rosie 10 have both been retired from bearing offspring. Buttercup, now nine, was found to be empty, so she also will not be giving birth next year. Blackberry and Hazel are both black, so we will have to wait and see what colour their lambs will be ?

After scanning the ewes were put into three groups , according to the number of lambs they are carrying . They were then taken to three fields of fresh grass and finally the ewe lambs were also moved onto fresh grass, with help from collies Smudge, Star and Winston.