Mrs Down's Diary October 22 2008

Born about 18 months ago, the shearlings are already big sheep. Mules are a cross between a Swaledale ewe and Blue Leicester tup. That produces a good mother with plenty of milk who, when running with our Texel and Suffolk tups, gives us a good crop of lambs.

John was delighted at the prices he paid but recognised that this meant a poorer return for the breeders. Several pens of gimmers and shearlings were withdrawn when the prices did not reach the expected premiums. At one stage we felt quite panicky that the pens we had our eyes on would not get to go through the ring but eventually they did.

Nonetheless, several other pens that John was interested in went back home.

So much effort goes into presentation. Some owners put their sheep in a coloured dip before the sale to brighten them for it. Others wash their sheeps' heads and trim the wool round their necks for a cosmetic makeover.

If any tups are for sale the owners trim and 'square' them so that the backs appear flattened to give an illusion of breadth in the animal. Once home with the flock, the new sheep tend to stick together for a few weeks. When you go round the sheep in the morning the newcomers stand in a group as if still uncertain of the others. It will change.

On the land, two days of sunshine saw every combine in the area that had not had a chance to get the wheat harvested on the go.

John started ploughing in one field and the contractor we had asked to come in went into another. Steve the contractor effortlessly chugged up and down the field, admittedly on the best land on the farm, and had it done in just over a day. John took more than two to do the same size field.

Both of those fields had been mole- ploughed so the water had got away but two of the biggest fields on the farm are still waiting to be cleared of straw, so no work can get started on those until the straw has been baled.

In one field, baling had got started by the merchant who wanted it, but he left the bales in flat piles of eight and subsequent rain soddened the straw so much that they are virtually ruined '“ and still in the field.

Nothing at all has happened in another and until then John cannot get started there at all. Luckily, we got hold of some seed barley, so as soon as the ploughed land has dried up enough to get the combination drill on at least one field can be sown.

The other ploughed field will be going in with field beans but they can wait until later and there is still plenty of other land to start mole ploughing.

When ploughing, Steve's job was easier because he had five furrows on his tractor. Although our big tractor normally pulls four furrows, John decided to drop one off to put less strain on the engine.

That was the idea, anyway, at the start of the day. Four hours later, the back furrows reluctantly parted company with their mates. "These bolts have never been off since I bought this plough 10 years ago," John swore. "They're rusted in solid."