Mrs Down's Diary

This morning we brought the herd home. It went so easily that we laughed in disbelief at the speed with which the cows and their calves chased across the road and into the yards.

Geoff, John's brother, had come to give a hand, so John was behind the herd in the field, and Geoff and I blocked exit routes on the road.

Although how either of us could have stopped the herd if they had really fancied a day out, I do not know. A little persuasion in the form of my flappy jacket was all I had and Geoff argues a strong case in Anglo-Saxon terminology.

The previous night John had closed the gate into the main spread of fields so that the herd was in the one closest to home. That is where the ring feeder with its daily dose of haylage is sited.

That morning, the herd had not been fed at all, but the silage clamp was opened up and the cows were literally hanging their heads over the field gate to catch enticing wafts of delicious compressed grass.