Newly arrived heifers are adding an extra 1,000 litres of milk daily

We are following the mower with the slurry tanker, spreading the liquid from the bio-digester.

All this is in preparation for September grazing. That will only happen if it rains of course, but August is a tricky month and as so many of you who have been on summer holidays know, it can be very wet.

I have 80 acres of grass which can be cut for a third time, due to the dirty water we spread after the second cut in June. This will not be a very heavy crop, but the quality is very good (all leaf) and I just wished I had much more dirty water in years like this.

That leaves a few fields which are too good to top, but not enough to silage, and these will now be grazed by our in-calf heifers which are still out.

Gwenan has finally run out of grass at Tillington, and all her young-stock will be yarded this week, which is a good month to six weeks earlier than normal. All our cows are in of course, and we are eating into our silage reserves at quite a rate.

However, I do believe that a further cut of silage will be made in September, and cows will be grazing outside at that time too.

With all our land cut or grazed and covered in slurry, I am prepared for September and will be on holiday for the second half of this month; call me an optimist, but that is a basic requirement if you are going to be a dairy farmer.

One hardly needs to go on holiday this year; we have had the balmy evenings experienced in France, and lovely sunshine day after day. The temperatures have not been silly, and that is why the grass is still there despite no rain since Easter.

The crisp dry roadside verges, with that distinct smell remind me of France, and wherever you go, there are people in towns sitting on pavements, enjoying a drink or eating a meal.

Yes, we have to accept that a few dairy farmers are totally outnumbered by those who think this has been a magnificent summer, and we cannot deny that.

I just hate the weathermen who have promised me showers time and time again, with not a drop arriving; I think I might sue! Seriously, if you are going on holiday, please make sure that you do not bring anything back, which might cause a problem.

Last year, more than 21,200 items of food were seized, after travelers breached EU rules, which are of course designed to protect us from exotic pests and dangerous disease. Enforcement agencies confiscated 45 per cent more illegal dairy products in 2008-09, whilst meat products were up 14 per cent.

Restrictions on non-EU products also apply to fish, shell-fish, eggs and egg products, fruit and vegetables.

A fire last week in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, was caused by a 'Chinese Lantern', released at a nearby birthday party. Twenty acres of barley was on fire and firefighters fought to prevent the fire spreading to nearby crops - with the tinder dry conditions, fire is a real hazard.

The NFU Council called for a ban on Chinese lanterns last month, and whilst the organisation does not want to appear a killjoy, the fine wire used to construct Chinese lanterns, pose a real risk to stock.

I do know that some lanterns are now without wire, but given the dry conditions, it is unlikely that any other activity which involves fire being let indiscriminately into the sky, with no idea of where it might go, would be allowed for very long.

The sheer number of these things being launched into the air at parties, also involves a not inconsiderable amount of litter landing on private properties and land; it is no surprise to me that a fire has been caused.

n Adrian, our herd manager, has gone off to Scotland on holiday (well deserved), and I stupidly joked with him that no heifers would be arriving in his absence. I was referring to a load of in-calf heifers that I had bought from a good friend of mine Geoff Spence (up in Yorkshire).

Geoff won the Gold Cup last year for the best herd of dairy cows in the country, and he and I had been talking of doing a deal on some in-calf heifers for some time.

Adrian left on Friday evening for an all-nighter to Scotland, and at 4.30 Saturday morning my mobile phone rang. 'Lorry driver here, just want to tell you I'll be at the farm in 15 minutes'. 'That's OK, what have you got; Soya'? 'No, 35 freshly-calved heifers!

When I picked myself off the floor, I rang the agent in a rage! Of course there was no reply, but he did ring later, and I vented my spleen then, but rather less effectively due to four hours having gone by, and I had unloaded the heifers and realised what a cracking bunch they are.

The agent had apparently lost his mobile phone the week before, with all his contacts, and thought he had sent me an email from the office.

I made it clear that he had not, and if he could do that, he had obviously not lost all his contacts.

I think he simply forgot, and it was fortuitous that I was here and that we could make room for them in such short notice. They do look a picture in the straw yard, all lean and athletic; an Olympic team, and they are putting an extra 1000 litres of milk in the tank every day.

Having had to change employer for our Philippino workers (full story one day), it was announced that they and all the other Philippino workers across England (who also had to change employers) were to have a party!

Given that this was an all day affair, running late into the night, I did ask who was actually going to milk the cows for those two days.

A rather embarrassed response explained that other farmers only had one or maybe two Philippino workers, it was not such a big deal.

My concern was more to do with the fact that our Eastern European workers not only had no party to go to, but no job security either until they are sorted out, and as this particular company had no interest in taking them on, I felt all this to be rather unfair.

A compromise has been reached (as always). The Philippinos will go to the party and have a day to recover afterwards, whilst my niece and grandson will assist the Eastern Europeans with the milking over the two days, and then they have an extra weekend off. Phew!

The joys of human resource management.