With lectures now over for the second year, finding a excuse not to revise is getting harder. Luckily the weather has been a bit unsettled meaning that I’m house bound most of the time anyway. It also amazing how many cups of tea you get through at this time of year, it seems that any welcome distraction is always jumped at. Even the kitchen is looking tidier that normal!

My sister Alice Rose (8) with Rose the calf, at the Bishop Burton College Stockmanship competition.

Me with Rosie. Both looking unusually smart and muck-free!! We were placed 4th in the ring and 6th overall in the calf entries (taking into account the effort put in before the day itself). She's a gem.

The event was good fun. Everyone pulled together to help everyone else out - sharing clippers, Fairy washing up liquid, WD40 and expertise. A mate of mine said it's always sunny at the stockmanship - and that philosophy has yet to be disproved.

The stockmanship competition at Bishop Burton college is being held tomorrow. With a variety of animals, some quiet and some volatile, it should be a lot of fun - for the spectators at least.

One of the bullocks had to be withdrawn early on in training as it broke his handler's wrist and knocked a tutor to the ground. I'm now thanking my lucky stars I was landed with a relatively small and quiet animal.

In a previous blog post I said I was getting a sheep to train for the competition. In fact, there was the opportunity to take on a heifer calf. She is 97% Holstein and was born on the 20 February. Her official name is Bishop Burton Amateur Magpie. Unofficially, she's Rosie. 

Among other entries, there is a Sharon, an Alice and a Pauline (sheep); a Susie, Betty and Fudge (calves); and a Boff and a Buster (bullocks). 

I've spent yesterday evening and this afternoon washing and clipping. I hadn't realised what an art that is. Getting the top line just right was tricky and we left that until last. She looks beautiful now she's clipped. She had looked wooly, big-bellied and just a little plain before. Now she's glossy-coated and looking stunning. You can see why clipped animals often do better at sales.

The sheep shed (now full of show sheep and calves) was full of the sounds of people, animals, whooshing hairdryers and whirring clippers. Despite the fact it's a competition, everyone mucks in and helps everyone else. The atmosphere is brilliant and I'm going to miss it after tomorrow.

As I couldn't make it to the AGM, does anyone have any thoughts on how the weekend went?

We've been flat out here on the farm over the last few weeks; maize drilling is well under way and the good conditions mean we have been getting on well. The night shifts are nearly at a end as we only have nine more heifers left to calf; it will be welcomed by everyone on the farm and the calves all look really well running around in the field infront of the house in the evening sun. With only one week left until the return to harper the break seems to have flown by, but i'm looking forward to the Summer Term.

                Bishop Burton College "Sportsman's Award Dinner" 2009

....The "Sportsman's" was the glitzy finale of the last term. On Monday we start back at college for the last term of my first year at college. 

As well as preparing machinery inventories and essays on soil aeration, the main thing I'm looking forward to is the Stockmanship Competition (3rd May?? - I'll check that date). Bishop Burton is the only college of its kind in the UK to host this sort of competition.

I've been designated a sheep, and I have the next few weeks to halter-train and prepare it for the show. My only previous experience of showing has been visiting shows and helping out at the Malton Livestock Show and Sales. So I'm looking forward to my first time being the one in the white coat.

The Croatia study tour is off. The costs were too great with the current economic climate being what it is. So we're looking at the possibility of touring some area in this country (Go British!!). I went to visit family in Ireland for a week and the costs seemed incredible when you could just about equate 1 euro to 1 pound. Buying food and drink cost an alarming amount, and just paying the toll to go through the tunnel near Dublin port cost us 12 Euros. Ouch. (We did hit it at a peak time.)

Travelling over to Galway in the latter part of the week, I noticed there seemed to be a lot of dairy farms -  certainly a lot more than I've been used to seeing in Yorkshire. There were black-and-whites everywhere. On the other hand, all the way from Wicklow to Galway, there were hardly any sheep to be seen. Apparently the Irish national flock has decreased by about a third in the past decade so that might have a lot to do with it.

That hasn't stopped a surprising amount of tourist mechandise having a sheep theme. Other themes of course included Guinness, leprechauns and rugby. And talking about Guinness..... you haven't tasted it until you've tried a true draught Guinness in its home country.

It's not safe to drive on the same road as an Agric. Not with all the distractions in most of the fields during the past few days. With the sun out and conditions the best they've been in what feels like a long time, everyone seems to be starting up the tractors and getting to work.

I was grass rolling on Friday and trying to keep as straight as possible. Try as I might, I still managed to create a curve by the time I'd got half way. I now look at grass rolled or cultivated fields marked out straight as a die, and can't help thinking we're surrounded by artistic genius which we normally take for granted or don't even see.

We've had a busy couple of weeks. There have been assignments to catch up on and a variety of talks on all sorts from beef rationing to precision farming. Mastock have had a farmers' open day and there were some interesting speakers (including someone from Monsanto listing the benefits of GM) and walks around the crop trial plots on site. We're taking a trip down to the Potato Council next Monday to look at potato storage. 

 Socially, there is the St Patricks celebration tomorrow night and people are looking forward to the Spotsmans' award ceremony, dinner and dance which is happening next week.   

Then there's lambing at the college farm, which has been going well with lambs coming thick and fast! I've started doing some evening and early morning shifts.

Yesterday afternoon, I went back to the farm I was working at about a month ago. It was time to drench ewes and lambs and administer Ovivac. There's one lamb's progress in particular I've been following - one named Lucky. A charollais gimmer, she managed to get through a difficult first few hours struggling to breathe and lacking any sucking reflex.

She responded well to being stomach tubed some colostrum, but then (with the typical suicidal tendencies of a lamb) managed to get herself into a water bucket. Rejected by her Mum, she was successfully adopted on to another and is now a stonking great lamb, with lovely potential and lively attitude. I wouldn't have thought it possible when she was born.

So there's hope for her yet. But, as the college farm manager pointed out, "God must have a lovely flock up there - he always chooses the best".  

Here is a poem taken from Monthly Farming Update (Chavereys)........

"Brown is my shepherd, I shall not work

He leadeth me beside still factories

He restoreth my faith in the conservative party

He guideth me to the path of unemployment

Yea, though I wait for my dole

I own the bank that refuses me

Brown has anointed my income with taxes

My expenses runneth over my income

Surely, poverty and hard living will follow me all the days of his term

From hence forth we will live all the days of our lives in a rented home with an overseas landlord

I am glad I am British

I am glad I am free

But I wish I was a dog

And Brown was a tree".

Finally, after days of whiteness that quickly lost their novelty factor, the landscape has returned to various shades of khaki, brown and grey. Lovely. News that temperatures could reach somewhere in the region of 9 degrees centigrade in the South-West seem far-fetched - and make me feel too hot just thinking about it.

It's been surprisingly warm today. I've been helping with lambing near Gilling East in Ryedale and it's been a good day's work. I had a few minutes practicing reversing an ATV trailer this evening. I've always struggled with this, and today I was given time to try and figure it out. Alright if you keep it going pretty much straight - but hopeless if you let it out of that range and have to pull forward to correct it. Embarrassing.

I'd like to be at least unlaughable at backing short-wheel-based trailers by the end of the week. Possible? I'll let you know how I do.   

The Valentines' do on Thursday night was good fun, though that custard some of us drank/chewed for the Mr and Miss competition was disgusting. Yuck. Why did we do that? The DJ was excellent and the dance finished off - as always - with "I've Got a Brand New Combine Harvester" and a slow dance.  

The New Holland hydrogen-powered tractor featured in this week's Farmers Weekly. Here are two links to see more about it and watch some recordings of it in action: http://www.terre-net.fr/materiel-agricole/tracteur-quad/article-new-holland-hydrogene-pile-a-combustible-nh2-harris-ihrig-tracteur-hydrogene-prototype-hydrogen-fuel-cell-powered-tractor-207-53740.html   and    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBG9BRlfpIY

Proud to be Yorkshire!! Or happy to have a good laugh at us, visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VLYpKGVBUg to see an advert for Yorkshire Airlines.

This was the result a long afternoon at Harper Adams.

It's RAG week at Bishop Burton (Raise and Give Week) and on a scale of noise level, we've got everything from a sponsored silence tomorrow to a big disco on Thursday night - the Valentines' Ball. The Valentines event really starts on the night before when there's a Blind Date competition and the winners get free tickets to the romantic meal and dance the following day. There, everyone gets a chance to enter the Mr and Miss competition (with a lot of custard and balloons involved). Who wouldn't want to be a student?

On Tuesday a few of the first year agric. students are doing their powerpoint presentations about their work placements. This tends to make for a really informative and entertaining session, when everyone comes in and shares their own diverse experiences and viewpoints. Over the next few Tuesdays we'll see seventeen different powerpoints summarising seventeen different businesses and experiences. 

While some lecture subjects manage to accommodate the different levels of experience in the group, others struggle. We had a machinery lecture last Thursday. We were studying the parts of the plough and power harrow. I hadn't known there was a part of the plough called the 'frog', but for some of the group it felt like they were stepping several years back. In the space of a once-a-week lecture it's impossible for the tutor to bring those few of us up to scratch and do something for the others that isn't hindered by explaining everything to us.

Most of our group have been working with tractors (and been at least passengers in them) since the earliest possible moment. Me - well I was practising on a tricycle from the age of 2, graduating to a pedal tractor at about the age of 5, but working real machinery came in only fairly recently.

I spent Friday milking cows and plastering a ceiling. In both cases, the biggest job was cleaning up afterwards. Some say that builders are messy, but I have a deep-founded respect for just how clean and tidy many of them are despite working with plaster. What a mess we made! Sssh, don't tell.

The highlight on Friday for me, was setting up the milking parlour and tank and starting everything going on my own. I breathed such a sigh of relief when everything worked and nothing exploded. The next best thing had to be coming home through the snow to be greeted with a hot chocolate from Mum.

With more snow on its way, I hope it doesn't cause problems for any of you. My car hasn't been starting properly on extra cold mornings and evenings. I wonder if any of you out there have a theory as to what's happening. My car is a Nissan Micra. The problem seems to be associated with icy weather, as she starts fine during the day when she's been sitting in sunlight. The starter motor takes a while to start the engine and when it comes to life, the whole car judders for a few seconds and she stalls. When the engine's going there's no response at all when I press the throttle until finally it starts to choke and when the revs are up she's absolutely fine.

The garage have looked at her and everything seems to be in place. We're perplexed......... 

Not normally one for fashion and enjoying buying clothes, I have had two exciting additions to my wardrobe. One was a JCB jacket from LAMMA, with a free hat. The other was a birthday present from my uncle and aunt in Co. Galway. This was a t-shirt they got specially designed and printed (pictureparcel.com), with the front and back profiles of a grey Fergie. I love it.

I've had one of those homework and tv weekends. I've been compiling a poster on Bluetongue in sheep, bringing together a work file to take in tomorrow, researching the diseases of the ruminent system and watching Babe and George of the Jungle with my little sister.

Life's hard isn't it?

Life does feel hard when you get a bill that equates to hours and hours of work. My car went in for a service last week; add the fact I'd lost my key and needed a spare = far too much money going out.

I was watching Jamie Saves Our Bacon yesterday evening and was impressed by the Buy British message. I wish it wasn't done in such a gimmicky way (Pig Brother etc.) but if it works then I suppose I shouldn't knock it. Apparently sales of pork have gone up.

And talking of sales, I've been following the market lamb prices and last Tuesday in Malton saw Suffolk x store lambs to £82.20 and Charolais x lambs to £79. In Thirsk there was a top price of £93.50 for a Texel x and 323 hoggs were sold at prices of £80 and above. I hear the £100 mark has been hit in some parts of the country. I just hope these prices don't slump any time soon - it's about time the lamb trade saw some fair returns.

I've been back at uni for about a week now and I've been trying my hardest to crack on with assignments, but my flatmate came back from Christmas with a Wii, something which seems very tempting when faced with an afternoon of writing essays.

Like Lizzie I'm also looking forward to going to LAMMA, and walking around with my Dad as I used to when I was younger. I remember when I was about 5 or 6, walking around the Smithfield Show with my Dad, finding London a bit overwhelming with all of the traffic, people and large buildings, but always coming away having had a great time.

These large agricultural shows are always a big date on the agricultural calendar, and I'm therefore excited that as part of my placement job next year I will actually get to be behind a stall at Cereals, enjoying the day from a different perspective. Everyone at Harper has a different opinion as to which is the best show, with many people loyally favouring their local county shows; what's everyone else's view on the best of the shows?

Livestock Wagons. I pass a lot of these on the way between Malton and college, over the Wolds. I've discovered I've got a love for them in the same way a good few of my mates do for Fastracs or John Deeres. It stems from working at Malton market and getting to know the hauliers and their wagons. J M Bell & Son with their big yellow and sky blue beast. Patrick Foxton and his dark blue one, name proudly displayed. Always so much pride in them.

It's one of the best feelings in the world to pass a wagon and find the driver's recognised you in time to flash all the lights and sound the horn. It happens very rarely but talk about feeling top of the world!

Maybe I'll try to get some work experience during this next couple of years in the agricultural haulage industry...?They're an essential part to so much, it's likely I'd meet a lot of different people and learn all sorts of diverse things. We'll have to wait and see.

College going well and it was fantastic getting back to some lambing. Won't say too much just now because the magazine article will be out this week There are a lot of assignments, but to help us through we've got the LAMMA show to look forward to next Wednesday.

Nothing quite beats being at home for Christmas and this year has been no exception. Mum's cooking, home comforts and a proper log fire are all things that you grow to miss while away at university. My brother has missed out on all of this this year as he is still away in New Zealand, but at least he has the weather on his side.

Although living on an arable farm, this is a quieter time of year for us, we are still kept fairly busy with all of the cattle. For the first time, we have tried 'out-wintering' some of the heifers, and it has gone very well with the dry conditions. The system of feeding on maize stubbles, where poaching is not an issue, means the cattle are free to return to the grass over-night, and I'm very pleased with both the condition of the cattle and the ground.

Hope everyone had a lovely Christmas. Happy New Year.