STANDING watching John and Geoff calculating the calibration on their seed drill makes you understand very quickly that ten fingers and ten toes just aren't accurate enough in the move up from acres to hectares. I swear you can hear the cogs whirling in their brains. Broadcasting seed begins to look an attractive proposition at these times.

Fields already ploughed have dried out over the last week. Not too much to make power harrowing difficult, but enough to create an even, friable bed for the seed corn.

Taking tea down to the field when John is on land work can be a frustrating experience, as well as an enjoyable one. I usually arrive, plus dogs, just as John has set off back down the field after completing a row, and will need to wait for 15 minutes or so until he is back at my end to stop the tractor and come and get his tea. Driving out onto the field at this stage is not an option to be considered.

Waiting does not matter so much if I have taken a thermos, tea-cakes, etc, for a snack, but if I have brought fish and chips, for example, I feel very frustrated to watch him disappear off into the distance with hardly a backward glance other than to check his furrow, but certainly not to see if there is a demented figure jumping up and down waving a greasy parcel of food at him.

The dogs love the whole experience. As soon as they see me come out of the house with a basket of food, all of them are at the back of the Land Rover, whining to get in. Apart from Bud the Jack Russell that is. However keen the other three dogs are to get going, he has to visit every car tyre in the vicinity for a quick pee and only then amble up to the back of the Land Rover for a lift in.

After a long day drilling corn, the last thing John wants to read on opening his post are insulting letters from DEFRA.

The latest accused him of claiming subsidy on 20 suckler cows that do not exist. The fact that DEFRA had already paid out the first half of this subsidy on the same cows a year ago, and had managed to delay the second part of the payment by six months, had no relevance to them. They have also issued passports to all of the cows, so any one of them can go, for example, on a holiday to France if they so choose. However, the ear tag numbers on the cows did not match up to any of the numbers that DEFRA had on their computer. Ergo, the cows do not exist.

It so happens that DEFRA has changed the coding for ear tag numbers on cows about four times in the past 14 months. All they have to do is put UK in front of the herd number and then, whoosh, as if by magic, the cows reappear.

It would not be so bad if it was the first time DEFRA had contacted us, but we have had several similar letters and phone calls, on unrelated issues, but all concerning ear tag numbers, over the past few weeks. All of the enquiries were quickly resolved when the magic UK number was added to our herd number, but probably temporary or new staff at DEFRA do not realise the quick change ethos that has been in place on herd numbers.

When you consider that every time DEFRA change the numbers, a new set of ear tags has to be ordered and another hole drilled in the poor old cow's ear, I'm surprised that the RSPCA isn't on to them for causing unnecessary cruelty and suffering.

Updated: 10:25 Wednesday, October 02, 2002