AS I write this article on a wet, grey day in the second week of January it looks like winter is now about to begin with a bad forecast ahead after a short flurry of spring weather, which we have all enjoyed so far.

Everyone seems to now be back to work after the Christmas break which seems to get longer each year.

The traditional Boxing Day sports have been taking place to wear off the over-eating with the sports of shooting, rugby, football and hunting favoured by the farming fraternity. There was again terrific support for the annual Boxing Day hunting meets all over the country.

The point to point season has started with good entries of runners and the season will continue in the westcountry until the middle of June. There are race meetings on every weekend in Devon and Cornwall except for two throughout the season.

To arrange and run a point to point involves a dedicated team working over the 12-month period to select and cut young birch into bundles, which they make into jump fences and prepare the racecourse, run over local farmers' fields.

There are a lot of jobs done by the team, who are all volunteers, like repairing and preparing jumps and many jobs just before and on race day. They are experts at producing a great day out for everyone on the day.

The jockeys are amateur riders and the owners all love their horse to bits and obviously think they own the next Red Rum!

If you would like to join a point to point working team of fence builders and general helpers for a day, then contact your local hunt.

During the autumn, one of our main jobs has been gathering the cattle off the commons and in December, as the weather gets wetter, we put most into sheds where they are fed silage and hay. The spring and summer-born calves are weaned and separated from their mothers — so there's lots of noisy bawling for a couple of days and then they all settle down.

To complicate matters, the weather is gradually getting warmer and it is against nature for the Galloways to be housed in the winter. We now clip and shear their long curly coats on their backs to help stop them from sweating and getting respiratory problems.

Since Natural England reviewed the system of grazing the commons back in 2001, not all commons are allowed to be grazed with cattle after November. Before, we always kept the Galloway breeding cows, which all calved in the spring, out on the commons in the winter, which is much healthier for them.

In addition we have to bring the Galloway cows, in bye in July and August, to go to the bull, so they do not spend much time during the summer in their natural environment. Because of this we have changed half of the cows' breeding pattern for them to calve in the autumn. To do this we have to ensure the cows calve just at the right time in September and October, well before housing time, which is difficult.

Our autumn Galloway herd is still calving a little later in the autumn and while they have young calves at foot we like to keep them in fields outside of the houses for as long as possible, for the sake of heathier young calves. Those cows that calve on the moor in the autumn have a wonderful natural instinct of finding a dry spot, usually on bracken or under a gorse bush.

TB testing is now in full swing on the hill farms and we all keep our fingers crossed for a clear test. If we have only one animal that reacts, it puts the whole herd in jeopardy and a stand-still order is enforced on the whole cattle herd.

More hours are clocked up on paperwork to get licenses to send animals to slaughter and sales to other farms are limited to special markets – again under license.

If we have a reactor, the herd has to be tested every 60 days until there are two clear tests. This means your herd is under restriction for at least four months or until you get two clear tests. It all means extra work and takes more time and money spent on re-testing. The cash flow projection goes out of the window and sends us back to head-scratching to make ends meet!

 The most frustrating situation is when your TB reactor is taken under the Government's compulsory scheme and slaughtered. It is always tested again because the skin test on the live animal at the farm is not 100% reliable. If the second test after slaughter comes back showing that the animal did not have the TB disease at all, what a waste — the emotional drain certainly takes its toll.

I once had nine animals compulsorily taken after a test, cattle ranging in age from a pedigree four month old calf to an older cow, which all failed the skin test, but after slaughter the tests on every animal came back clear — a devastating waste of our good breeding cattle that have taken years to develop.

Unfortunately, farmers can do nothing about such a situation and although they get compensation, this is only the bare minimum value for commercial animals — if you have pedigree animals you receive nowhere near the true value.

However, the worst problem is that the main carrier of the TB disease is still allowed to roam free with no restrictions or licenses needed. Common sense has to prevail, surely sooner rather than later over this devastating problem.

The moors are looking quite empty at present with less stock grazing during the winter months due to strict grazing numbers enforced upon the farmers by Natural England. Last year and this year so far, the mild climate has kept the moorland grass and scrub growing so let's hope we have a dry period in early spring to allow us to burn and cut this unwanted invasion.

If we miss one spring period to burn the unwanted scrub invasion it soon gets out of hand, as can be seen in many places on the moor.

January to April are the months in the spring when sheep seem to like to go a-wandering and if your garden or fields adjoin common land, it's best to check your fences to make sure they are in good order to keep livestock from getting onto your land.

Even the smallest break in a fence becomes a weakness allowing the woolly animals to dine out on delicious garden delicacies, which, if you are a keen gardener like myself, it can be gutting to wake up one morning to find your neat garden ruined.

So best to check your boundary fences to the common before it's too late. It's also the right time of year to cut and lay an overgrown hedge and get things ship-shape. There are a few very good agricultural fencers in the area. A well-made fence will last a long time if done correctly, but just fixing a bit of wire will normally end up like weak knicker elastic.

Following my autumn article, I must just mention the ponies, because at the auction sale held at Chagford market in October, the ponies sold better than the previous year, so it's not all doom and gloom and since the auction there has been a steady stream of enquiries and sales.

I am sure that the good forage last summer helped the sales because the winter feed bills can be quite expensive if hay is in short supply.

In November, at the Devon and Exeter racecourse, the Dartmoor Hill ponies had a great opportunity to show off their all-round ability with their young jockeys when they were given the chance to ride like the big boys in their very own race in front of a huge crowd — a great thrill for young jockeys.

This is the time of year for farming conferences and the national Oxford conference started the ball rolling in the first week in January, followed by the dairy conference and CAP (EU common agricultural policy) meetings continue.

Being election year the farming community will also have its chance to question MPs on their election manifesto policies. One of the many questions I am sure will be asked will be what has happened about cutting down on red tape, because very little seems to have happened after an initial long inquiry about this resulting in a wish list. 

I am sure businesses other than farming will be asking the very same thing and all we ask is for a common sense approach and for civil servants to listen to those at the grass roots level to help solve the problems. It seems so simple yet to date there has been no action.

I wonder what their promises will be and who knows what 2015 will bring us all. I am sure we will face an interesting year ahead.