It always confuses me that there are people who can simply cock an eye upward, frown at the sky and say: “It’ll rain in about 10 minutes.” I assumed that this was some form of inner knowledge which all Irish people were born with to make up for our erratic weather.Before weather forecasts or apps on our phones, we’d be forewarned and happily keeping ourselves dry while the less fortunate got drenched in an unexpected shower.
It always confuses me that there are people who can simply cock an eye upward, frown at the sky and say: “It’ll rain in about 10 minutes.” I assumed that this was some form of inner knowledge which all Irish people were born with to make up for our erratic weather.
Before weather forecasts or apps on our phones, we’d be forewarned and happily keeping ourselves dry while the less fortunate got drenched in an unexpected shower.
Of course this doesn’t always go to plan as I, myself, ended up resembling a drowned rat last week after shunning my waterproofs on a quick run to the fields. My estimated 10 minutes to check cows turned into 20, leaving me high and dry (or low and sodden) when I had to search for an errant cow and calf instead of dashing home before the clouds burst.
It was a race against the weather with our silage as well. It sounded like half the county had the same idea as the hum of tractors was to be heard wherever you went at the beginning of the week before the band of rain swept in Thursday morning.
We only cut about four acres, leaving us with 41 bales but it was still enough to create panic after the tractor decided to get an airlock halfway through gathering. Thankfully with a bit of tinkering by my father and myself, we managed to get it running again, though it was almost fully dark when the last bale was being carried in.
While we expected a few more bales, the growth did stall during the hot spell, but with dry and sunny weather now being forecast it’s likely we’ll get another 40 made this week, though some may be taken off as hay if we can manage it. If grass was steak, we’d certainly be ordering ours well-done as there’s nothing worse than musty hay, so unless we can get a promised run of hot weather, it’s likely we’ll just aim for haylage.
Breeding
Breeding has taken off at last, with a number of cows now served and it wasn’t the cow kicking me this week, but myself, as it dawned on me one day I’d forgotten to inject them with copper before letting them out this year.
It’s something we have to be wary of as our cattle tend to be low in it and this could be a reason why they were slow to show heat. As most of our cattle are Limousin or Limousin crosses, it’s more difficult to recognise as they don’t show an obvious red tinge to their hair, though I should have noticed they were slow to lose their winter hair.
We were disappointed to get a notification for another contiguous TB test, unfortunately our third since the end of September.
While any test is a hassle, having young calves makes everything twice as difficult as they are liable to behave like sheep and find the most obscure hole to escape through.
It’s a stressful occasion all round, even when it’s just once a year, never mind every four months, which seems to be the loop we’re now stuck in.
It’s infuriating to say the least, continuously testing without seeing more positive results on a national scale, and I don’t mean on the cows’ side.
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