Suddenly, the 8ft high wall collapsed. As it fell into the pen beside the cattle crush that we use for drawing cattle, my first thought was if there had been a child or an adult in the pen at the time, they would at a minimum have been badly maimed or more likely killed. The facts are simple. The wall was built about 100 years ago, of a little concrete holding rubble and rough stones together. It had been built well before tractors and power loaders and was to enclose the yard so that stock could be contained if they were in the yard or prevented from getting in if they were meant to be outside.

In recent years, the wall has doubled up as providing a useful barrier at harvest for grain temporarily held before being loaded on to trucks. We have also taken to dumping zero-grazed grass against it and scooping up the grass with a power loader to put it in the diet feeder for mixing and feeding. That was what we were doing when we clearly applied too much pressure and so, caused the collapse. We now have no option but to dig down, put in a new foundation and build a wall capable of meeting modern farming demands.

Meanwhile, on the day-to-day operations we had a small amount of seed winter barley which we finished on the Tuesday just ahead of the threatened thunder storms.

As on most tillage farms, there is at this time of the year a buildup of fungicide and agri-chemical containers. The local depot was taking them in, for a fee. As in so many cases, farmers have no option but to comply with the prescribed disposal method or incur a deduction from their Single Farm Payment so I dutifully took my place in the queue to have my waste checked as being fit for acceptance.

Not surprisingly, the depot was busy but in some ways, the scene was reminiscent of a prisoner of war camp where farmers were briskly interrogated as to their name, address, herd number, mobile number – not a please or thanks or even as the money was handed over, an acknowledgement that it was farmers and their purchase of inputs that was giving employment and keeping the recycling and disposal company in business. However, the whole operation was efficiently handled and I wondered as I drove away if I was not just nit-picking for the sake of it.