Before smartphones were invented, the farm diary used to be one of if not the most important book around the farm. It’s where we totted up the annual bills, tallied bales made in each meadow, noted daily weather events and so on. This could then be looked back on in following years for comparison.

Nowadays we don’t even have to go rooting around in the attic for them because our phone will remind us of what happened ‘on this day’ in the last few years.

One of those popped up on my screen last week, playing a video of over half our cows housed in August 2024, with pools of water sitting on top of the fields as the ground was saturated.

A very timely reminder that this year is certainly not the norm when it comes to farming on wet land and, yet, in a few years time our memories will be just as selective when we talk about the great summer of 2026, and we’ll conveniently forget the drought, fuel prices and the likely fodder shortage to come.

While I commiserate with those on drier land, a summer like this was badly needed for farming morale in the wetter areas of Ireland as too many bad years in a row have some farmers ready to throw in the (rather sodden) towel, and we need these memorable ones to stand out and spur us on in times when it looks like the rain will never stop falling.

For now, though, the sun is still shining, if a bit less forcefully than it had been last month, and the slightly cooler weather has allowed us to finally catch our last cows in heat and get them served.

I’ve gone with the usual mix of using Charolais and Limousin across the herd, with a couple of easy-calving Blue bulls thrown in for good measure and, only for the fact that our AI man lives locally, I’d hope to not see him again until next year. I always enjoy looking through the AI books and the breeding behind the different bulls so I can improve upon the cows’ weaker traits, and this year I found out they conveniently turn into picture books to keep my little lass entertained. Nothing like starting her interest early.

On the grazing front, there’s a large wedge of hilly pasture in front of the cows, but with the weather turning slightly autumnal, we’re not grazing pastures off completely in order to keep the ground in good condition for as long as possible. Any which can turn soft underfoot quickly were given priority to be eaten first.

A couple of these probably should have been cut and baled, but the yield wouldn’t have been anything to shout about, so we took the easy way out and let the cows in.

It would be very easy to feel smug looking at the herd munching their way through those lush green fields with grass a foot long but, as mentioned above, most years we’re the ones green with envy as cows are slogging their way through muddy gaps.

When the cows finally get housed, their accommodation has received a long overdue sprucing up, with all the gates and barriers washed and painted, though we’d urge them not to look too closely as the paint is doing a great job of covering up some weak points that have appeared after years of being used as scratching posts. I’m sure after a couple of weeks indoors, the biggest offenders will be revealed as the paint turns them into a bunch of rednecks.