With no rain in the forecast a decision was made to mow the second cut last Wednesday. Having ground away from the temptation of grazing is cursed here at times, but it has its uses when it comes to building silage stocks.

I could handle the appearance of a bit of drizzle around the middle of the day, but it gradually became more relentless, until the mower was pulled out around the halfway point. In the greater scheme of things, it was a minor inconvenience and it was back in action on Thursday, with bales made on Friday.

There’s a good bank of fodder in the yard and by the first week of July, we’ve made more bales than at the same point last year. That’s all down to the rain which, I’ve given out about but I’m grateful too at the same time. Sea mist descended on Sunday afternoon and soaked the grass, while concrete remained bone dry.

A break from it would be nice, but I know there are other parts of the country where the soil moisture deficit is starting to hit now.

Looking at the rainfall figures, from September to last weekend, the weather station on Sherkin Island measured 1,253mm of rain. That’s higher than the annual long-term average (LTA) of 1,137mm and the monthly averages from March to June are all ahead of what they were last year.

I didn’t make it to the Teagasc beef open day at Grange last week, but I caught up on some of the articles from it and it’s a positive to see that there is more of a focus coming on labour efficiency.

Along with making things easier on-farm, it has huge potential when it comes to attracting the next generation into drystock farming.

The price range of the options for making your farm easier to work on vary from free to very expensive, but whether you’re farming on a full or part-time basis, it makes sense to consider them.

Some involving newer technology will likely be at the upper end of the cost-wise, whereas other options could be as simple as choosing between a difficult or easy way to do a job.

I’ve a small bit of rearranging work to be finished at the young stock yard to try and streamline animal movement and crush work, so the thinking cap will be firmly on in that regard.

That will fill up a chunk of head space over the next few weeks, but will be worth it in the long run.

It was put on the long finger this past winter and I paid for it with one or two animals not thriving as well as they could have simply because I wasn’t in a position to give them an extra dose.

It was easy to sort cattle on the crush side of the yard, but those further away were a different story and an extra pair of hands was needed to do that.

They weren’t easily available so those jobs were skipped.

Most farms have time-consuming jobs that there is no way around, but it would be a good exercise to go through where you could save time and/or money.

It’s probably a good discussion group exercise as a fresh pair of eyes will see something that you miss by seeing it every day. Those choices can make the difference if you’re trying to encourage new blood into the sector.

The tolerance levels among younger generation for hard work for the sake of it aren’t like they used to be simply because they have more options open to them now. I don’t see that changing anytime soon and there’s no harm in that either.