Chatting to farmers dotted across the country these weeks has been like a breath of fresh air. Different from the general conversations we’re having with each other – laden with worry and uncertainty – farmers just seem too busy for all that. Since the middle of March, I’ve taken to ringing farmers for a straw-in-the-wind take on what’s happening on their farm. Close your eyes and the image is vivid of the beauty of this time of year on the land.

Not even a global pandemic can smother the surge of optimism that longer warmer days bring

April and May bring with them the joys of spring into summer – especially for farmers – after a long, harsh winter. I can hear that sense of hope in their voices. Not even a global pandemic can smother the surge of optimism that longer warmer days bring to the mood of the farmer, alongside the respite from the hard drudgery of a cold winter.

The cattle have been set free from the shed. Who doesn’t smile at the sight of young calves, tails up, leaping and running into a fresh meadow?

The sizzling hum of the silage cutter and the high-pitched growl of the combine harvester are the sounds of summer

The countryside is a cacophony of sounds from bleating lambs to the dawn chorus. Crops are sown and silage reaped. Sheep will be shorn and sheds will be swept. Fields will be fenced and gates will be hung. Gaps will be bushed and bees in bushes buzzing. The sizzling hum of the silage cutter and the high-pitched growl of the combine harvester are the sounds of summer. It’s all to look forward to from now till the harvest.

“I feel lucky to be a farmer these days,” one woman remarked to me. And yet, that’s said while carrying the worries about price, weather, illness and injury. They never go away.

We are experiencing what it’s like to have real-life worries

For most of the rest of us, this is the first time in our lives we’ve had to really think about where our next pay cheque will come from – will we have a job in a few weeks time? How will I pay my bills? How can I deal with something outside my control? Welcome to the world of farming.

Maybe it’s that sense of built-in optimism that epitomises the slog of the small Irish farmer that is our adrenaline defence right now. We are experiencing what it’s like to have real-life worries, rather than decisions about our next holiday destination or the colour of our new car. And maybe it’s no harm that we are getting this dose of reality; which many farmers might otherwise call life.

Aside from the joys of spring, there are the usual qualms. Beef prices have plummeted even more, dairy farmers fear a plummet while grain growers are counting the cost of a wet winter.

Their rare social contacts of sport, church, the mart, the pub, shows and fairs are gone, too, for an already-isolated group

And lest we forget, they’ll have lost loved ones to the virus, left unable to grieve through the comfort of the Irish family funeral – even more nuanced in rural Ireland.

Their rare social contacts of sport, church, the mart, the pub, shows and fairs are gone, too, for an already-isolated group of people. But life on the farm kicks on. “Does it give for a good day tomorrow? Is that cow in heat? Have the silage men not arrived?” There’s no other way, not even in a pandemic. And it seems it will take more than a pandemic to wipe away that resilient smile on the face of a farmer on a warm day in April or May.

A little human decency

I cannot believe that a supermarket in Cork had to take to social media at the weekend; urging customers to show respect for staff trying to implement social distancing rules. Seriously, there are no excuses for abusing young shop staff doing their best in these extraordinary times.