You could hear a pin drop in every farmhouse in the country as the weather forecast comes on. We’ve always hung on to every syllable uttered by Met Éireann’s forecasters, but now it is as though our lives depend upon it.

Sheer panic has set in. It is not unheard of for farmers to leave their children in the fields to guard bales of straw from opportunist neighbours. Gates are being padlocked and routes planned to avoid going past too many houses, alerting more people to the fact that you have sourced a load of straw.

Long-standing arrangements with neighbours are not necessarily worth their weight this year. You could quickly find that the straw you were counting on has been sold to someone desperate to find something to put into the silage pit.

Fields not farmed in 20 years have been baled – weeds, briars and rushes included. It’s simply the basics of supply and demand. The Dealer knows only too well.