The fact it hasn’t rained much for the best part of a week took a bit of getting used to. For a while there, it felt like the mist just wouldn’t go away and that the rain wouldn’t stop. Last week was the first time I’d seen the concrete on the yard dry in a long while.

I went digging for information on how wet the last few months had been so I checked out the data for the weather station on Sherkin Island.

For 2022 there was 1,069mm of rainfall recorded, and for the last four years the average has been 1,148mm. The level of rain for the last five months really stood out though.

From the start of September up until the end of January, that weather station recorded 801mm of rainfall. That’s about 70% of the annual rainfall of the average for the last four years.

Given those figures, I reckon we could see a few dry spells ahead later in the year at the rate rain has fallen over the last few months.

The possibility of dry conditions means I’ll focus on trying to get a decent first cut and pick up the remaining silage depending on grass growth and the level of silage stocks made by the middle of June.

One of the positives from those high levels of moisture is the time of year it came at, so we can be thankful for small blessings.

As a result of the moisture, most field work is running a good bit behind the usual schedule.

Grass growth has been steady enough so far, so to-date slurry has only been spread where ground conditions suited and largely on the grazing paddocks that won’t be grazed till later in the rotation. Once they are grazed they’ll get slurry.

Over the last few years some of the silage ground has got a light coating of dung and this has worked well so far. Doing something like that was never on my radar until I took a chance on it a few years ago.

Getting cows and calves to that ground early in the year proved more trouble than it was worth, so that field is largely used for silage now.

As it’s not needed for grazing until later in the year, the practice is to graze it with dry cows into December and go with dung early in the year when ground conditions allow.

Getting ground set up for grazing and the yard for calving will be the priority jobs over the next few weeks. A few dry cows were let out last week and the process of getting the weanling heifers to grass has started.

Once they have the first few days over them, they will move to paddocks that wouldn’t be suitable for letting small calves into. The more sheltered fields will be reserved for calves and they will be let off in small groups as they arrive.

Audit

I’m due a Bord Bia audit before the weekend and it’s my first in-person audit since COVID-19 entered our lives.

There’s a clear advantage for me to be involved in it as I’m finishing cattle, so can avail of the quality payment system (QPS) bonus, but I can understand the reluctance from suckler farmers to getting involved in it. There’s no tangible benefit to them for signing up to it and it’s another draw on time in a largely part-time sector.