The wind was relentless from Saturday morning and right through Tuesday. Four days of gales made yard work unpleasant and there was a cacophony of bale plastic flapping and wind roaring over the grass. There were times where it nearly warranted wearing a belt on my cap to prevent it blowing away.

It was easy to know where to go to check the out-wintered stock. The eastern sides of ditches proved popular as the westerly wind blew across the farm.

We were spared the snow that fell further inland but they were chilly winds that felt like they snapped at your knees or ankles depending on your chosen footwear.

Despite the best efforts of storm Ciara, it’s still the calm before the calving storm here. Hopefully there’s another fortnight before calving starts and three weeks before its gets manic for a month.

There’s every chance the mature cows will begin at a similar time to the heifers as they are due to polled Herefords and are likely to have a shorter gestation.

The bonus of that is they can pretty much hit grass straightaway and make space. Grass is building up nicely on the more sheltered paddocks and they will be the priority ones for the younger calves. Growth has kicked on since slurry was spread and it’s looking like we’ll be holding off on spreading fertiliser for a while yet. It’s a case of sit and wait for now.

I’m very much a spectator when it comes to politics and the count was interesting to say the least. There’s change in the air. With busier lives, our generation don’t have the same interest that our grandparents and their parents had in politics. There are now more voters who consider the policies over the party.

Unless you have a direct interest you are unlikely to become involved with party politics. That played out in the distribution of seats in this election.

The campaign contained little to inspire agriculture-wise. But that’s nothing new. Agriculture and the environment are ranked below health, housing and education in many voters’ eyes. Indeed there’s almost a fear of touching the environment topic. Debates on it are dominated by extremes, to the point where it becomes ratings-chasing entertainment for radio and television instead of being any way constructive.

There is no vocal middle ground in the debate and until there is it will resemble a schoolyard slagging match.

It will be interesting to see if the gap between rural and urban Ireland grows wider over the next Dáil term.

For those of us interested in farming and living in rural Ireland it’s a no-brainer, but you would wonder do people want to work in rural Ireland?

Using a local example, ICBF is leaving Bandon to move to a different premises in Ballincollig on the western side of Cork city. One of the reasons given for the move is that it’s proving difficult to get graduates to work in west Cork. Bandon is about half an hour from Cork city.

If it’s a struggle to get agricultural graduates to work in rural Ireland that close to a city, what hope is there for more peripheral areas? There are similar issues getting vets to work in more remote locations. Maybe our thinking and policy has been focused on how we do things today or yesterday instead of what the farming landscape will be like in the future.