Regrettably, I wasn’t down in Carron, Co Clare, last Sunday for the annual Burren Winterage Cattle Drive – where the cattle are walked to the Burren uplands for the winter – but I was down there the previous Sunday.

Taking the advice of no less a person than poet Seamus Heaney who, in his poem Postscript, strongly recommended a visit to the Flaggy Shore in “September or October when the wind and the light are working off each other…”

Normally, I should be too busy in the fields at this time of the year and especially so if the wind and light are not only doing magical things on the Flaggy Shore but in Co Meath as well. But such pleasant conditions have been rare this autumn, certainly in Meath.

We had a lovely day and I was sorry to leave for home

So I chose my day to visit the north Clare coastline – on the southern side of Galway Bay – carefully.

And all the better when it was a Sunday which was perfect for open-top motoring in the little two-seater Mazda, Mrs P in headscarf and shades, me incognito in Biggles jacket and tinted goggles. We had a lovely day and I was sorry to leave for home.

It is the most ideal and unique place to out-winter cattle

But I want to return to the Burren Winterage for the moment.

Because the Burren uplands comprise flat limestone pavements with plants and foliage growing in the gaps between – the grykes – it is the most ideal and unique place to out-winter cattle. It’s always dry underfoot, a warm lie after the summer sun and with generally benign, frost-free mild Atlantic weather.

Prominent

Cattle have been out-wintered here for centuries and at least one prominent Co Meath cattle-farming family still send stores down to the Burren.

It is a symbiotic system whereby the cattle are removed in late spring to allow the rare plants and flora and fauna to flourish.

I and many others hope this ancient practice continues

Without the winter grazing, undesirable plant species such as hazel and scrub take over which is already happening in some under-grazed areas.

I and many others hope this ancient practice continues because, let’s face it, it’s easier to check your cattle in a slatted shed rather than a strenuous rock-strewn upland walk – quads aren’t an option – to find your animals. And particularly so if you are a part-time farmer (as you’d nearly have to be).

I now think the days of wintering our stores on silage alone – without meal – are probably over for the same reason

Besides, the 30-month age restrictions mitigate against a prolonged store period of no thrive as opposed to pushing store cattle on with feeding meals in a shed.

Which brings me conveniently back home. I now think the days of wintering our stores on silage alone – without meal – are probably over for the same reason.

And now especially so as the under 30 months premium is raised to 20c/kg over base price.

Equally, the new penalties for overweight carcases of 420kg plus mean the days of heavy and older cattle are now over.

Time for sowing running out

On the tillage front, we got most of the first wheats sown (variety Graham) in the min-till fields but while the soil tilled up nicely, springs are the problem creating wet holes where you’d go down to your b****x as I did.

These wet areas were left and it’s unlikely they’ll be sown this autumn as time is running out.

What’s sown by 10 November will be it, except for winter beans which I hope to get in.

In a wet autumn, there’s nothing to touch the plough and one-pass

As I write, we have begun to follow the plough with the trusty Kuhn Accord in stubble fields which were spread with slurry and dung.

In a wet autumn, there’s nothing to touch the plough and one-pass and it is always encouraging how nicely min-till fields plough up. But as conditions are marginal, a dry spell following sowing is highly desirable.

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