The farm on which I live lies at the end of a winding and ancient cul-de-sac. There is no land frontage to the public road, so to facilitate field access, we built an internal farm roadway when we bought the place about 30 years ago.

Now every field has access to this hardcore road and, more than that, it also connects this landlocked farm to the home farm, as the two holdings join in what was hitherto an obscure corner.

To use the current buzz-word, it greatly improves connectivity. But in the manner of all primitive roads, it follows a wandering and leisurely path and shares little with the National Road Authority’s great arrow-straight highways of the Celtic Tiger years.

For all of that, this farm road provides us with a shortcut which effectively bypasses the metropolis of Kildalkey. It’s in continual use so it’s well maintained.

With such good field connectivity, all we’d need is some cows, a couple of robots and, bingo, it’d be a fine dairy farm. But that’ll hardly happen; I have neither the knowledge nor the inclination.

Besides, grain price volatility has the ability to reduce an entire year’s effort to naught and milk, in this new era, can hardly be any different.

It is to this scenic farm road that I take myself for a late evening walk if the weather is encouraging. It also provides an opportunity to look at the crops but I try to switch off and focus on simpler things, such as the luxuriant trees and flowering hedgerows, the birdsong and the honeysuckle.

As someone who can become a little under the weather, walking is a form of therapy. Neither should it stop there; with my cholesterol figure rising dangerously close to my shoe size, I have to try to keep reasonably fit. In truth, I have the slowness of movement of an arthritic and portly Labrador.

Field drainage

The farm road for the most part is bordered by a deep watercourse into which a number of the field drains flow.

Some are old stone shores and others are more recent clay or plastic pipes. In the winter, it’s usual to hear these spilling into the ditch but due to the wet May (122mm), one of these is still running.

I don’t recall this happening before at this time of year, but it’s clearly indicative that the soil is still at field capacity.

I mole-drained one of these smaller fields a few years ago. It’s made a tremendous difference and we certainly should be doing more of it.

We don’t possess a mole plough but if I were to buy one, it would be the proper, traditional type which runs on a long floating skid to accurately follow the field contour. Mole ploughs which resemble subsoilers are only the cheaper toys and in the wrong hands could do more harm than good by ripping through field drains. Consistent depth is very important and potentially you could make a wet hole even wetter.

We have a gravel mole plough but, while it works well, it’s a very expensive job as large quantities of washed, screened pebble are required. Its use is confined to problem areas as opposed to doing the whole field. Gravel moles also work well where the subsoil is unsuitable for conventional mole ploughs.

Finally, at this time, I don’t think I’ve ever seen our winter crops look as well or the spring crops (beans excepted) look as badly. But it’s still a long and winding road to harvest.