The old belief that cattle don’t mind dry, cold weather is really being borne out this autumn. I have never seen the weanlings we have still out looking so well, grazing down paddocks cleanly and by all appearances, gaining weight. The normal autumn northeast, cold wet wind is a nightmare in comparison.

We have continued to spread slurry with no damage right up to this week – the extension has turned out to be fully justified.

However, the ideal weather for late grazing has its downside. Never coming into November have I seen the ditches so completely dry. Normally, September is the time of lowest flow but this period of dryness has lasted all of October except for one day’s rain early in the month.

While it has let us get all the winter crops sown and rolled in excellent conditions, I am not sure what the effects if it continues will be.

My most immediate concern is that the well servicing the cattle (and house) continues to function.

We are a long way from the county council mains supply and it is not a feasible backup option in the short-term.

We have tried our best to ensure that there are no leaks anywhere in the system but a sensible move might be to do what our forbearers did and put in what is now called a rainwater harvesting system but in reality was simply sensibly placed tanks to capture rain that fell on the roofs around the yard.

We are continuing to sell bulls as they become fit but this year, we seem to have more R grades than normal. Part of the advantage of good data collection and analysis is that my factory can give a print-out easily of how cattle are grading and the comparison with previous years.

As the cattle munch their way through our own wheat, straw and hay, a preliminary calculation would suggest I would have been better off selling the produce of the harvest and leaving the sheds empty but we will see the figures eventually.

One of the miracles of modern agrichemicals has to be the ability of the herbicide I was advised to use to distinguish between oilseed rape and its close relation, charlock.

As can be seen from the picture, the recent application is having an effect.

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