So what went right in 2017 and where did we make mistakes from which we should learn?

Broadly, I agree with the Teagasc review that it was a better year than 2016 for a tillage and beef system but the returns were not remotely on the dairying scale. But I was greatly relieved in some areas. The torrential rain on 19 November left large lakes in a lot of the tillage fields. I feared for the worst but, in fact, the water receded quickly and all the crops including the winter barley and oats have completely recovered from being temporarily submerged. We have also, despite my worst fears, achieved an excellent establishment of the wheat that followed the oaten straw that we spread with a hay turner after several unsuccessful attempts to bale it.

The only crop we have left to sow is the beans – there is now less than a month to go when the cycle starts all over again with the ban on slurry spreading in our part of the country due to be lifted on 12 January.

Last year for the first time we hired in an umbilical system with a trailing shoe attachment. It certainly saved a lot of travelling in and out of the yard and over vulnerable fields with a fully laden slurry tank so I will probably hire in the same outfit again. The only negative about the umbilical system is that with the high dry matter slurry in a beef finishing system, there is a need for a lot of extra water to be added to the tanks under the slats.

We now at last have enough space to house all the cattle and weanlings and the intention is that we will buy in a pen of weanlings each time a pen becomes free. The problem about buying after Christmas is that it takes a long time for cattle to become available and the longer the year goes on, the more competition there is for stock from the grass men.

Despite the reported national scarcity of fodder, we seem to have enough for the season but one lesson I have learned from 2017 is that we seem to be in a different era for straw prices.