Suddenly, the priority is water. The rest of the country may get it free but farmers have not just to pay for it on an ongoing basis but usually have to supply their own.

I looked at the possibility of linking up with the mains supply but the cost was too high so we are totally reliant on a deep well which we sank after the old, shallow well ran out in the very dry summer of 1984, a summer I referred to last week.

Since then – touch wood – the source has never let us down. We have had to replace the submersible pump a few times as the rotors have become eroded with very fine sand grains and we have had to replace the cylinder with the expandable rubber membrane but none of these have been that difficult or, in the overall scheme of things, very expensive.

Fine spell

The current fine spell has refocused our attention on our, or, more to the point, the cattle’s dependence on a single water source with a collection of pipes and water troughs to the fields. We are checking each trough regularly to make sure that the pressure and water flow is up to scratch. If, during a period like this of high demand, the light plastic troughs can get pushed around by thirsty cattle, if empty, they are inevitably knocked over and the precious water can flow non-stop down a field. While the small tanks give us great grazing flexibility in that we can move the troughs easily, I wonder should we put in more permanent paddocks with heavy, stable concrete troughs?

Back-up plan

So what’s my back-up plan? We have one spring on the farm, feeding an old watering hole that has never failed. Years ago, we dammed up the outlet and hired a petrol-driven pump and piping. It was an expensive nightmare, but you only realise how precious water is when the supply is endangered.

Elsewhere, the crops, especially the winter barley, are coming in quickly. We also got our late first-cut silage made last week. It was excellent quality and it was one of the few times that not one drop of effluent seeped from the pit.

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