Grass is still flourishing all over the farm with the humid weather and even the last two meadows we cut for hay a month ago have yet to be touched.

With full bellies and warm days, the cattle are currently living the life of Riley and it’s very satisfying to take a few minutes to watch them looking so comfortable in the evenings.

Standing at the gate looking over one group of our cows, it got me thinking about how our herd has changed over the years. I’ve a scant memory of the dairy herd we ran, though I can still recall the standing places of each cow in the old byre and which cow wouldn’t let down her milk until she received her share of ration. Back then we had a ragtag bunch of cattle that had more crosses in them than a convent, although it wasn’t until we switched to sucklers in the early 1990s that more continental breeds were mixed in.

Belgian Blues are a breed we’ve been dabbling with from the start and if anyone can recall the bull Elwin (EWN), he was our first foray into the breed and while he was certainly nothing much to look at, the spark of interest was formed. Looking back in our breeding book, there’s a couple of years where we used Blues on almost the entire herd, but their popularity could be a little hit or miss at sales, which is still the case these days.

Charolais is king, as they say, and has always commanded strong prices in the ring around here. It’s doubtful they will ever fall out of fashion like Blues can, though the high hopes for the Culard Charolais breed bringing the best of both breeds fell rather flat around here after a couple of years. I asked about them recently as I’d a notion they might cross well with Salers cattle, only to be told that it’s been years since our AI man was even asked for a straw, so they’d have to be specially ordered in. Sometimes the traditional option remains popular for a reason it seems.

We’re currently grazing two groups of cattle on separate rotations, with the younger calves and yearling heifers near the shed as two of them have yet to go in-calf. We had trialled putting extra lime on one of these fields and it’s certainly been a hit with the stock.

Even though it’s grazed quite bare they return to it time and time again, and we’re planning to spread extra lime on some of the fields which tested for a low pH earlier in the year.

Some mornings have started to feel rather autumnal recently with more of a chill in the air yet with the ground remaining dry, we’ve had a decent chance at topping and treating the rushes as the cattle move pastures. It’s not often we get a good August for this and hopefully it’ll have the meadows in good condition for next spring.

A pile of cleared off gravel has also been languishing in a corner for over a year now, so with conditions to suit, this was spread and rolled on a section of ground which is very difficult to travel on when it’s wet. While it’s rough and ready, it will hopefully be of some help in the future for both man and beast.