The sun continues to shine around lovely Leitrim these days, though we’ve been luckier than most with a few wet days to dampen any optimistic dust that rises.

It’s enough to keep the grass growing ahead of the cattle, though half of our cows don’t seem to want to stay in our fields to eat it. The smaller group of cattle with the trio calving in winter had been moved to aftergrass away from the farm, accompanied by the old Blonde cow and her calf, with the expectation that she would be the sensible senior lady who’d not take any notions of exploring the hedges for escape routes.

However, she was of the opinion that regardless of age, blondes do indeed have more fun as the first thing she did was come in heat and go on a wander in search of a bull, and of course she brought everyone else along for the jaunt.

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It appeared to be a simple task to rectify and so off went Dad to fix the battery fence, and I was told to arrive in 10 minutes and meet the cows to turn them around on the laneway. I arrived just in time to see the Blonde leading a procession of cattle marching in single file across the neighbour’s field, through the hedge and back, towards the field they’d absconded from.

Assuming all was going to plan I followed after them and it was only when they sauntered past the field in question and started up towards ground we had just spread the last of our slurry on that I realised something was amiss. Well, that and the shouts of my father who had just watched them file past the gate like a troop of soldiers with me traipsing after.

Normally this would not be a problem, except the gates in the top field hadn’t been closed after the slurry went out so it suddenly became a race between myself with a short sprint in wellies followed by a drive around the road while the cows had a shorter yet steeper route to travel. Thankfully, luck was on my side and I pulled up to secure the gate just in time to ruin their adventuring for the evening.

At least the other group of cows are more amenable and are being strip grazed on slightly overgrown pasture. Though they’re not too enthusiastic about being curtailed behind a wire, they’ve respected it so far, allowing the fields ahead of them to make full use of the slurry spread a fortnight ago which we managed to get out right before a few damp days. It’s hard to believe that in another few months we’ll be back to dark evenings but with the blackberries now appearing in hedgerows and crows attacking my apple trees once again, the summer will soon draw to a close.

But for the time being, another benefit of the good weather has been the huge crowds attending agricultural shows as everyone comes for a day out in the sun. Any owner of an ice-cream van these days must be laughing all the way to the bank as there were queues for a 99 snaking around the showgrounds akin to the priority boarding line for a Ryanair flight.

Although they’re starting to peter out by this stage, there’s still a few shows on the horizon, including one of my local ones, Mohill Show. While I’m usually glued to the side of a cattle ring, I’ve my mini-farmer to keep entertained these days. So it looks like I’ll be eyeing up the Bonny Baby class instead of the Baby Beef one.