I cannot remember housing cattle during the first week in October. This year however, following heavy showers and unremitting rain last week, we could ignore the damage no longer.

Paddocks were being badly cut up and the most forward cattle were restless and uneasy and even with giving them fresh paddocks every day, it was clear that thrive was non-existent.

We brought in the most forward stores and put them on silage and a small amount of concentrates to begin with, but they are essentially on winter rations and housed for the rest of the season.

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We have spread the lighter stores a bit more thinly across the place but are still moving them to fresh grass every day.

I don’t like opening the silage pits so early, but in reality, we have no alternative.

We will stretch it to some extent by mixing in some hay with the silage in the feeder. We were also of course hopelessly held up on the tillage side.

This time last year we had the winter barley sown. We have this year’s seed in the yard and hopefully with a dry week forecast, we will begin to make some headway. With no oats this year, we will have a more compressed sowing season which will add to the pressure, but we can only take it as it comes.

Meanwhile, the paperwork that has to be complied with keeps on arriving. This is the first year that we have received a detailed breakdown of fertiliser and lime purchases over the year. I had forgotten that in order to buy fertiliser including lime we had to supply our herd number with the order.

This is obviously fed into the system and is all tied together in the nutrient management plan which we are wading through.

We have to report the amount and type of fertiliser we have on hand on 15 October.

Then out of the blue the demand for the local property tax arrived. Despite the collapse in tillage incomes, the value of the house and one acre is deemed to have risen significantly for the new four-year period compared with the value for the four years that are just ending. The increase in the price of houses is a reality but it seems a bit unfair that the tax on the farm family home should increase just because of location and market movements – but there is little point in objection. The Revenue Commissioners have to be told by early November how I intend to pay it for 2026. I can even have it deducted from the BISS payment!

Meanwhile back to reality – the grass seeds which we sowed later than ideal are at last emerging and there is a green haze appearing across the fields. With no frost, they will hopefully establish before winter.