The first inclination was to help.
A big ash branch had fallen across the road. It was one of the many roads in the area that had been made impassable.
While the branch was large, I reckoned that the loader on the tractor could have shifted it to one side and opened up access.
However as it fell, it had taken down phone and internet wires and one pole was lurching badly to one side.
The official advice was unequivocal – don’t mess with fallen trees especially if there are entangled wires.
With some urging from onlookers, we took that advice and phoned the local office of the county council.
The reply was immediate and I was told that the overseer in charge of our area would be told and not to do anything in the meantime.
Within an hour chainsaws and a heavy duty loader were on the scene and the road was cleared.
We had spent the previous day preparing for the well-warned storm.
We replenished the generator with fuel and gave it a trial run to make sure that it would operate the pump to keep cattle and house supplied with water and moved as much loose material that might cause damage into closed outhouses.
In the event, while the local town was without power and garages couldn’t operate petrol pumps, we had no problem.
Road-blocking branch
Unlike with storm Darragh, we had no outages whatsoever and apart from two trees down and the road-blocking branch, everything was pretty normal with thankfully no damage to slate roofs.
Though, that said, we are still in discussion with the insurance company gathering photographic evidence of the damage caused by storm Darragh and we also have to get a builder’s estimate of how much it would cost to fix the damage.
Not surprisingly, between the wind and rain, it brought all thought of any field work to a full stop.
So slurry to the grassland and the first dressing to the crops will have to wait.
Meanwhile, we have applied for solar panels on a south facing five-bay lean-to.
Having gone through all the figures and being judged eligible for a 60% TAMS grant, we signed up.
To qualify for the grant, we are going to have to do a farm safety course as it is some time since we did the last one.
The local Teagasc office had a few suggestions so we will follow up.
Separately, the beef cattle are coming fit in dribs and drabs and we are tentatively beginning to replace as we sell.
With all the talk of increased incidence of TB in cattle herds, it’s a long time since I have seen such clear evidence of significant deer activity on the place.
We adjoin a small wood and I can only assume they are hiding in there by day and then crossing a deep ditch at night leaving their telltale hoof marks.
Apart from the danger of spreading TB in cattle, the last thing we need traipsing around growing crops is wild deer.
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