It was one of those days when I was going stir crazy with housework. There seemed to be so much washing to be done after a wet few days. I had started off with great gusto. My machine has a 15-minute wash for garments that just need freshening up, so my four clothes lines were filled quickly. That’s all very fine, but the clothes also have to come in off the line and be processed into the ironing pile, the airing pile, the yard pile, socks and jocks and so on. Then all must be allocated to their rightful owners.

Inevitably there will be odd socks, though I never understand what happens to their partners. Unless you run a household, you have no idea of how much dead time washing, hanging out, bringing in, folding, ironing, airing and putting away clothes can take up in a week. When children are small there is a mountain of it. When they are self-conscious teenagers that mountain grows. I thought it would lessen as they grew, but it didn’t. We definitely wash too much.

Most days I take it all in my stride, but that day it seemed never ending. It was time to get away from it for a while.

Maybe I felt under pressure because the workload in the yard has eased and the men are working at a pace they can determine themselves. That’s a real luxury in the quiet times of the farming year. Ours is now. At 4.30pm I decided to take a walk. I put on my body warmer, woolly hat and wellies. The minute I was outside the back door I started to feel better. The sky was a bright frosty blue. A scattering of grey cloud tinged with red, unusually, lit the eastern horizon. High up, a lone jet streaked the sky to the west. The almost full moon was up and bright. I breathed in the crisp, cold, fresh air.

BACKGROUND MUSIC

I passed the farmyard. Colm was piping up a water tank to increase the storage capacity of water in the yard. He has a list as long as his arm of things to do before the calving season. Diarmuid was holding the ladder. Shadow, my faithful Pyrenean Mountain dog, ran to join me. As we entered the cow passage that has now grown a little mucky, the wind gathered around my legs, reminding me of the winter chill. Three chirpy wagtails played between the fences, darting and flitting about. They accompanied us for a while. As we went down the hill towards the wood, other birds were calling out their evening rendition.

Colm was whistling a tune that was travelling on the breeze. It was lovely background music. My fingers started to sting with the cold. I dug them deep into my pockets.

There was a lovely cover of grass on either side of the cow passage. I estimated about 850kg DM/ha on my left and maybe 500 on the right. It was all setting up nicely for the spring.

The incline grew steeper. We turned left at the bottom of the hill into the Pylon field and the new grass seeds. They had been skinned at the last grazing and a nice little cover was coming back. Young grass always grows best, so grazing them late guards against having too heavy a cover for the cows in spring. The last thing we want in spring is a lodging sward. The new section of the cow passage done last year was in perfect order. It reminded me of the Luas. Two separate lines have been joined up. It’s the same in Woodside. The joining of two passages has meant that the cows can graze the faraway plots more efficiently now.

The winter green pastures stretched ahead of me. They were flanked on all sides with the bare branched trees of woodland. The light through the trees changed the view considerably. What is normally a solid green boundary is now a porous prism for dancing light and a window onto the field and river beyond. Despite the beauty of it all, it’s lonely farmland without the grazing cows.

TAKE THAT BREAK

Shadow, who had kept step with me, couldn’t resist the allure of the wood. She ran to the edge and looked back as if to beg for forgiveness before she was away into the trees to check her territory. The woodland paths were carpeted with small twigs and branches following storm Ophelia. Several trees have fallen across the paths. Light started to fade and as it did, the flocks of noisy starlings collected and headed for home.

As we came back uphill towards the yard I could see the dry cows, some standing, some lying in the shed, but all still save for chewing the cud. All eyes fell on me, but not one moved. I love that because it represents familiarity. We go out of our way to keep our animals content. I’m always aware of a “do not make a sound” moment, so as not to startle animals. You never know what job might be on hand.

The only sound in the yard was of the boys speaking softly. Sure enough, they had the young bulls in the crush and were putting rings in their noses. It is really important not to stress the bulls any more than absolutely necessary, so I kept away. I stopped at the lines and collected the washing. I was refreshed and ready to face it. Now my jobs list didn’t feel so daunting.

The value of a break, even for 15 minutes, is immense. All too often we deprive ourselves of the chance to recharge our poor batteries. CL