I’ve a hankering for a normal year of weather where the seasons are what we expect.

Spring should have intermittent rain with lush green grass growing. Cows would be happy grazing out day and night and milk would be flowing with production rising steadily. The grain men would be ploughing and tilling the land, getting crops in early. Grass fields would be reseeded where necessary.

Then summer would follow with the main silage crop being pitted in early June. By now, grass growth would have steadied and the cows would be sustained on grass alone. The soil temperature would be warm and some rain would fall every week.

Surplus bales would be stowed away for the winter. Imagine cows need three bales each for the feed deficits during the year. Is it any wonder that the number of bales harvested is important?

It’s a time when lots of jobs would get done around the farm and the cows would come and go easily at milking times. They’d be stretched out in the field by day enjoying the sunshine. Children and teenagers would be painting, white washing or power washing, learning the work ethic of farming life.

Topping would be done, rendering the fields like an extension of the lawn. There would be a sense of summer and an ease of mind brought about by the satisfaction of farming and having family around. Enough rain would fall to keep crops and grass growing steadily. Clover would flourish and farming would be satisfying.

Then we’d slip into autumn. The children would return to school rested and happy. The harvesting of crops would begin; the grazing rotations would lengthen. A bit of meal would be fed to cows and we’d slip into winter with good fodder in the pits and sheds full of straw and maybe even a bit of hay for calves.

While the winter might be harsh at times, we’d welcome a bit of frost to kill the germs of the year in readiness to start over again the next spring.

That used to be Irish weather.

And now...

We are in the height of summer. It is not very warm and so growth is back.

The weather apps are being searched for any sign of rain. The rain is there and then as the days approach, the rain disappears from the app and the sky. It fails to fall – it is frustrating.

There is a definite moisture deficit. An undetected blocked ballcock caused a water trough to overflow gently for two days here. The grass responded immediately, jumping out of the ground. Tim put a picture into the farming WhatsApp group to illustrate the moisture deficit.

Fertiliser was spread three weeks ago and there was no response. The actual measurement of grass growth on this farm is 34kgs dry matter per hectare. It should be 60 to 70 at this time of the year. The cows are on

4kgs of ration and 4kgs of silage – both cost.

The ration bill is mounting up at a time when we should be clearing feed bills. The silage is surplus bales that were taken out a few weeks back. We’d much prefer to be keeping them for winter feeding.

There is a lot of talk around kitchen tables about the management of this difficult summer. Growth is just slow. After grass is particularly slow.

Those fields coming back into production always relax the system. That’s not happening this year. We forget that fields got poached twice in the spring time during wet weather.

Grass will recover quite well after one poaching but two is a different scenario. We can add a third poaching into the mix as fields were poached during a wet autumn too. So three poachings, lack of heat and shortage of rain all tell the story of poor growth.

Hopefully, rain will come and we’ll get a bounce in grass growth that will reduce the stress that farmers are feeling.

Teagasc and farming publications are all telling the same story.

Meanwhile, it is important to keep to the rotation and feed where necessary to allow the grass to build up to normal levels. A few days rain would be a huge bonus to farming. It will come.

Maybe next year we might have a normal year. Wouldn’t that be pleasant.