I farm: “Eighty acres of my own land, it’s all grazing land, but there is just over 14 acres of it that’s wetland, which we use for rough grazing. I got into dairy farming in the late 1980s and we put in a herringbone parlour. I’m only four years out; I now have drystock, two cows and sheep.”

Lambing: “I lambed 75 ewes this year in March inside. I sold my first few lambs in Athenry Mart last week – they were 46kg and I got €173 for them.”

Triplet calves: “Our 12-year-old Simmental cow had her first set of Belgian Blue calves on Sunday 11 June. She’s off a Friesian cow. I was milking her, but I’ve reared eight calves off her for the last few years. Every year, she would carry 10 to 12 days past the date; I thought on Saturday she looked a bit off. I was kind of expecting her to have twins, as she was very heavy, but when I went out at half three Sunday morning, she had the three of them out and lying down at her head. She had two heifers and one bull-calf. When they were born, they were all the same size.”

Schemes: “I am in Bord Bia for a good few years now, it’s crazy the amount of paperwork that’s involved. I went into ACRES for this year, the 14 acres of wet ground went in for the flowers [low input grassland]. I put in another field that we didn’t reseed before and then the walls [measure]. I have help from my son, he’s working locally so I’m very lucky. My other son is gone to America for the summer and my daughter is teaching in Dubai.”

Jobs: “I’ve been doing a bit of topping the last few days. We have a John Deere 3300, it’s an old model. I will be making silage in a week’s time hopefully. I will get slurry out around 10 days after the silage.

Turf: “We have our turf in the bog footed. It will be ready to come home at the start of July if the drying is good.”