I don’t recall as challenging a 12 months in farming as the past year. Twice in little over a decade we have had years that tested the mettle of many, but it felt like there was more respite then compared to now.

The washout summer of 2012 and accompanying fodder crisis into May 2013 was tough.

That year was an education but less so compared to what followed five years later.

Beginning with hurricane Ophelia in October 2017, through the Beast from the East, the fodder crisis and the drought of summer 2018, it was another testing calendar but even its extremes were intertwined with periods of normality.

Both of those years were like modules from the university of experience.

From 2012, the biggest lesson for me was not to go for bulky cuts of silage and not to wait for perfect weather to make it. The bale count went up but the dry matter digestibility (DMD) percentage plummeted and keeping condition on calved cows was tough.

My second biggest lesson was to play what’s in front of you rather follow than a prescribed routine. There is no more blindly following the spring rotation grazing planner without factoring in the on-site conditions.

If I recall correctly, that was when we stopped spreading fertiliser before the middle of March here too.

My learnings from 2018 centred on dealing with dry spells and seeing whether feed could be grown along with grass rather than feeding silage at grass. As a result, plantain, chicory and red clover all entered the fray and paid their way when ground dried up again in 2022.

But, as tough as those years were, it feels like the last 12 months have been much more relentless.

Higher and more continuous rainfall since July, followed by a cool June when north winds swept in.

If you told me in mid-May when the last of the calved cows had just gone out that ground would be like concrete a month later, I would have questioned your sanity.

But until the rain fell at the weekend that was how ground was and the marks from fieldwork throughout the spring were clearly visible.

It might be too early to say what I have learned from the year gone by. Some labour and cost-reducing decisions paid off so that smoothened the system to make dealing with the difficult weather manageable.

Tightening the tail end of calving to make management easier is under way, with bulling coming to an end shortly

The home ground took real punishment this spring though. Cattle couldn’t get out anywhere else and I’m paying for that a bit now. That’s one area that needs to be looked at differently.

Tightening the tail end of calving to make management easier is under way, with bulling coming to an end shortly. I’m happy enough with the start date of the end of February. It’s manageable and creates far less pressure in the yard compared to starting a month earlier.

Another thing I need to address is being a bit smarter when it comes to feeding on cull stock earlier and freeing up shed space for when it’s needed.

Some stayed out later than needed last year, in the hope that a dry spell would come and high grass covers could be grazed off. It wasn’t to be, so this autumn anything that looks like it needs an extra push to get it out the gate will come in earlier.

There’ll probably be a few more things that come to mind when I take a more detailed look back but, for now, I’ll wait until the dust settles.