It was the last couple of days of April before the land could take their weight.
There was ample grass by then and with the sun shinning day after day the grass grew faster and faster.
Cows can only eat so much – they like the very leafy grass best – and some of it was starting to get stalky before they got to it.
Just into June the grass seems to have passed its best as the milk has dropped this last week.
We were very lucky with silage making at the end of last month as the sun shone for a few days and the contractor got our neighbouring farmers' and our silage done and I would think in fairly good condition.
After all our grass was taken in and put in a big pit, tyres are put on top of the plastic sheet to try to eliminate all the air from the fermenting grass – to help preserve it.
Our attention had to be focused on the farm assurance audit coming up last Friday.
You do wonder what could possibly take the assessor four hours, but he brings a very fine tooth comb and doesn't seem to miss anything – even some things I never even thought about.
There were just two or three bits which didn't comply but can easily be rectified.
I had George the five-year-old blonde bull booked in for the market this week.
He looks in top condition just now, and with a bit of a wash and brush up three days before I thought he looked every inch a cracker with his muscles bulging all over his body.
One of the young cows must have thought so too as that night the pair of them must have spent the whole night cavorting around and making a family.
So much so that on my getting the herd in for milking here's George holding his foot and hardly putting any weight on it.
I cursed him all morning and made up the footbath for him to bathe his poorly foot.
That did help him but not enough so I still had to cancel his trip to market.
I would really have liked a look at his foot but being a front foot and him weighing very close to a tonne the job was going to be difficult.
Later in the afternoon I had a look at him again – he was laid at the top of the field being a good old soul.
I walked quietly up to him with a hoof knife in my hand.
I didn't think he would stay laid down but I was able to look at the sole of his foot and found a bit of bruising that he was complaining about.
I finished trimming his hoof and he stood up and toddled off into the collecting yard with the cows with only a quarter of the limp that he had before.
He's booked in for 2 July – but I won't tell him this time!