The last time we wrote, we were complaining about the rain making harvest tricky, it has been a lot wetter since, with just short of 15 inches measured for the month of October.

Despite the colossal total, we have little to complain about with many folks far worse affected. Most of what has fallen has spent no time getting down into the rivers Isla and Tay and into Strathmore.

The silt that has landed onto fields down there is shocking to see – but I suppose thousands of years of silt deposition is the reason there are such good farms down in that valley. I don’t think we’ve contributed much soil, and no stock – only a little road material.

The year-to-date total is 45 inches rainfall, which is 10 above average for this stage, and close to the expected annual total. Perhaps we’ll have a very dry tupping time!

Scott – the Case tractor fan – has chosen this year to trial a field of Winter barley, I don’t think it has had a single day when the little plants haven’t been under some stress and I’m amazed at how resilient they look – other than the low lying corner which has been drowned out.

Cows were starting to make their presence felt in fields as the rainfall totals added up and we have managed to spend any dry days weaning calves. Cows have left a good bite of grass for ewes to tup on, there is plenty of silage for cows, and some will get back out onto some rough ground after settling down and a herd health test.

I’d like to leave weaning until later, but it seems we are stuck with the end of October with ground conditions here. It’s grand to see calves clipped, dry, settled and tucking into some good silage though.

Calves are 7kg behind last year when everything is counted up, but are a week younger at weaning too. I was a bit disappointed because there are a lot of good calves – but there is also a big change in the herd, with a high number of cull cows weaned early to sell and a lot of two-year-old heifers coming in with their first calf.

The big win is that we are back to 90% calves weaned per cow exposed.

We enjoyed the company of Archie the scan-man one morning when he rattled through 212 cows and heifers to the bull. A cracking set of results leaves us with 199 to calve (94%) with 11 twins almost making up for the 13 empties.

Of course, there is the odd disappointment, but no disasters identified, 46 yearling heifers bulled for six weeks have topped the bill with only one missed. A couple of the cows who have conceived twins have got their ambitions mixed up with their capabilities, but we’ll likely sort that out at calving time.

It’s taken us a few weeks to get the empty cows weaned and sorted out to sell, and in the eight weeks since the cows that didn’t go to the bull were sold, the price has dropped 30p/kg, knocking £100 per head off their value – but still returning well over £1200.

I took five in-calf heifers to the Luing sale in Stirling last week and the strong cull price was well reflected in the breeding ring.

Lamb sales are running behind last year in terms of numbers, but that is more to do with our place in the queue rather than growth rates and if the 180 that should get lifted on Sunday go, we’ll be neck and neck to last year. The difference is that lambs so far average 22kg deadweight (so we can’t get any more weight on them), and are more than £10/head up on the year.

Texel rams are painting the tail-heads of the pure ewes with haste and they are in good form. Lleyn ewes were tidying up some rough grass on a fairly dry moor with plenty shelter among whin bushes when the storm hit. They weren’t creating much damage where they were, so we left them a little longer than feed would dictate.

Our quarterly health planning meeting threw up a high fluke risk and we have got on and dosed them a good while before tupping and they don’t seem to have taken much harm with all the rain.

Both kids are studying at University now and we have just benefitted from ‘reading week’. I’d not heard of it, but it transpires to be a handy week where lectures are suspended in order for students to return home to help with weaning calves and feeding cows.

As one of them diligently keeps up to date with work and the other hasn’t yet found the library, they’ve both been happy to get wellies back on and give the student loan a little boost.

We took advantage of some extra help to get a night away in Glasgow at the Scottish Agriculture Awards. We had a really good table and it was a great crowd.

What a fantastic night, and well done to all those nominated. It’s good to be reminded that we have a great industry – and it’s good for the soul to get into the city for a few hours.

It reminds you that – even when the weather is rubbish – it’s much better to be plodging about in wellies than dealing with all the folk and traffic in town.