Back in May, I was extolling the pleasures of farming through the driest winter and Spring that I had ever recorded – and hoped that there would not be a price to pay later!

Unfortunately, my worst fears have materialised with the majority of Scotland in a similar situation to the horrendous 1985 and certainly worse than 2012. Since we finished first cut silage on June 5, only twice have we had more than two consecutive dry days.

Since early August, we have been looking for a weather window to ensile our second cut – that was September 16 to 19th. All but around eight acres is in the pit and though it may be far from vintage, we have enough silage to see us through until next June.

We have certainly made a mess of some fields which will need to be repaired when conditions allow, with a 30-acre field likely to be re-seeded next spring. The consolation is that we know where this winter’s muck is now going!

Sheep now have the job of clearing up the area which was too soft to travel on with forage equipment and who knows, we may yet get a weather window to enable us to do some repair work to the damaged fields?

Fortunately, damage to grazing fields was avoided because we started housing grazing cattle at the beginning of August, with the gates closed on the last cattle at the beginning of September. This left the MacGregor brothers’ sheep to clean up the grass fields.

With such a wet June, July and August, beef cattle that have been housed are certainly taking a little longer to motor on, probably because they have hardly had a dry bed for so long and wet grass does not bode well for good daily live-weight gains.

Usually, during what we call our summer period, we have some empty buildings that get any necessary maintenance. But that has not been possible this year simply because no sooner had cattle been put out to grass, they were being brought back in again.

My son is now of the opinion that the only way to finish cattle is to forget about grazing and house them all the time. That is almost the same thinking as the Logan family, from Holehouse, as reported in last week’s feature article.

One thing is for sure, if you are farming light free draining land, then count yourself lucky. In a year like this, the difference is like night and day, and in many cases one does not have to travel very far from one farm to another, or even within a farm, to find land in Scotland that can be very different.

Having said that, there is no doubt that our country can be split east and west, which is largely divided by rainfall, though I am not so sure that is quite so relevant today as it was historically.

For example, I have a friend in Lincolnshire who tells me he had 19 days consecutively when he had rain at some time of the day and that he has only half his normal straw baled. He certainly will not have any surplus to sell to his Welsh customers.

Straw, on a UK-wide basis now seems to be in a shortage situation, primarily because of the weather but compounded by its other uses, particularly in Eastern England where it is going into massive plants to be burned for energy.

Even up the east side of Scotland, there are an increasing number of bio-digester units, gobbling up arable acres of crops that were once used to produce crops originally for food production in one way or another. This means that the amount of grain and straw used for cattle is dropping significantly.

Also, because of the late and difficult harvest, a large number of these vast combines are just switching on their straw choppers in order to either min-till, or put the plough in for next year’s crop.

On my journey to Ayr mart, last week, on the dual carriage-way between Prestwick and Ayr, I passed two tractors with loaded trailers of large Hesston square bales. The bad news was that several had a good green braird of crop growing from them!

That gives you an indication of how serious the harvest has been in the West of Scotland. Even the normally free-draining Ayr Racecourse had their three-day meeting cancelled last week-end, so it is not only farmers who are suffering financially.

Across the water, in Ireland, I am hearing of 700 acres of barley which was sprayed five weeks ago and it is still not dry enough for the combine to travel. Now that is heading for a serious loss!

Nearer home, in south Lanarkshire, I know of two farms, one with 700 and the other with 500 acres of barley, where the combines have had a go, but had to pull out because they could not even get out of the headland.

Making matters worse, if you need to come out on to the council road, the problem of keeping the road clear of mud, is another cost.

That said, while we may be having problems with our Scottish weather, it is minor compared to the Caribbean and the US where it has been total devastation for thousands of people.

Living and farming with those conditions is, to say the least, unthinkable, so we should be thankful for small mercies.

On a more cheerful note, we were recently guests of Sir John and Lady Cathie Campbell, in their native Argyll. John drove me through a vast area of Argyll that I had never seen before, assuring me there were thousands more acres to see in this county!

There is no doubt that the changes that have taken place, since he left many years ago, are significant. Sheep have been replaced by trees and tourism, which now must be the largest income earner for this part of Argyll.

The highlight of our visit was Cowal Highland Games. Though we were told the games were not as large as they once were, I was impressed by all the pipe bands, not only at the event but by their march down the main street of Dunoon. It stirred the soul, at the end of a day of glorious sunshine!

One is left wondering how vast the tourist industry in Scotland could be if only the sun shone here a little more often.

John’s nephews are certainly capitalising on the growing tourist industry with their site a Hunter’s Quay a fine example where people enjoy the solitude and beauty of Scotland’s West Coast.

In almost complete contrast, we had a few days at almost the other side of the country at the Highland Cattle Gathering (as reported in the September 16 edition). Sir Michael and Lady Sally Nairn must farm one of the best Highland Estates at Balnabroich, just north of Blairgowrie. Silage was all ensiled and the fields where the cars were parked were left without a tyre mark!

There was a great show of Highland cattle on perfect ground conditions, tractors and trailers travelled through field after field with both cattle and sheep looking tremendous, all capped by a dinner for a 190, with an auction, resulting in almost £50,000 being raised for the charity PATCH (a palliative care charity). Well done for all involved for their hard work.

Now, it is a true saying that one learns something every day. I have always been of the belief that the only country receiving more for their beef than us, was Japan, but this is not the case.

We had a visit recently, organised by Judith Hutchison, from Moffat, of an Icelandic group of mainly beef farmers, who are currently receiving £6 per kg for their beef which, incidentally, is largely from Scottish native breeds.

They only have breeder finishers, with the largest being 150 cows. There are no store cattle sales and the herding is done by horses or, in one case, by drone.

One young lass in the group demonstrated to us on her phone how she moved some 40 cattle through two fields, to the farm steading – no dog, no quad bike or horse – just a drone! I have to say it was impressive!