Being grateful for the part of this earth that we live in

Country Living with Francis Farragher

Probably being from country stock has meant there has always been a little allurement towards the weather and maybe for good reason too. It often determined the workload for the day and also big decisions like when crops could be harvested or whether we’d be kept home from school to help out with some of the more urgent farm chores.

Weather dictated when the ploughing could be done; when the ground could be rolled; whether the hay could be saved or not; the chances of getting turf out of the bog without the donkey sinking near the drain; or the number of blankets that would have to be placed on the bed during frosty winter nights before the era of central heating.

We always had a tendency to moan or complain about conditions. More often than not, rain was the main source of angst as it could put the kibosh on the saving of the hay, a task that seemed to grow increasingly perilous with each passing summer.

Like everyone else, I’ve heard the tales of the good summers we used to enjoy during the halcyon days of the ‘60s and ‘70s, but here nostalgia and selective memories have to be factored into the equation. Okay, so we had our odd good summer here and there but generally wind and rain from the Atlantic were never too far away.

Weather moaning is not a condition that’s easily curable and especially when it’s contracted almost from the cradle but about three decades ago in one of my duties with the Connacht Tribune, I used to get the task of compiling meteorological summaries of months or years gone by.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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