Page 3 - Eamon Oconnell News Today

The phrase ‘pathetic fallacy’ had been hidden away in the back of my brain from when I studied English in school. In simple terms, it refers to when things in nature reflect the mood of a person.

A vet’s job is to make sick animals better. That’s a very simplistic view, but as a rule of thumb, that’s how it’s supposed to go. When you have an animal that is unwell, you ring the vet with the hope that, armed with the knowledge, the expertise and the meds, they will make the animal well again.

“It seems like the only price that’s on the way down is the milk price,” said an exacerbated farmer in our clinic this week.

As I drove in the driveway after a long day, I saw that my lawnmower ‘Trigger’ was in trouble again.

Forty shades of green – that’s the phrase that has been synonymous with our country for many years and it rings true as I drive around every day.

Hurrying back home one morning last week, I rounded a sharp corner on a back road and was greeted by an oncoming herd of cows, travelling at a decent trot and unaccompanied by an farmer.

This is the one time of year that the stereotype of a large-animal vet is fulfilled — most of the day is spent with my arm in a green glove, shoulder-deep in a cow’s rear end. Classy.

“The man that made time made lots of it and the man that made twine made balls of it”. It’s a phrase I heard lately and it fitted perfectly the scene that I drove toward last week.

We loaded up what seemed like half the house into the back of the car last week for what is quickly becoming the annual trip to Westport, Co Mayo.

Suckler farming is in the spotlight again. The National Beef Welfare Scheme, like all schemes before it, has already come in for criticism, even before it has gotten off the ground.