Its rained for a few hours here and there in north pembs over the last few days and nice steady light rain, but its nowhere near enough. we have not had our hosepipe ban letters yet but have received advice from welsh water on conservation. our pond is really low and the top springs have almost stopped, our lower spring is still running but its still really dry.
i have been digging a patio and even after the worst day last week the subsoil is dry as a bone.
we have a few fields set aside for haylage this year, our top two look pretty good as we got the animals out early this year - but our hay fields which we have to set aside later under government subsidies for wildlife are looking terrible with almost no growth at all. lots of really tall seed grass but no substance and really patchy. we need a few more days of rain here to really make a difference then a nice long dry spell to cut

next year we are def thinking of pulling out of the payment scheme as the grass is really needed now and not later and the scheme does not account for the dynamics of everyday/year weather and growing conditions.
we need and love the rain for our grass, but our campers dont. we may make a little more from a dry spell through camping sale but we cant afford to start buying haylage in early.
bloody weather eh, it never seems to be that perfect year we all wait for.
Baz