If recent history is anything to go by, we are entering a very tricky time in the farming year.

If you recall, this time last year we had negotiated a very mild winter and lambing was well underway when one of the worst snow storms to hit the country happened.   Southland was buried in snow and the damage was severe to the buildings of Invercargill, especially their superb stadium.

Farmers and the economy are still paying the cost of the damage to farming with over a million lambs dead.   And, of course, the recovery of flock numbers takes years.

The timing could not have been worse with the international markets this year demanding more lamb. New Zealand just hasn’t been able to deliver.

Add to that the other drains on New Zealand’s economy in the form of natural disasters and mine calamities and you could justifiably say the planets collided in a very bad way.

As I write, we are approaching a weekend of forecast snow storms as winter fires its last shots.    But, of course, last year it was Sring that brought the worst news, so we’re not out of the woods yet.

As a townie you wonder about the wisdom of shelter for livestock, but the cost far outweighs the number of times it would be utilised.   Afterall it’s generally only a few times a year the weather gets truly severe and seldom does the same province get it twice.    I guess it’s once in 30 years that a storm to beat them all comes along and decimates a flock.

So what can you do but keep your fingers crossed that the weather Gods will smile on a country that has had its share of bad news.  I’ll also have a quiet word with Philip Duncan - heho seems to have influence in all the right places!