For many rural people today marks the beginning of the best three days in their year, the National Ploughing Championships in Ferns, Co Wexford.
Billed as the largest outdoor farming event in Europe, the championships have a dynamic of their own, and it's very difficult to explain what goes on at them to those who have not been there.
The dozens of ploughing competitions provide the perfect excuse for people to get together and enjoy themselves well away from the ploughmen and women.
Such sentiments are heresy to the formidable Anna May McHugh, the managing director of the National Ploughing Association, who has been running the event for many years.
She sees the dozens of ploughing competitions on stubble and lea, with horses and vintage ploughs, as being the very kernel of the gathering which has grown dramatically over the past 10 years.
With 21 ploughing competitions involving 317 competitors from every county in Ireland and six other countries, Anna May waxes eloquent about the skills of ploughing and the interest in it.
There is no doubt that there is a great interest, but the majority of people who visit the championships seldom visit the competitions.
For the uninitiated, championship ploughing is about as interesting, and as slow, as paint drying.
Had Anna May been a general she could have conquered the world, because staging the event and providing facilities for 150,000 over three days is an incredible feat.
Car-parking, food, water, power, toilets, entertainment and even accommodation have to be provided for the growing number of people who want to be there.
There are 60 acres of exhibition space, with over 700 stands selling anything from a video to a Volvo. There is millions of pounds worth of farm machinery and other vehicles and hundreds of livestock to be seen.
There are fashion shows, cookery exhibitions, make-and-wear competitions, bands of all shapes and sizes and decibels, bars, burger joints and craft displays, wellie-throwing and best-dressed-person competitions.
This year there is an inter-hunt chase for those who like horses, all kinds of farm produce will be on display and even the Revenue Commissioners will have a stand for those who want to speak to them.
An interesting new development is the fact that this year 22 per cent of the stands are from
Northern Ireland organisations and a further 15 per cent have been taken by overseas companies.
Of course, the championships represent a wonderful opportunity for politicians to show themselves to the people, and this year, as tradition dictates, the event will be opened by the President, Mrs McAleese.
Later in the day the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, will be on the site, and also expected is Mr John Bruton, the Fine Gael leader, who will be accompanied by the Cork by-election candidate, Mr Simon Coveney.
The Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, will be on site tomorrow, as will the farm organisation leaders, who have been monitoring his progress in Brussels since Monday.
If the weather doesn't stay dry, then the event descends into a quagmire despite the six miles of steel track the NPA lays down around the stands.
They say there are three kinds of championships: wellies championships, when the weather is good; wader championships, when the weather gets wet; and "wet suit" championships, when the bad weather persists.
Everyone is praying for a wellies championship so rural Ireland can get on with enjoying itself at Ferns over the next three days.