‘Poached.’

I assume it is Hiberno-English, or perhaps just part of the vernacular of farming life in rural Ireland.

‘Poached,’ describes the areas around gateways to fields and water troughs during wet times of the year. Anyone wintering out livestock will be familiar with Grass that has been poached. Green pasture transformed to deep, clagging mud by the heavy tread of cattle.

The first time I heard a farmer declare that he could not turn out cows onto the fresh grass of spring because the ground was so wet that …