The scurs were on the right track, predicting Thursday’s rain and the weekend snow perfectly without all the drama from the Twin Cities blow combs. How will this week stack up? Starting Wednesday and Thursday, partly cloudy with highs of 35 and lows of 20 – 25. Partly cloudy becoming mostly cloudy by afternoon with a moderate chance of snow. Highs 30 – 35 and lows 20 – 25. Mostly cloudy Saturday with a moderate chance of snow possibly mixed with sleet. Highs near 30 and lows around 15. Continued mostly cloudy with a chance of light snow on Sunday. Highs 25 – 30 and lows around 20. Partly cloudy Monday through Tuesday with a slight chance of snow on Tuesday. Highs around 30 and lows near 15. The normal high for December 15th is 26 and the normal low is 9. On the 15th we will see 8 hours and 55 minutes of daylight and on the bright side, will only loss about one more minute before the days start getting longer once again. The scurs are waiting for that last minute to tick off the daylight clock before they consider thinking about and Christmas shopping. We just barely got over Thanksgiving. Patience, grasshopper.
The weather has begun to behave more like winter is setting in. The snowfall was typical of an early season system with lots of moisture per inch of snow. We were also the lucky recipients of more moisture that in all likelihood will soak into the ground as opposed to running off. How much snow did we get? Tough to tell with drizzle falling on the tail end of the snow Sunday but all told about 3” at the ranch. More importantly, it was .27” of moisture when the snow was melted down. While that doesn’t mean the drought is over, it’s more moisture than we had and means we’ve had almost as much precip in December so far as we had the entire month of November.
The snow made travelling treacherous locally as anyone who ventured out Friday night and went north and west discovered. We headed to a Christmas party west of LeCenter and were wondering how slippery it really was as we were following a pack of cars. Suddenly one of the cars ahead of us drifted out of control into the oncoming lane of traffic and luckily managed to pull out of it before anything serious happened. Case closed. Better to get there a few minutes late than a few hours late or not at all. Fortunately or unfortunately depending on your point of view, the snowplows had dumped enough salt on some areas of the road to rot out cars for several years to come. Some places they had not and oddly enough, we still managed to get where we wanted to go by slowing down and taking a little extra time.
Snow is made for kids and Border Collies. One could sense the electricity in the air after church as the kids were fidgety and obviously couldn’t wait to get outside to play in it. Little did they know that more was on the way, potentially causing visions of school closings to dance in their heads. Ruby enjoyed that snow as much as any kid. Later that morning as I was grilling, I heard the sound of jaws snapping and heavy dog panting. I laughed and shook my head as I saw Ruby happily jumping and grabbing at the feather-pillow snowflakes as they fell. Might as well do like Ruby and enjoy it I guess. We’ve likely got a few more months of entertainment.
Tube Steak the ram returned from the friend near Chatfield who leases one every fall. They always come back in better condition than when they left and this time was no exception. In recent years, payment for the use of the ram has come in the form of knitted woolen wear from Gary’s own sheep. This year the item was a stocking hat made from natural-colored virgin lamb’s wool. Very soft to the touch as compared to the wool from the adult ewes and a pretty dark brown to boot. Without a doubt it will be warm although I’ll probably never know. Mrs. Cheviot claimed it for herself. Tube Steak seemed happy to be home and to celebrate, he and Sausage spent the entire day jousting in the pen, churning the bedding up so it looked more like a pigpen than a sheep’s living quarters. Boys will be boys.
We battened down the hatches on Saturday when it appeared we were in for inclement weather, closing the large east doorway on the lambing barn. It was buttoned up well with the use of the cordless drill, some plywood and other assorted scrap lumber. The corn shock was also removed from the yard and deposited in the pasture. Our flock of Cheviot ewes wasted no time attacking the bundles that were still nice and green inside. Toss in a few squash that needed to go over the fence and they were occupied much of the afternoon. They are comical to watch, first descending like vultures, digging and pawing their way through the corn stover, then going back to the barnyard to nap for a while, only to repeat the process in another half hour. Eating and napping is not a bad gig if you can get it.
I knew it was too good to last: gardening season 2013 has officially started. The first barrage of the main seed catalogs we like to peruse over the long winter months arrived and word from Souba’s greenhouse was that there were 7000 geranium and Proven Winner cuttings arriving in the next week. Making matters worse was the fact I hadn’t managed to freeze any squash yet and there are still too many carrots and winter radishes in the refrigerators. That’s still better than the news Mrs. Cheviot suddenly got telling her they’d discovered there was a “one” in front of the 7000 cuttings to transplant. At least there are not 17,000 squash in the garage to process. Once I get started, it’ll only seem like it.
See you next week…real good then.