The scurs had more on their minds than measuring snow this past week and luckily there wasn’t much to measure. Will our fortunes be changing anytime soon? Starting Wednesday, mostly sunny with highs near 15 and lows around 10. Thursday, cloudy with snow likely. Highs of 20 and lows of 15. Cloudy again but warmer for Friday with a good chance of snow in the daylight hours. Highs of 25 and lows near 10. Mostly cloudy for Saturday with a slight chance of snow. Highs of 20 – 25 and lows close to 5. Cloudy Sunday and slightly warmer with an increasing chance of snow. Highs of 25 – 30 and lows of 5 – 10. Monday, cloudy with a good chance once again for snow. Highs of 30 - 35 and lows around 20. Cloudy for Tuesday with a chance of snow and ice mix. Highs of 30 and lows of 25. The normal high for February 22nd is 30 and the normal low is 12. On the 24th, the sun will rise at 7 a.m. and on the 25th, we’ll see 11 hours of daylight for the first time since mid-October. The scurs cannot tell a lie: they are glad the days are getting longer so they can resume lounging by a non-frozen ceement pond.
February 25th marks the arrival of the Full Moon for the month. It is traditionally known as the Full Snow Moon as snowfall during this lunar period was typically the highest for the tribes in the Northeastern U.S. It was also known as the Full Hunger Moon as the deep snow tended to hamper hunting activity. Closer to home the Ojibwe knew this as the Sucker Moon as the suckers would be running in the clear cold streams. On the prairies the Sioux called it the Raccoon Moon as warmer temperatures would awaken the raccoons as they would begin to forage for food. At the ranch, we call this the Barn is Too Small Moon or We Need Fewer Sheep Moon due to the large number of lambs hitting the ground.
We continue to see some colder weather well into February and the way things are going, perhaps a more typical March. Doesn’t this mean snow? Not necessarily. If the pattern of the last decade or so holds, we are more likely to see precipitation fall in the form of rain. This may be a good thing as long as the soils are thawed because it definitely will hold a lot of it. How much will it hold? We have probably built our stored soil moisture since last measurement by 1” – 2” in the top 18” due to snow melting and rains in small amount that did not run off, particularly on fields where primary tillage was performed last fall. The precip tends to collect in the valleys of the ridges and stay there. Since we were looking at 4” – 5” last fall and probably have 6” – 7” now, we can probably hold in the neighborhood of 5” – 6”. Some of the rain that fell back on the 11th however was enough to run off in places as the ground was frozen. The January excavation in our wetland has some water in it now. Hopefully spring rains will refill to capacity once again.
It is still a winter wonderland at the ranch and as such the birds are still flocking to the feeders daily. The cardinals continue to stay faithful and make me hope to hear the males singing come spring. Few bird songs are more beautiful to the ear. By the dozens, redpolls are continuing to descend on the feeders each morning about chore time, greeting us before sunrise. The chickadees scold although I have yet to hear their fee-bee spring call. In the fields surrounding us the flocks of snow buntings this past week have been enormous. It’s the most I can recall seeing since our days as kids listening intently to the turquoise AM kitchen radio for KFIL to announce that Spring Valley schools were closed for the day. That’s a long time ago folks.
Last weekend was shearing weekend and as is frequently the case, we had people come and watch as my friend and neighbor made short work of shearing the flock. It’s tough to shear very fast at our establishment as it really was never designed for sheep but he blew through 48 head in a matter of a few hours including setting up twice. There aren’t many sheep left out here on the landscape anymore and even fewer sheepshearers. It still goes about the same as when I was a lad only the equipment is more modern and we no longer have to tie each fleece into a small bale in the wool box. The fleeces are all compressed into a large burlap wool bag with a hydraulic press. While wool buyers don’t want natural colored wool, frequently the hand spinners will so they must be kept separate. To accomplish this, a man of the cloth was suddenly present so we pressed him into action. We’ll just call him Preacher to protect the innocent. He assisted us in packing some of the black fleeces into individual bags. Well, the Lord certainly does work in mysterious ways.
Ruby and Fudgie continue to enjoy chores more than anything. It’s their opportunity to let off steam after being cooped up for a part of the day. They just launch themselves out the door and not unlike their human counterparts, take spills on the ice especially when they’re wrestling. One major difference however: they have built-in cleats and it’s humorous to see the scarifications they’ve left behind on the ice. Not so humorous if you fall on your rump and examine them more closely.
Girl Scout cookies to the rescue! Seems I’ve made a few trips back and forth to Rochester the past several weeks and as a result, haven’t made the time to force myself to eat. On several occasions, the Dairy Queen I like to frequent was closed, making it impossible to relay the malt price there to the rest of my little fat buddies. What to do? Suddenly it dawned on me: there are several boxes of Girl Scout cookies in my stash in the pickup thanks to Betsy’s crafty salesmanship, er, salesgirlship. Pulling off at an exit, I was able to get the box and cellophane wrapper open to indulge in one of life’s guilty pleasures, a box of Tagalongs. By the time I reached home there was a dead soldier on the seat beside me. Another one bites the dust.
See you next week…real good then.