The scurs and the Weather Eye are convinced that our thermostat must be stuck open, hence the continued cool temps. Will changing to a hotter thermostat help the cause or are there other problems afoot? Starting Wednesday, mostly sunny with a slight chance of evening rain and snow. Highs in the mid-40’s with lows in the upper 20’s. Thursday, mostly sunny with highs in the low 40’s and lows in the mid-20’s. Partly sunny on Friday with a modest chance of rain and snow. Highs in the low 40’s with lows in the low 20’s. Saturday, partly sunny with a good chance of rain and snow. Highs in the mid-30’s with lows in the upper teens. Partly sunny for Sunday with a modest chance of rain and snow. Highs in the mid-30’s with lows in the upper teens. Monday, mostly cloudy with highs in the mid-30’s and lows in the low 20’s. Mostly cloudy Tuesday with possible snow/rain mix. Highs in the upper 30’s with lows in the low 20’s. Sunrise is back before 7 a.m. on March 30th, the same as it was back on February 24th before the government magically created an extra hour of daylight. The normal high April Fool’s day is 49 and the normal low is 29. The scurs don’t believe it’ll warm up until they see it.
And somewhere in here we have to sandwich in another Full Moon, actually another Blue Moon, or Moon With No Name a la the Spaghetti Westerns. The 31st marks the date of our second Blue Moon for the year. The last time there were two Blue Moons and February without a Full Moon was in 1999. This won’t happen again until 2037. Due to the 28-day month, February is the only month that can occur without a Full Moon. The next Blue Moon occurs in 2020. So there. Now you’ve been mooned for another month!
Our progress towards spring continues to move at a frozen snail’s pace. Not only are our high temperatures well below normal, it’s still freezing the ground at night. Coupled with very little sunshine and now wind blowing across a snow pack to our south, the frost is coming out of the ground very slowly. There were reports as late as last weekend of people driving vehicles on area lakes reporting ice to be very sound yet. One would hope so.
I got to thinking back to 2012 when we had rhubarb already on Easter, which was April 8th. I decided to check the progress of the rhubarb this spring and was surprised to see buds at the soil surface under last fall’s residue. Bear in mind the rhubarb was purposely planted on a south-facing slope. It also has copious amounts of sheep manure under it. I then took my divining rod to determine how much frost might be left in the yard. Again, was surprised in places there was no frost. Some of the area had snow cover much of the winter. However, when I got near trees or any place that hadn’t received full sun most of the day, there was still frost that was tough to penetrate yet at 6” – 8” down.
This didn’t stop me from doing battle with more of the fruit trees however. Since it is rather labor intensive, cooler weather is preferable. Some of the smaller crabapples were finally big enough to do some major reconstruction. When they start out as 12” – 18” whips there isn’t a lot of pruning that can be done. Mowing around them was becoming a pain in the rump and persuading them to grow upwards a while is preferable to getting your eye poked out. Afterwards they looked about half their original size. That’s OK at this point. They’re young, they’ll get over it.
Birds continue to move in and on. The redpolls that were here earlier in the month have vanished, replaced by some house finches. The killdeers are back again. Saw some along the road over the weekend and now their call can be heard from the hillside pasture. The robins are setting up their territory and consuming crabapples while they’re at it. I purposely haven’t pruned the Indian Magic tree yet as it still has a lot of fruit on it. I‘m sure they’ll still eat the fruit even if it’s on the ground, but it makes a good excuse. There are still some small crabapples in the windbreak needing similar procedure to those in the yard. When I put out the black cutworm moth trap in their vicinity, it’ll probably serve as an appropriate time. Then I can finish pruning the Indian Magic tree and call it good.
We officially called the lambing season good on March 21st. The ewe that had held on forever finally had hers, a nice set of twins, one of each. The weather being so crummy, they’ve been a little slower to start than we’d like. They’re large extreme lambs and with the temps being subpar, the ewe either has a milk quantity or a quality problem so the ewe lamb has been helped some. Hopefully she’s worth it, although I can count on one hand the number of bottle lambs we’ve ever raised that turned out to be contributors. They’re cute yet the novelty wears off quickly.
When one considers the amount of time taken to mix the milk replacer up, put it in bottles, place the bottles in a hot water bucket, put the leftover milk in the fridge, bundle up, head out the door, feed the little urchins, come back in, take off your barn clothes, wash the bottles out, same with the nipples, then dump the water in the pail out, congratulations! You’ve just burned up about a half hour. Now, multiply that by four to five times a day and you begin to understand why bottle lambs can become the bane of a shepherd’s existence this time of year. In other words, bottle lambs suck, both literally and figuratively.
See you next week…real good then.