The scurs and their Weather Eye have their eyes on taking another step forward in their quest for spring. Will progress continue or will Old Man Winter step on their toes? Starting Wednesday, cloudy with a good chance of daytime rain turning into snow by evening. Highs in the upper 30’s with lows in the low 30’s. Thursday, mostly cloudy with a slight chance of rain during daylight hours turning into evening snow. Highs in the upper 30’s with lows in the upper 20’s. Mostly cloudy on Friday with a modest chance of snow. Highs in the upper 30’s with lows in the mid-20’s. Saturday, mostly sunny with a slight chance of snow by evening. Highs in the low 40’s with lows in the upper 20’s. Mostly sunny on Sunday with highs in the upper 40’s and lows in the upper 30’s. Monday, mostly sunny with highs in the upper 40’s and lows in the upper 30’s. Mostly cloudy for Tuesday with highs in the low 60’s and lows in the low 40’s. On April 15th the normal high is 57 and the normal low is 35. Even though their house looks like a rummage sale, the scurs will be paying their taxes. Wonder if the IRS takes used 8-track players?
Little in the way of real progress in the fields was made this past week, again. Some very scattered reports of some scratching around and rumors of fertilizer being applied with very little evidence backing it up. The pattern continues that there always seems to be more farming done in the coffee shop and on social media than in reality. Frost, as reported, last week is largely out, so it’s a matter of getting soil conditions dry enough to allow fieldwork to commence. Precipitation has generally been light so the largest hurdle has been getting temperatures and breezes to cooperate. It wouldn’t take long if that were to occur. Some of the few area hay fields are starting to green up; cool temperatures have made for a slow start in that department as well.
More signs of spring included a large salamander crawling along near the walk-in door on the barn on the 5th. Apparently the frost gauge on the door frame is accurate as it’s highly unlikely a salamander would be out for a stroll with the frost still in the ground. I briefly traversed the wetland area for the first time in many moons. My curiosity was rewarded as I discovered the wood duck house wasn’t occupied yet; nothing other than deer mice had used it recently, so it was time to clean it out. Some years I’ve been down there as early as late March only to find new wood duck eggs already deposited.
On that same excursion I also determined there was at least one pussy willow shrub. I clipped a few stems and brought them back to the house. My curiosity got the best of me, so over the weekend I took a more thorough inventory and discovered not one but several of the bushes. Their existence was a surprise and Mrs. Cheviot was certainly glad to see them. This time of year they’re in demand for decorating and we put them to good use. With pussy willows in the spring arrangements and a good supply of red osier dogwood for winter, the wetland offers more than just wildlife habitat.
The chorus frogs in the wetland have grown a little louder every evening, reaching a crescendo Monday night after the 70 degree day. Pity it’s going to get much colder again before warming back up. Our first tree swallow appeared Sunday morning. More progress but again, cold weather may dampen their enthusiasm. Tree swallows are almost exclusively flying insect eaters. Not much for flying insects when temperatures are at or below freezing. In addition there was a brown creeper Sunday that clung to a window screen on the house. Later it was spotted looking for insects on the trees. There was also a yellow-bellied sapsucker attempting to tap into the Norway maple. The sap is definitely running. The male cardinal has developed a symbiosis with the squirrels. When the squirrels sit on the ear corn feeder the cardinal appears to clean up the crumbs they generate. Best of all the cardinal sings afterwards. Come to think of it, since it’s spring he sings almost all the time.
Striped gophers (thirteen–lined ground squirrels for the elitists) were spied right after press time last week and there was evidence of fresh pocket gopher mounds in some area road ditches. Spies report ice went out on St. Olaf and Beaver Lake over the weekend. On Saturday there were still some ice shelves floating around although they appeared to be gone by Sunday. It’ll soon be time to put the docks in without fear of an iceberg crumpling them. Great to see kids fishing off the docks again.
We finally found the lamb we had been looking for: the last one of the lambing season. Since the ewe had twins however and we weren’t there for the blessed event, we’ll never know exactly which one was last. Oddly enough, the ewe that lambed last this time around was one of the first ewes to lamb last year. As a wise man of Bandwagon dancing fame once told me though, it’s not when they’re born it’s when you find them. Seriously, in the 30 years we’ve been lambing here at the ranch, this February was amongst the most brutal. That’s when two-thirds of our lambs were born, all without supplemental heat. Having to cut a path through the snow with the skidsteer from building to building got old too. We made it however. Now if we can just get most of the precipitation to remain in liquid form, we could start to see light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully it isn’t just the train coming from the other end.
See you next week…real good then.