The scurs and the Weather Eye dished up a snowy forecast last week. Do they have it out of their system or will shovels and snow blowers be working overtime again? Starting Wednesday, mostly sunny with highs in the low 30’s and lows in the mid-20’s. Thursday mostly sunny with highs in the low 30’s and lows in the upper teens. Mostly sunny on Friday with highs in the mid-20’s and lows in the mid-teens. Saturday, partly sunny with highs in the mid-30’s and lows in the upper 20’s. Mostly cloudy Sunday with a slight chance of snow. Highs in the low 30’s with lows in the low 20’s. Monday, mostly cloudy with highs in the low 20’s and lows around 10. Sunny for Tuesday with highs in the low 20’s and lows in the upper teens. On the 9th we are down to 9 hours of daylight. The Full Moon will occur on the 11th. The normal high for December 11th is 27 and the normal low is 11. The scurs are wasting no time Christmas shopping. They’ll wait until the night of the 24th for that.
The Full Moon for the month of December comes on the 11th this year and goes by the name of The Full Cold Moon. It also goes by The Long Night’s Moon as the moon is high in the sky opposite a low sun. It is also known as The Moon before the Yule. The Ojibwe knew this as The Small Spirits Moon and the Sioux called it The Moon When Deer Shed their Antlers. At the ranch we not so affectionately call it the Moon of Frozen Water Buckets, something you can make book on from now until well into March.
Remaining field work and/or harvest came to another screeching last week as heavy snow falling on the 26th and 27th made getting traction difficult, especially after soils had thawed underneath. Fortunately, most were able to get their corn harvest and a major portion of their tillage done. With frozen ground Monday there were scattered farmers out ripping again. Anhydrous ammonia and injected manure applications have been largely abandoned at least for the time being. Odds are unless we see the weather do a complete 180, that’s likely the way it’ll stay.
Area lakes that were well on their way to freezing over back in mid-November opened up once again. Not totally unexpected although some had already done some ice fishing on smaller lakes. A large flock of geese could still be heard within earshot of the ranch Sunday night. Monday a.m. they had kept the water open in the NW corner of the St. Olaf Lake. By Tuesday a.m. the ice covered the lake again and the geese were gone. They must’ve decided to get out while the getting was still good.
If you’ve been thinking this has been a strange year we have some evidence of this at the ranch. We had two ewes that came off the kindly neighbors’ pasture showing signs that they were likely to lamb sooner than later. Sure enough Saturday night after chores I’d decide to dump several buckets of water in the tank by the lambing barn. It was quicker than hooking up the hose and would hold them for a day. Just as I was dumping the last one and headed back to the main barn I heard what sounded like a new lamb. Sure enough when I turned the lights on I could see a couple sets of ears about belly high on a ewe.
I got them scooped up and with the ewe following as Ruby tailed her, we headed off to the main barn. It wasn’t the ewe I’d been keeping an eye on that had lambed back in early February last year. It’s very unusual for us to see lambs on the ground in November and December without doing some hormone treatments. In fact in the 32 years we’ve been raising Cheviots, this is only the 2nd time we’ve had ewes pull it off. Something else that was unusual was the twins were both ewe lambs. Typically when we’ve been caught off guard they’re almost always no account buck lambs. This ewe was bred in early July as the gestation on a ewe is 147 – 152 days, approximately five months. The moderate June temperatures probably didn’t hurt.
It’s been tough to clean barn yet although with the ground freezing up overnight Sunday and continuing to do so the rest of the week it should allow a window of opportunity to get it done. In the meantime the birds have shifted gears with the snow cover. More goldfinches are coming to their feeders, woodpeckers are hitting the suet harder and the chickadees run a relay from twig to the sunflower feeder and back. The squirrels have dibs on the ear corn feeder when the blue jays aren’t around. They have a symbiotic relationship going with the cardinal who picks up the pieces of cracked corn the squirrels leave behind. Pheasants are also coming through the yard. Five roosters and one hen cautiously made their way across the north side of the grove on Sunday. Was beginning to think they were extinct.
Ruby has been busy this winter despite her limp. Keeping an eye on the neighborhood during the day then barking at dogs on TV at night keeps her occupied. Is it just me or does it seem like there are a lot more dogs being used in television advertising these days? There are more ads for dog related products but they’re showing up more in ads for everything from automobiles, beer, credit cards and snacks. This makes it tough to sleep when you doze off and Ruby is watching the tube.
Ruby recently had Thanksgiving to supervise along with keeping her olfactory senses and ears on duty in case something should happen to hit the floor. Plenty of dishes to clean off and best of all the traditional giblets from the turkey on the grill. Gotta keep that coat thick and shiny so we have lots of hair to sweep up. We’ve threatened to get a Roomba. Not sure how well it might work but it would certainly torment her. Odds are she’d hide for days after dealing with that. Might curtail some of the barking at the TV and allow us to get some shuteye.
See you next week…real good then.