The first forecast for 2020 had the scurs and the Weather Eye predicting continued warm temps with light precip. Nailed it. Are we about to move from the winter weather doldrums or will our luck hold? Starting Wednesday, mostly cloudy with temperatures rising from the low 20’s into the low 30’s. Thursday mostly cloudy with a slight chance of drizzle. Highs in the low 40’s with lows in the low teens. Partly sunny on Friday with a slight chance of snow. Highs in the mid-teens with lows in the low single digits. Saturday, mostly sunny with highs in the upper teens and lows in the low teens. Mostly cloudy on Sunday with a slight chance of snow. Highs in the upper 20’s with lows in the low 20’s. Monday, mostly cloudy with a modest chance of snow. Highs in the upper 20’s and lows in the low teens. Mostly cloudy for Tuesday with a slight chance of snow. Highs in the low 20’s with lows in the low teens. The full moon for the month occurs on the 10th. The normal high for January 10th is 22 and the normal low is 4. The scurs are feeling fortunate they laid in an extra few cords of wood for this winter. They aren’t regretting any extra insulation from the dwindling Christmas goody supply either.
The full moon for the month does fall on the 10th and goes primarily by the Full Wolf moon, aptly named as the wolves would set up shop not far from Native American encampments. This full moon also goes by The Old Moon or The Moon after Yule. The Ojibwe knew this as the Great Spirit Moon and the Sioux called it the Moon of Frost in the Teepee. At the ranch it commonly goes by The Rapidly Spinning Electric Meter Moon. Heating water tanks ain’t cheap folks.
We’ve continued a weather pattern that has included some prolonged stretches of normal to above normal temperatures as well as below normal precipitation. December turned out to be a slightly drier than normal month at the ranch when comparing data to the SROC in Waseca. Normal there is 1.48” and at the ranch we tallied 1.28”. In New Richland it was dead on with 1.48”. Interesting to note though was that nearly an inch of the precip fell as rain measured on the 29th and 30th. It was probably lucky as we could’ve easily wound up with 10-12” of snow as they did farther north. Instead, much of the rain ran off as the local creek levels would indicate. Anytime we don’t have to move snow it’s a moral victory.
After last year I know better than to get too smug about purchasing a snow blower to keep the snow away. I’ve only used it once this winter on the pre-Thanksgiving snow. Since then I’ve been able to manage the small nuisance snowdrifts in the driveway with the skidsteer. No cab, but it gets the small jobs done in a minimal amount of time. Sure beats hearing a tale of woe if someone gets stuck trying to make it up the hill. If NOAA and other sources are right we may see our snowfall fortunes start to change after mid-month. Snow is one thing. Bone chilling cold like last year is another.
Probably the most disappointed people have been the ice fishermen. Rumblings of people driving on the ice with larger vehicles are increasing and so are reports of people going through the ice. Funny how that works. In places ice is reported to be 10-12” thick locally. However as we’ve mentioned before, it’s a good idea to know the lake and where the potential thin spots might be before taking the chance. It makes no sense to make the evening news or worse to become a statistic.
Life continues to roll along into the new Year at the ranch. The lambs born in late November and early December are huge, taking advantage of the moderate weather conditions. Save for the wind adding a little variety, about all we could ask for might be a little more sun. Sun usually comes with a price this time of year however. If it’s clear, especially at night, it typically means it’s going to be cold. It would be nice to schedule sun for the daytime and clouds at night. At this point the memory of last winter is still etched in our memories and we’re just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Will be very surprised if it doesn’t.
We’ve had the luxury of watching the wildlife around the yard not only in the mornings, but in the daytime during the recent holidays. The pheasants leave the evergreen trees during morning chores about sunup. They tend to switch up where they roost around the dooryard each night, a wise idea to evade the owls and other predators. The cardinals can be heard about the same time every day as they continue to pick up pieces of corn left behind by the squirrels. The squirrels planted a fair amount of corn while the ground was still thawed. Enough so that one wonders what would happen if we sprayed the backyard with glyphosate since most of what they buried was Round Up Ready corn. Would sure save a lot of time on mowing and the input costs would be minimal. Tempting.
The plethora of recent sporting events on TV helps shorten the dreary winter days, at least between chores. What a thrill to watch the Gophers upset Auburn in The Outback Bowl on New Year’s Day, achieving their best record since 1904. This was followed by the Vikings pulling off an upset in the playoffs over the Saint on Sunday. After having hit some bumps in the road, it’s amazing what they can do when they’re healthy. It’s more fun to be a fan when we can say, “They did it!” as opposed to saying, “Wait ‘til next year.” We owe our neighbors to the east and south several anyway after this past season. Anytime we can beat the Packers, Badgers or Hawkeyes in football or even tiddlywinks it’s a good day.
See you next week…real good then.