After making a call to their local Nash-Rambler dealer, the scurs got them to take the Kelvinator freezer parts off the Weather Eye. Will our warming trend continue or will the woolly mammoths invade once again? Starting Wednesday, mostly cloudy with highs near 20 and lows around 5. Thursday partly sunny with highs in the mid-teens and lows around zero. Mostly sunny on Friday with highs in the mid-teens and lows around 5. Saturday, sunny with highs in the mid-20’s and lows in the upper teens. Partly sunny on Sunday with a slight chance of evening snow. Highs in the mid-30’s with lows in the mid-20’s. Monday, mostly cloudy with a modest chance of a rain/snow mix. Highs in the mid-30’s with lows around 30. Mostly cloudy for Tuesday with a chance of a wintry mix. Highs in the upper 30’s with lows in the mid-20’s. The sun will set at 6 p.m. CST on February 27th. The normal high for March 1st is 33 and the normal low is 16. The scurs are thinking that March will definitely come in like a lamb. Might have some diarrhea, but a lamb just the same.
We did manage to get back out of the deep freeze once again, something that has been characteristic of this winter vs. last year’s model. It may get cold, but the duration typically has been short. We did get plenty of mileage out of the last week’s February snow, however. It laid around, then blew and got stuck to the roads, making county blacktops an absolute fright to drive on for several days. Packed on snow and ice prior to that made the roads rutted, so utmost attention was required if one wanted to avoid going in the ditch. The ditches filled up too, which doesn’t bode well if we receive large amounts of March snowfall.
There are some subtle glimpses of spring already happening. Actually some of them have been in place since January. The horned larks that we normally start to notice in February have been in evidence since back in January. Does that mean it’ll be an early spring? No, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t be either. The male cardinals were heard singing at choretime on Monday morning and the chickadees have begun their spring “fee-bee” song as well. The pheasants that spent much of February sleeping in the trees at the ranch in large numbers are dispersing more. They wing their way through the yard yet regularly with roosters appearing to stake claims to their turf. What has been comical to watch is the backyard encounters between the fox squirrels and the pheasants. Neither knows quite what to think of the other and warily keep their distance just in case. Oddly enough both share a common interest in the ear corn.
The weather warming up over the weekend allowed us to finally move some lambs out of the lambing barn into the loafing area in the main barn. It was definitely about time. Climbing over panels and gates to feed in the lambing barn isn’t my idea of a good time especially when there are a bunch of fat, knot headed ewes trying to get at the hanging feeders you’re carrying. Prior to moving the animals out of the pens, the lambs need to be docked, tagged and vaccinated while the ewes get an overeating disease booster along with ivermectin to rid them of external and any lingering internal parasites. The overeating disease shot does not work on humans.
It’s a noisy affair with lambs and ewes expressing their displeasure with being uprooted and transplanted to another facility. Sometimes for the ewes their protests take the form of downright defiance, heading in precisely the opposite direction that you’d like them to go. Usually if there are twins, the ewe follows fairly well as the scent and sound of the lamb serves as a beacon for them. With some of the single lambs, especially with younger ewes, the bond is there but the process hasn’t been experienced before. The tendency can be to bolt in any direction. Ruby helps run interference in those instances, at least making the ewe think twice and heading her back towards her lamb instead.
Once in the main pen the lambs come unwound like springs, hopping and running in their newly found, larger open area. Like most farm animals, fresh bedding makes their day. The hay is more accessible too so they can continue consuming more dry feed. In another six to eight weeks it would be wonderful to have enough pasture and room to wean some of these lambs we just moved. Chances are that won’t happen but we can always dream.
Ruby is somewhat happier as of late. The bottle lambs living in the entryway made their way into the garage finally. It isn’t as warm but the floor is heated. 50 degrees vs. below zero as it’s been outside feels pretty good. When the car is out of the garage they’re allowed out of their kennels to tear around and get a workout in while we prepare their bottles. Something we’ve tried to do and it appears to be succeeding is the inclusion of a starter pellet dish in their enclosures. They love it as well as nibbling on the small handfuls of hay we give them. If the weather continues to make progress, it won’t be long and they’ll wind up in a pen in the loafing area. Eventually they’ll discover they are sheep. If not we’ll always think they should have.
Auntie Mar Mar took pity on me once again as Unkie Greg paid a visit to my office Monday. Obviously concerned I might starve to death during lambing season, she’d baked a batch of oatmeal raisin cookies and had Gregory deliver them along with some frozen waffles for me. I’m not sure we have any frozen waffles on hand presently but if we do you can bet they’re freezer burned. These are fresh so I won’t know how to act. If I dig deep enough in the freezer though I’m betting I can find some freezer burned egg rolls to go with them.
See you next week…real good then.