The scurs discovered that Nash Rambler had mistakenly sent them a Kelvinator freezer part for the Weather Eye. No wonder they were having issues! Has Old Man Winter made his last curtain call or does he have one more encore up his sleeve? Starting Wednesday, mostly sunny with highs in the upper 60’s and lows in the low 40’s. Thursday partly sunny becoming cloudy with a good chance of rain. Highs in the mid-60’s with lows in the upper 40’s. Mostly cloudy on Friday with a good chance of forenoon showers. Highs mid-50’s with lows in the upper 30’s. Saturday, mostly cloudy with a slight chance of rain. Highs in the mid-50’s with lows in the mid-30’s. Sunny on Sunday with highs in the upper 50’s and lows in the upper 30’s. Monday, partly sunny with a slight chance of rain. Highs in the low 60 are with lows in the low 40’s. Mostly cloudy for Tuesday with a modest chance of rain showers. Highs in the low 60’s with lows in the mid-40’s. On the 24th we will have gained 5 hours of daylight since the winter solstice. On the 27th we go over 14 hours of daylight for the first time since last August 15th.The normal high for April 24th is 61 and the normal low is 39. The scurs are planning on getting parts direct from Nash Rambler for the Weather Eye. They’re probably shut down for COVID-19.
Snow woes were nearly a memory after this past weekend in area fields. However upon closer examination, there was still a lot of snow left in fencelines, groves and road cuts. Field borders were still damp on Tuesday morning making fields fit to be planted the exception and not the rule where heavier snowfall occurred. As one ventured north and west, snowfall was less allowing field edges to dry more quickly. The ground is in better shape than it’s been for several springs. The last snowfall had abundant moisture but it wasn’t evenly distributed, blowing clear in areas and creating drifts along field boundaries. This week’s forecast while promising rain doesn’t appear to be a washout. Let’s hope we can keep this going.
At the ranch we were starting to wonder if it was ever going to warm up. Smashing ice out of water buckets last week was getting old. Finally being able to leave a garden hose hooked up without draining it was a major milestone. I was concerned too that the snow on the electric fence had grounded it out. Checking to see if it would arc proved otherwise, producing a big, fat, healthy spark. Apparently the wire wasn’t touching the soil surface or anything else that would ground it out. As my Dad once told me, snow itself is not a good conductor of electricity. I wasn’t about to grab onto the fence just to see though.
In the yard the overnight lows from 12 to the mid-teens showed the results on the rhubarb. It was coming along nicely when it turned cold. The leaves were brown tinged from the and some of the larger leaves were wilted. When warmer temps returned the plants took off again giving us hope that we should be harvesting some of the spring favorite soon. Some Schwan’s vanilla ice cream awaits the first pie and sauce of the season. Can you say impatient?
Around the yard I continue to wait patiently for the appearance of the first white-throated sparrows. I’ve heard the calls briefly in the morning but haven’t actually seen one, yet. Normally what happens is within minutes after copy deadline, several show up. There was a brown thrasher over the weekend but alas it hasn’t been seen since. The cold temperatures all but silenced the frogs in the wetland area temporarily. When it warmed up over the weekend they turned the volume back up. It had to have frozen the pond area some of those mornings so one wonders how and where they survive those episodes.
The bottle lambs are surviving nicely. We still haven’t figured Lynch out yet though. As mentioned last week, he continues to eat rocks, primarily small pieces of crushed rock (limestone). He picks them off the driveway when we let him out for exercise. Strange. We’ve put mineral in his feed pan but to no avail. When you try to dislodge the rocks it’s easy to get your finger sliced open on those sharp little molars. It probably won’t hurt him but we’re beginning to think Lynch might be part chicken. If he starts laying eggs then we might have something to worry about.
Speaking of eggs, the brown eggs we received from Agnes C. last week have been the gift that keeps on giving. Some of the eggs were larger than others and I had a little surprise when I cracked the first one open to fry it. It had a double yolk! There was another larger one and that was the same way. I hadn’t seen a double yolk egg since we had laying hens growing up on the farm. Typically they result when pullets first start laying and that turned out to be the case here. I don’t recall ever getting a double yolk egg in the store. They probably have it figured out so that doesn’t happen. It might turn some off but as a farm kid, it’s almost like a twofer. Someone asked if a double yolk egg can produce two chicks. The answer is yes, occasionally, but when they do it usually results in one live chick that out competes the other inside the egg before they hatch.
It also helps to have a rooster involved as we almost found out the hard way when we were kids. One winter my sister and I procured a couple eggs out of the bucket including a peewee. After lining some decorative snowman candy containers with Kleenex, we put the eggs under my bed near the heat register to incubate. We thought it would be pretty neat to have baby chicks hatch out in the bedroom to play with. Unfortunately the odds were stacked against us. Peewee eggs normally don’t hatch and the only roosters we had on the place were in the freezer. Fortunately Mom was always on alert for that sort of thing. When cleaning the dust bunnies from under the bed she discovered our little snowman incubators and fished them out before the eggs exploded. She wasn’t laughing then but I bet when she told Dad they probably couldn’t stop.
See you next week…real good then.