The dry cleaning continues as the scurs predicted, although we did manage to scrape together a couple hundredths at the ranch on Sunday. Are we looking at any more rainmakers in the near future? Starting Wednesday, partly cloudy with highs of 35 – 40 and lows dropping to 20. Partly cloudy on Thursday and slightly warmer. Highs of 40 – 45 and lows of 30 – 35. The nicest day of the week should be Friday with partly cloudy skies becoming mostly cloudy by evening with a slight chance of a shower. Highs around 50 and lows of 35. Mostly cloudy Saturday with a fair chance of a rain. Highs around 50 and lows near 35. Partly cloudy on Sunday and colder. Highs of only 30 and lows of 20 - 25. Partly cloudy on Monday with highs of 35 and lows around 20. Partly cloudy and warmer on Tuesday with a slight chance of showers. Highs 35 - 40 and lows near 30. A sneak peak at Thanksgiving Day looks mild but mostly cloudy. Highs of 35 and lows of 30. The normal high for November 19th is 39 and the normal low is 21. The scurs are busy thawing their deluxe turkey from Wagner’s in the fridge.
There is still some anhydrous ammonia being applied here and there, although the days for that are likely numbered. That and fields where it works adequately are becoming fewer and farther between. It has been a struggle this fall all the way around when it comes to tillage. With the dry soils, wear and tear on equipment has been ferocious. Snapped bolts, shanks, springs and plow lays wearing rapidly have been a hallmark of one of the driest falls in recorded weather history. Worst of all, there appears to be no relief in sight, making it likely that we’ll go into freeze up with very little moisture in reserve for next year’s crops. Counting on snowfall for much help is probably wishful thinking. Living from rain to rain with a crop teetering on the edge of starving for water is nerve-racking to say the least. Oh well, as predicted, it will rain again. Put your money on roughly 10” somewhere around April 14th.
The wind has also been a factor this fall. It is either dead calm or it’s gale force winds howling with not much in between. When it was calm, the maple lost its leaves in the road ditch and they cascaded down the road cut, giving the appearance of a lemon-colored waterfall. The wind has played to my advantage however. The leaves I was convinced needed to be ground up with the lawnmower have largely disappeared so there’s no need to do that. And of course, any that happen to bounce their way across the lawn into the sheep pasture are quickly devoured by the woolies.
It’s getting time for one last push to finish fall work at the ranch and to button things up for winter. The nice weather over the weekend presented a wonderful opportunity to change over to winter oil in the skid loader. It’ll be barn cleaning time any day, so it’s always a good chore to have done prior to that. Repairing the last of the storm-ravaged hay mangers was another activity to check off the list as well as piling up some of the storm-related brush that had accumulated. The perpetually burned out light in the barn caught my eye too. Up the ladder I went with bulb in hand only to discover another of the “Made in China” marvels was broken off at the base inside the fixture. Gee, what a shock.
It also was a good time to harvest the winter radishes, some of which turned out about the size of pullet eggs. They were nothing compared to some of the baseball-sized bulbs raised by Shannon Schoenrock’s uncle, but they were adequate. What was disturbing though was the fact the rabbits had chewed the tops on some of them right into the ground. They had treated the snap peas rudely too, although since there was primarily foliage and not much for pods, it really didn’t hurt anything, yet. It did make me think about the new crabapple and pear trees we’d planted however. From those observations one could deduce it was time to wrap and water them before matters got away from us. Not much for green tissue to munch on so those little trees were apt to be first on their menu. The rabbits may be on our menu if they don’t knock it off.
Birds were more numerous at the feeders this past week. More goldfinches as their numbers have swelled to nearly a dozen. They are particularly fond of the sunflower at this point, probably because the wind doesn’t blow them off the feeders as easily as some of the thistle feeders that become parallel with the ground. Seems to be more blue jays and woodpeckers too, leading one to believe that wintertime is just around the corner.
Looks like we’ll be hosting Mom and Fudgie again for Thanksgiving. Should be a good time to relax, watch the birds at the feeders and do as little as possible other than gorge ourselves. It’ll be time for the tossing of the pumpkins as we ready ourselves for another Christmas holiday season. The Cheviots are always appreciative and make short work of the pumpkins and out of code squash, if they’re not too frozen that is. Of course, it’s not quite the same when auntie Mar Mar is absent. I think her activities in the Chaz Bono Fan Club must be taking up most of her free time these days. That’s too bad. Always looked forward to those blueberry bars...
See you next week…real good then.