Problems are still inherent with the Weather Eye. It warms up briefly, then cools back down again. The scurs are wondering if this new American Motors is all it’s cracked up to be. Will we finally get some consistency or are we doomed to continue our rollercoaster ride? Starting Wednesday, mostly cloudy with a decent chance of evening showers. Highs in the upper 50’s with lows in the upper 30’s. Thursday, mostly sunny with highs in the upper 50’s and lows in the upper 30’s. Sunny on Friday with a slight chance of evening rain. Highs in the low 60’s with lows in the low 40’s. Saturday, mostly cloudy with a good chance of evening showers. Highs in the upper 50’s with lows in the low 40’s. Mostly cloudy on Mother’s Day with a modest chance of showers. Highs in the upper 50’s with lows in the low 40’s. Monday, partly sunny with a slight chance of rain. Highs in the upper 50’s with lows in the low 40’s. Partly sunny for Tuesday with highs in the low 60’s and lows in the low 40’s. The sun will rise just before 6 a.m. CDT on the 5th. The normal high for May 9th is 67 and the normal low is 46. The scurs will be keeping an eye on their May baskets, so no one swipes them to regift for Mother’s Day.
The spring has been a rollercoaster ride from a temperature standpoint. We continue to struggle to accumulate much in the GDU department, save for a few days each week. Last week was no exception with some quality accumulations on Saturday and Sunday, totaling nearly 40 GDU’s on those two days alone. It has taken weeks since Easter to gain that much ground, and the crop shows it. Corn and soybeans that were planted around Easter took approximately a month to come up. Some have estimated that the crop planted on April 16th may not be much different if the forecast is correct this week and next. Seed health hasn’t been an issue thanks in large part to the relative dryness of the soil. Therein lies another issue.
Concerns about a drought continue to linger and some indications are it’s becoming more pronounced, especially in areas around us. It has been grudgingly giving us rain a thimbleful at a time. We were fortunate to receive showers of up to a half inch in the middle of last week. Unfortunately, we largely missed the showers forecast this past weekend. This has been prompting farmers to forego their pre emerge herbicides. We were in much the same situation last year at this time. Those who followed their game plan and applied the herbicides anyway were handsomely rewarded when the products performed above expectations. All it took was timely rains in adequate amounts. Especially when it comes to waterhemp, the more sites of action we can throw at it the more likely we are to slow the development of resistance.
The lamb crop at the ranch continues to enjoy the favorable, cooler, drier conditions. They’ve grown at an impressive pace and are consuming feed at an equally impressive rate. The few very warm days we’ve had really make all the animals consume water heavily. No surprise there. Clean fresh water is one of the keys to keeping any mammal thriving. It won’t be too long and we’ll need to start weaning off some of the older animals to get ewes on pasture. It helps keep them from overcrowding, another important key to their well-being. The last lamb, Bunny, was born on Easter Sunday and she is aptly named. She hops more than she runs. She was tiny when born, but we’ll be turning her and her mother in with the main group soon. Bunny’s big enough now to hold her own. She’d love to get out to run when the rest of the lambs cut it loose on cooler nights, judging by the laps she makes inside her pen.
Gardening has been moving about the same pace as the weather, not so unexpectedly. The radishes planted March 9th have started to look like radishes since last weekend’s warm temperatures. The tops are still too small to make me believe there are much for bulbs under them. The nice afternoon Sunday did allow for getting the morning glory residue taken down off the trellises. It wound up being like a large ropy tumbleweed, especially when the wind caught and blew it across the yard. Loosening the soil around the area where the vines had been then tamping it for better seed to soil contact should help the volunteers get going more quickly once it decides to warm up again.
Birds continue to return to the backyard, although not as quickly as one might think given the calendar date. After talking to TP at Wagner’s, it was unanimous that we needed to get our oriole and hummingbird feeders out in case the weekend warmth would move them our direction. There were some reports of orioles over the weekend in more sheltered areas. At the ranch, the ash trees have been struggling to put out leaves, so there really isn’t much cover for them yet. There has been a red-breasted nuthatch regularly feeding at the sunflower feeder and a group of pine siskins that have taken a shine to the thistle feeders. Nice to see them, even though there aren’t the hundred or so that appeared daily during the irruption back in 2009. Lots of birdsong in the backyard between cardinals, goldfinches, a brown thrasher, Harris’s and white-throated sparrows.
We’d decided Saturday after being dead tired that we’d head to Barney’s in Waseca in the Studebaker for lunch Sunday. Cleaning it up a tad from the last outing was no small task. The whitewalls had become gray walls from all the road gunk that they attract. The sides of the car get some of the same grime, so that was wiped down. There were plenty of bugs to be cleaned off the front and windshield as well. I’d left the top and hood, thinking they’d still be clean. After backing the Silver Hawk out, I ran my fingertips across the roof and it showed some light dust. Got the duster out quick and ran it over the remainder of the car, so it was ready to go. A little overcast, but temperature-wise it was comfortable running with the fender vents open. Eating outside once at Barney’s & taking a drive around Clear Lake afterwards was the break we’d been looking for. Was also able to make another reconnaissance mission to assess planting progress. Mission accomplished and can’t wait for the next one.
See you next week…real good then.