Having survived another harrowing week of weather, the scurs and their Weather Eye will attempt to atone for their transgressions. Has Old Man Winter left the building or just taking a breather? Starting Wednesday, partly sunny with highs in the upper 20’s and lows in the upper teens. Mostly cloudy on Thursday with highs in the low 20’s and lows around 10 above. Partly sunny on Friday with highs in the upper teens and lows near 10 above. Saturday, mostly sunny with highs near 30 and lows in the low 20’s. Mostly cloudy Sunday with highs in the mid-30’s and lows in the upper 20’s. Monday, mostly cloudy with a slight chance of rain and snow. Highs in the mid30’s with lows in the upper teens. Mostly cloudy on Tuesday with a good chance of snow. Highs in the upper 20’s with lows in the upper teens. On the 12th we begin gaining daylight at over a minute and a half per day. On the 14th, we see the sunset at 5 p.m. CST. The normal high for January 14th is 21 and the normal low is 5. The scurs are digging deep into their reserve of Christmas goodies, hoping Valentine’s Day will arrive sooner than later.
We dodged a bullet last week as other areas were buried in over a foot of snow. Not that we didn’t have some issues with all the ice resulting from the storm system as it passed through this neighborhood. When traveling late last week on area roads, they were slippery and, in some cases, rutted from the combination of snow and ice that was packed on them before they froze up. Just 8 hours earlier they were in good shape. Hauling lambs into the locker Friday morning in the fog was an adventure in patience. People tend to be driving too fast for conditions, tailgaters are out in force, and we wonder why the number of accidents is as high as it is. As anyone who has driven while pulling a light trailer on ice knows, the only good thing about a trips like that is when it’s over.
Luckily the interstates were kept clear, so if one really needed to get to one of the major municipalities, it could be done with relative ease. I-90 & I-35 were dry, and traffic was moving normally. The state highways as of Friday still had scattered patches of ice and snow. The county blacktops were in tough shape and the gravel roads still are. The fog did create some beautiful hoar frost on the trees Friday and Saturday morning, so at least there was that. We’ll be heading into what is historically out coldest stretch of the winter from January 16th through the 23rd. Some weather pundits are looking for the weather to change to a more active pattern next week. Not unusual following a warmup this time of year. May want to get familiar with the shovels and blowers again if that’s the case.
It was good to see a couple pheasants in the backyard Monday picking away under the bird feeders. One is always concerned after an ice storm such as we had because they can get iced down, becoming easy pickings for predators. Some pheasants have taken to roosting in the evergreen trees in our yard as I found Sunday late afternoon. While harvesting some greenery for some of Mrs. Cheviot’s decorating creations, a rooster decided I was too close, so he took off, scaring the bee jeepers
out of me. Around the yard bird activity was brisk with the snow, ice, and colder temperatures. The goldfinches have gone through a lot of thistle seed, while the chickadees, blue jays and nuthatches have pulled hard on the sunflower feeders. We still have a flicker visiting the suet along, with red-bellied, downy and hairy woodpeckers. The birds are more interesting to watch than the bulk of what’s on TV anyway.
Taking Poppy out in the middle of the night for her potty break sometimes reminds me of just how quiet it is out here and what a different planet it is just 80 some odd miles north in the Twin Cities. All one needs do is watch the evening news, but I digress. Some nights there’s dead silence here and others there are sounds that I’ve become so used to, they go unnoticed. The train going through Ellendale doesn’t register, although it set Poppy into a barking fit one night. Neighborhood dogs the same. Seems one barks and within minutes there’s a chain of barking they all join into, Poppy included. Then there are more subtle sounds, including those of the great horned owls. They were off in the distance, but came closer. The closer they came the more Poppy barked and the bunnies cowered. Hopefully the owls were able to have some fresh rabbit for supper or brunch.
The sheep are wintering well thus far. Still no lambs, but with Mrs. Cheviot recovering on injured reserve, it’s fine if they wait a while. Just a guess by their appearance that most don’t appear close until well into February. The past couple years have been a bit of an anomaly with many lambs hitting the ground in December and January. It’s tough enough just to keep their lot cleaned out, so one can plop round bales in the feeders every few weeks. Recently the snow was like concrete where the rain had soaked into the drifts left by the blizzard. There was the added bonus of freezing the feed trough legs down, so it needs to (A) warm up, so they can be pried loose or (B) it’ll be time to use the pickaxe. I’m really out of practice on the latter, so I choose A.
Poppy is firmly in charge of live entertainment, although she is growing up quickly. Her vocabulary is ever expanding, and her potty training has been going well. Her interest in the sheep is increasing, checking the gate at chore time. Monday night when I was filling the water tank in the lambing barn, I brought Poppy in with me, so she didn’t wander off. As I filled the tank, one of the ewes came in the barn, unsure what to expect from the new resident canine. It was one of those moments I wished I’d had the phone along and recorded a video. The ewe was a distinctive Cheviot called Baldy that lost her wool as a result of a temperature when she was a lamb. Nursed back to health, she’s arguably the prettiest ewe in our flock. She warily approached the water tank and Poppy, equally as wary, walked very slowly in Baldy’s direction. When they got within inches, they sniffed each other, touched noses then slowly backed off. I chuckled at both of them, betting that it likely won’t be their last dance.
See you next week...real good then.