The scurs continued tweaking with the Weather Eye and it appears it may finally be yielding some results. Is Mother Nature ready to toss Old Man Winter to the curb or will he remain a squatter for a while longer? Starting Wednesday, cloudy becoming mostly sunny with a slight chance of evening rain showers. Highs in the upper 30’s with lows in the upper 20’s. Pertly sunny on Thursday with a modest chance of snow. Highs in the mid-30’s with lows in the low 20’s. Mostly sunny on Friday with highs in the low 40’s and lows in the mid-20’s. Saturday, mostly sunny with a slight chance of evening rain changing to snow. Highs in the mid-40’s with lows around 30. Mostly sunny on Sunday with a chance of a rain/snow mix. Highs in the low 40’s with lows in the upper 20’s. Monday, partly sunny with a slight chance of forenoon snow. Highs in the upper 30’s with lows in the mid-20’s. Mostly cloudy on Tuesday with a good chance of rain showers late. Highs in the low 40’s with lows in the upper 20’s. The sun will set just after 7:30 CDT on the 24th. On the 26th, the average rate of increase in daylight decreases from three minutes two seconds to three minutes one second. The normal high for March 26th is 45 and the normal low is 27. The scurs are noting their Valentine’s Day stash has taken a beating. Fortunately April 9th is just around the corner.
The clock continues to tick slowly towards spring. In some respects we may be fortunate that it’s taking as long as it is. When we came out of the fall months, we were not long on soil moisture. Given that it’s taking its sweet time melting the remaining snow, we are likely getting some benefit from the moisture it contains. As suspected, there is very little frost in the ground especially where there was snow cover most of the winter. Frost depth measured at the SROC March 13 was 7” under bare ground. At the ranch I checked on the 16th with my frost divining rod and found the ground was thawed down 4” under sod on a north facing slope. On the south facing slope under sod, there was no frost, whether it was under the snow or where it was bare. Same in the garden on bare soil. To really make headway on the snowbanks that are up to 4’ deep, it’ll be beneficial to have nights staying above freezing.
Still a few straggler ewes left to lamb yet. Some are the unplanned pregnancies as we’ve mentioned in past columns, and they are a couple older ewes that either didn’t come into heat or didn’t settle right away last fall. As they trickle in it starts to put more pressure on the small square bale supply while the weather stays too cold to melt the snow off the electric fence. That and the snow is hard as concrete so they could walk wherever they wanted without some kind of barrier. We have plenty of good quality round bales so if some of the panels were dislodged from the ice, a temporary enclosure could be fashioned in a hurry, allowing us to utilize them. Along with giving the flock more space, it would also speed up the chore process. No need to make more work out of the process than one has to.
We’re starting to see some signs that spring will be here eventually. The deer are still traveling the area in large groups although they recently appear to be splintering off somewhat. They’ve been taking the night shift at the ranch, coming within 10 yards of the house some evenings. The pheasants are on the day shift. They’re still picking at the leftovers in the garden at least those the deer haven’t consumed. There are more hens showing up so it’s likely they’ll disperse as well. The goldfinches too that have been regular customers are starting to give indications that they are becoming slightly less interested in the feeders than they were a week or so ago. The cardinals are singing their spring song. Large flocks of red-winged blackbirds have flown through, and robins are more noticeable daily. The chickadees have been singing “fee-bee” for the better part of a month, so spring is lurking out there somewhere. Has to be.
There are subtle signs in the flora that spring might be on the way. The water sprouts on the apple trees serve as a reminder that it’s time to prune them soon. The squirrels have been chewing the bark & twigs on the silver maple. One can see the sap has been leaking into the snowpack below. It also smudges the windows up when the wind is out of the south. One of the best surprises was last Sunday as I was about to light the grill. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something protruding from the ground on the south side of the house. As cold as the weather had been, I was shocked to see the daffodils starting to emerge from their winter slumber. As long as we don’t get any colder and the wildlife leaves them alone, we’re good.
Poppy continues to spend many of her days indoors with the weather being a major factor. That’s OK. She has plenty of toys to play with and lets you know about it. When she decides it’s time to play, you darn well better comply or she’ll keep bugging you until you do. It means many hours of tossing kongs, nylabones and other assorted playthings. Only trouble is, with all the various toys, there are usually one or more missing. Since Poppy isn’t real good about picking up after herself, we spend major portions of time looking under, behind, on top of and inside of the furniture for them. Somedays it seems like we get more exercise out of looking for lost toys than Poppy does playing with them.
Mrs. Cheviot graduated from therapy on Tuesday. It helped immensely and lessened the extra burden on this end. It’s been a long pull but she’s also getting back to work a few days a week. Now that much of the ice has left, she’s decided that it’s safe to walk to the barn rather than using the Gator to shuttle her from point A to point B. That and the Gator has left some nasty ruts in the mud that just about toss you out when you don’t hit them just perfectly, especially after they refreeze at night. Once the ground firms up a little more we’ll tend to those. Not sure it’s quite time to unhook from the snow blower just yet though. Need to keep our options open just in case. Never trust the weather to do you any favors, especially in late March and early April.
See you next week…real good then.