The scurs forecast courtesy of the Weather Eye kept Old Man Winter at bay another week. Do we continue that trend or is it about to regress? Starting Thursday, mostly sunny with a good chance of showers. Highs in the mid-40’s with lows in the low 30’s. Mostly cloudy Friday with a slight chance of a.m. snow showers. Highs in the upper 40’s with lows in the mid-30’s. Mostly sunny on Saturday with a moderate chance of rain or snow showers. Highs in the low 50’s with lows in the mid-20’s. Sunday, St. Patrick’s Day, partly sunny with a fair chance of snow showers. Highs in the mid-30’s with lows in the low 20’s. Mostly cloudy on Monday with highs in the mid-30’s and lows in the low 20’s. Tuesday, mostly sunny with highs in the mid-40’s and lows in the low 20’s. Mostly cloudy on Wednesday with highs in the low 50’s and lows in the upper 20’s. On the 17th, we’ll see just over 12 hours of daylight. The 19th marks the 1st day of spring. The normal high for March 19th is 41 and the normal low is 24. The scurs should have concluded their St. Patrick’s Day festivities by then.
We can officially put the winter of 2023 – 2024 behind us. Or can we? Without a doubt, this has been the warmest winter I can recall. It has consisted of Old Man Winter showing his face briefly then taking power naps. Rinse and repeat. As a result, spring anhydrous ammonia has gone on superbly. We are definitely in the midst of a drought, although as mentioned last week, we were fortunate to receive some precipitation after the crop was mature. What is very evident is the impact hydrologically speaking. With sparse winter precip, shallow wetland levels are down significantly as are lakes and streams. Some are issuing dire predictions about insect pest levels already, although there is more than meets the eye other than overwintering survival. Beneficial insects are affected similarly, so their ability to rise to the occasion is often understated. They like to eat and if there’s abundant food around, that’s exactly what they’ll do.
Not unlike some of the fauna of Bugtussle. It has become a tradition at the Corn Palace that we toss our apple cores outside for them to scavenge. If nothing else, they’re biodegradable and won’t harm anything. Just like clockwork though, when checking the next day, the apple cores had disappeared. What was consuming them remained a mystery. With no snow, there were no tracks, although if birds were responsible, the tracks would be minimal. We finally did get enough measurable snow back in mid-February to provide definitive proof. We’d narrowed the field down to squirrels, crows and cottontails, all of which were seen from time to time. Checking where the last apple core had landed the day before, we had a clear winner. Cottontail tracks were clearly visible. My guess is the north end of Bugtussle will be overrun by Easter bunnies as a result of our benevolence. Sorry gardeners.
The nice weather continues presenting unexpected lambing challenges at the ranch. Most winters, snow surrounds the lot where the ewes are fed, so their excursions beyond that are limited. It’s also thwarted our efforts to keep them at least close to if not in the lambing barn, instead becoming a game of “Where’s Waldo?” When I did a head count before noon bottle lamb feeding, I couldn’t find the tenth animal. I fed the bottle lambs and noticed the group of nine gazing off to the southwest. Sure enough, I spied a small white creature moving around by the aronia berries. There was also a larger white shape by a clump of grass. The NW wind raked my face as I approached to get a closer look. Sure enough, it was a yearling ewe that decided that was far enough before going into labor. After some coaxing and trickery, mother and daughter were inside where it was dry and warm. Yearling ewes have the brains of a gnat and that’s not being fair to the gnat
Other fun and games have arisen as well. Making my way back Sunday from pussy willow harvest, I saw what I at first believed to be another ewe that had lambed in the pasture. She was tearing across the lot behind the house with her lamb in hot pursuit. Really a huge lamb, I thought as suddenly, there was another ewe with a large lamb following behind. That ewe was a natural-colored ewe, however. That couldn’t be as all the natural-colored ewes had already lambed. As I deduced, there had been a jailbreak from the lambing barn. There was no catching either of the ewes or their lambs out in the open. However, after herding them towards the lambing barn and upon uttering a few magic words, they went inside. After reinforcing their pens and putting a gate across the doorway, we vaxxed, docked and tagged the lambs. Later that afternoon they were moved to the main barn where they had more space. Eventually, they’ll all be out in the lot in front of the barn for public display, creating the annual gawker slowdown.
Early garden progress includes seeing more of the radishes planted January 31st poking through. No sign of those planted in February yet. The miniature daffodils with their bright yellow buds will probably be blooming by the time this reaches print. Hopefully the forecast rainfall does the same. The full-sized models aren’t far behind them as are the hyacinths. Have been watering the rhubarb some and Monday, took the hose to the perennials like coralbells and astilbes. I mentioned the pussy willows in the wetland area earlier. They are as nice as ever, although the warm weather is apt to blow them over the dam quickly.
Poppy had a huge weekend with near people overload. I say near as there’s no such thing with a Corgi. She got to meet the TV guy in the morning right after chores. In the afternoon, there were kids in the form of Ellis and Everly to play with. There were also adults to fill in around the edges while they were preoccupied with bottle lambs. A lot of ball retrieval and many zoomies before the last hugs and goodbyes were dispensed. Almost before their vehicle hit the end of the driveway, Poppy was fast asleep at Mrs. Cheviot’s feet, probably dreaming fondly of her most recent human encounters, looking forward to the next.
See you next week…real good then.