Dusting off the Ruby hair from the keyboard, the scurs have readied themselves for another week of weather prognostications. Will we go back in the deep freeze or get another reprieve? Starting Wednesday, mostly sunny with highs of 35 – 40 and lows near 25. Mostly sunny on Thursday with highs of 40 – 45 and lows of 25 – 30. Partly cloudy on Friday. Highs of 40 – 45 and lows above freezing at 35. Mostly cloudy becoming partly cloudy on Saturday with a slight chance of rain and/or snow. Highs 50 – 55 and lows around 30. Mostly sunny on Sunday with highs near 50 and lows around 35. Partly cloudy and continued above normal on Monday. Highs 50 – 55 and lows around 35. Partly cloudy for Tuesday with highs again near 50 and lows falling back to 25. The normal high for December 1 is 32 and the normal low is 16. The scurs are hoping the warm weather holds long enough to get in one more dip in the ceement pond once the ice on it melts.
Mother Nature played a wicked trick on us Thanksgiving Day. It was amazing to be swatting flies and watching boxelder bugs parade around while we grilled on the patio that afternoon. The front ended up taking temperatures from the mid-50s for highs in the afternoon and dropping it down into the teens Friday morning, then down to 8 above the following morning. As we’ve said before, 8 is not a temperature, it’s a shoe size. We should probably get used to it but after being spoiled, it becomes more difficult to accept that it is/was late November and it gets cold.
The holiday itself was uneventful as we hosted my Mom, brother, his wife and mother-in-law. Oh, and Fudgie, my Mom’s Border Collie, of course. A whole turkey on the grill has become nearly routine over the years and luckily this year the bottom didn’t fall out of the blender containing the basting sauce. Much smoother to deal without that sticky mess again. The leg of lamb was an easier addition than I would’ve guessed although with a new grill and rotisserie, it made me nervous operating two grills at once. With brother Roger stepping up to the plate to be a hero though, we were in like porch climbers. The meal was a combined effort with Mrs. Cheviot carrying the bulk of the load inside with generous additions, from all who were in attendance. All in all a bountiful harvest.
After dinner it was time again for the annual running of the pumpkins, where we roll the pumpkins down the hill and laugh as the sheep chase after them. On Thanksgiving Day his year however the pumpkins looked and rolled similarly to deflated basketballs. Low temperatures in the teens will do that to a pumpkin once it warms up again. It still didn’t dampen the ewe’s enthusiasm for gnawing a hole in them to get at the seeds. Luckily we had an abundance of pumpkins, thanks to the generosity of my Mom, Shannon Shoenrock’s uncle and the Dubya’s who enjoy watching the sheep devour them. There were plentiful enough so we could stagger their distribution. They didn’t seem to mind the fact they were hard the following day, the ewes’ sharp incisors making short work of the frozen orange pumpkin flesh.
Bringing the ewes back Saturday from the kindly neighbors’ was among the most uneventful of any year since we’ve pastured sheep there. They were in their pasture a long time this season, since May 15th checking back in the records, making it a shade over 6 months. While I was taking Mom back home, Mrs. Cheviot had gone over to the pasture and slipped some feed in their mangers, shutting the barn door behind them. Ruby got aced out of a job but as windy and cold as it was, it was nice to have them ready to go. Ruby gets plenty of exercise as it is doing chores and playing ball so no worries there. The sheep had done well on the pasture once again, fat and sassy as they filed out of the trailer on their home turf. Fortunately there were still pumpkins left so they wouldn’t feel left out.
Bird activity has been about what one would expect for the colder temperatures sans snow. Plenty of woodpeckers and huge blue jays at the suet as well as nuthatches and chickadees. The goldfinches have continued to live up to their nomadic reputation, coming and going depending on the day. Probably the greatest sighting was Friday morning as the sunlight and light breeze were rattling the hoar frost loose from the trees. 3 rooster pheasants disrupted the ewes’ pumpkin eating frenzy as they attempted to make their way from the CRP across the bottom of the pasture. The early morning sun shone on the roosters’ bronze breasts making them stand out from the dead brown grass in the fenceline. An even prettier sight had to be the 3 hens bringing up the rear, letting us know there are still birds out here and some left for seed.
See you next week…real good then.