A little cooler for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day perhaps than the scurs predicted, but at least no “storms of the century” appeared out of nowhere. Any surprises for this holiday week? Starting Wednesday, partly cloudy and cool with highs near 10 and lows around 5. Partly cloudy becoming mostly cloudy on Thursday with a slight chance of evening snow. Highs of 15 and lows of 10. Cloudy and warmer on Friday with a moderate chance of snow. Highs of 20 – 25 and lows of 10 – 15. Cloudy on Saturday with a slight chance of snow during daylight hours. Highs near 20 and lows of 0 to 5 above. Sunday, cloudy and cooler with highs of 10 – 15 and lows of 0 to 5 above. Temperatures rebound for New Year’s Eve with highs near 20 and lows of 5 – 10 above. New Year’s Day, cloudy and cooler with highs of 15 and lows of 0 to 5 above. The normal high for New Year’s Day is 23 and the normal low is 5 above. We will see 8 hours and 59 minutes of daylight, about 5 minutes more than we saw on the winter solstice. The scurs will be blowing their noisemakers and celebrating the New Year. That and they’re done Christmas shopping for another year.
This December 28th means Full Moon time is here once again and this one is aptly named the Full Cold Moon or the Full Long Nights Moon as during this time of year the nights are among the longest. A December Full Moon can be called the Moon Before the Yule although this one seems to fall close to smack dab in the middle of it. The Ojibwe knew this as the Small Spirits Moon and the Sioux had several names, including the Moon of Popping Trees, the Moon When Deer Shed their Antlers and the Moon When Buffalo Fetus’ are Getting Large. At the ranch we call this the Moon When Ruby Bites the Garden Hose, as it must be drained following morning and night chores. Thawing the hose and hauling water in 5-gallon buckets from the house in the meantime is overrated.
The snow last Wednesday caught most of us a little off guard. We were initially expected to be sideswiped but it turned out to be more like getting doored. Although it didn’t rank in the top ten snowstorms, not even close, we’ve become so used to precip of almost any form missing us that it left us in disbelief. People were getting stuck in driveways, cars were going in the ditch and accidents in general abounded. This latest precip doesn’t alleviate the drought. It does continue to head us in the right direction however. There was approximately 6” of snow at the ranch with the snowmelt from the snowboard totaling .3” We have measured exactly the same amount of liquid equivalent precip so far in December 2012 as we did in December 2011 as of this writing at the ranch, 1.19.”
The storm even made a mess in our garage. When the cars dripped off all the snow and salt-related crud on the heated floor we discovered the garage exhaust fan had gone on the blink. This made the humidity rise to an unacceptable level meaning something needed to be done. Luckily when we called the neighborhood electrician, his sidekick Ten Eye Ta-Ta (must be Indian for electrician) showed up within 20 minutes. He had everything back to ship shape in no time flat, even after I suggested he should probably deduct some off the bill for using my ladder.
The yard and driveway at the ranch had to be cleared of snow as well. With no forecast for a thaw in sight, it was easiest to fire up the old Mustang 330 and do battle. Pulling someone out after getting stuck in our driveway was not an option. While it takes some time moving snow with small skid loaders, the maneuverability sometimes makes up for it. Read: I hate shoveling any more than necessary. Besides, I wanted to clean out around the LP tank as one of these days that’ll need filling again. Ruby got to bite the tires on the skidloader so she was happy. The feedlot was cleaned Sunday after church and readied for a round bale which should make the sheep happy. I was just happy once the thing warmed up, my behind stayed warm.
The snow brought more guests back to the feeders once again. A male cardinal appeared on Friday, followed by a female that showed up Saturday. A small bag of safflower seed was purchased for their dining pleasure. Goldfinches also were in evidence, singing “sweeeet!” as they discovered full sunflower feeders after the snow. A large number of American tree sparrows were also interspersed with the ground feeding juncos and house sparrows. The tree sparrows seem to do that here from time to time only to vanish as quickly as they appeared. Where they go, no one knows.
As luck would have it, I recently received what on first glance was a genuine Festivus card. It said that a $500 donation had been made in my name to the Human Fund. It looked authentic. It even said “Money for People” on it. Looking more closely, much to my dismay my name was scrawled over the top of someone else’s that had been whited out. This appeared to be re-gifting if ever there was such a thing. I scrutinized the handwriting with suspicion as in this locale, there seem to be a lot of repeat offenders when it comes to fraudulent gifts, Christmas cards and lottery tickets. Just my luck, all the handwriting experts I knew were already off on Christmas break. I even considered going to the Chief of Police to see if we could get a DNA match from the envelope. Rumor had it he was sitting in a police car someplace that was running. Fortunately, the transgressor came forward before I called the FBI. It was Betsy’s Dad of all people! I don’t understand. I’ve never pulled any stunts like that on him. I’ve always used a new card. Just goes to show one can never be too careful around these parts.
See you next week…real good then.