Upon further investigation, the scurs determined the heater core was plugged and replaced it. Will the Weather Eye respond by putting out warmer temperatures or are we stuck in air conditioning? Starting Wednesday, mostly cloudy with a slight chance of an evening rain shower. Highs in the upper 40’s with lows in the mid-30’s. Thursday, partly sunny with a good chance of evening rain. Highs in the low 50’s with lows in the low 40’s. Mostly cloudy on Friday with a good chance of rain, possibly a thunderstorm. Highs in the low 40’s with lows in the low 30’s. Saturday, mostly cloudy with a good chance of rain changing to snow by evening. Highs in the low 40’s with lows in the mid-20’s. Partly sunny for Sunday with a slight chance of morning snow. Highs in the mid-30’s and lows in the low 20’s. Monday, mostly sunny with highs in the upper 30’s and lows in the upper 20’s. Mostly sunny becoming mostly cloudy Tuesday with possible afternoon showers. Highs in the mid-40’s and lows in the upper 30’s. On April 16th we’ll experience 13 hours and 30 minutes of daylight for the first time since last August 25th. The sun will rise on the 16th at 6:30 a.m. and on the 17th, it will set at 8 p.m. The scurs remain convinced if the weather wants to behave like January and February, we should probably set our clocks back an hour.
Indeed the weather last week was certainly not very spring-like. At times it was more like mid-winter. On April 4th we had a low temperature of 3 at the ranch and at the SROC they recorded a low of 1 above. To make matters worse the high was about 22 that day, roughly the same normal temps we’d expect on January 16th. Heavy wet snowfall that fell primarily on the 3rd amounted to around 8” in town and over 10” at the ranch. Luckily the ground was frozen so moving snow without doing major damage to the yard and driveway was possible. Sad when you have to reach like that to find the silver lining in April. Additional precip in the form of graupel (those snow pellets that look like someone broke open a bean bag chair) followed by an encore performance of wet snow on Sunday has everyone grasping for any positive they can find.
It would be nice to measure some liquid precipitation for a change. It’s much less subjective than measuring snowfall and other frozen forms. Warmer temperatures would help. Checking with local anglers, even though they didn’t attempt it, they claimed it still would’ve been safe to drive an automobile on the ice as of last weekend. As reported by the SROC, March was our 5th month in a row of below normal temperatures. Did you know the latest 50-degree temperature recorded at the SROC was on April 19th in 1951? The latest ice out date for Clear Lake in Waseca was also in 1951 on April 27th. The next latest was April 26th in 1975 followed by April 24th in both 1874 and 1965. Honorable mention goes to the April 22nd ice out in 2013. On that cheery note, someday it will be spring. I promise, he said, fingers crossed while clutching a rabbit’s foot with a four-leaf clover in his pocket.
The extended winter continues to put pressure on hay and bedding supplies. There was seemingly plenty of hay around last fall with prices being fairly reasonable. That has suddenly changed especially for hay of higher quality. Good quality alfalfa in places is north of $200 a ton and straw if one can find it is about the same price. Fear not, all this will go away with the establishment of the buffers and subsequent haying, right? Unlikely in the near term anyway. Much of it has yet to be established and the first year cuttings tend to be full of weeds. In the meantime farmers are irate over the recent fines announced for violations of Gov. Dayton’s buffer strip law. Who can blame them? This administration in St. Paul has been the most farmer unfriendly in many moons. Given the ag economy, those tormenting the goose laying the golden eggs are likely to suffer dire political consequences in outstate MN come election time.
The recent snowfall has definitely prolonged the mud season agony. Ruby can attest to that as her usual choretime romps have been abruptly curtailed. Wiping mud off a Border Collie twice a day ain’t my idea of a good time. Nonetheless she’s had plenty of frozen soil most mornings to get her exercise. Some mornings having her run through the melting snow at her typical high rate of speed helps take some of the mucky mess off when it starts to thaw. And sometimes Ruby even does impressions. During one of the recent snowfall events the snow was swirling around inside the barn door where she was camped. Ruby’s tail wagging, one could’ve sworn she was a four-legged powdered doughnut.
We continue to see an active bird population at the birdfeeders and in the yard in general. After a downy had perfected a hole in the silver maple tree visible from the bathroom window, was disappointed to see a male house sparrow setting up shop in it. That can be resolved quickly should he persist. Between large numbers of sparrows and now grackles, it has suddenly changed the bird feeding pattern. I’m content to allow the feeders with easier access for both species to run empty while maintaining the feeders for the smaller birds. Those feeders won’t allow the grackles access. The goldfinches are slowly but surely turning yellow while the ever present chickadees faithfully land on the feeder, pluck a seed, crack it open, eat it, and return for another.
Probably the most unique bird sighting recently was that of a hen pheasant parked in the silver maple outside the window where I write. She looked very out of place and unsure of herself, teetering on the branches. It was a bit of a surprise to see her and even bigger surprise she perched up in the tree for five to 10 minutes. Not surprisingly she suddenly took flight, gliding towards the CRP and grassy cover. That’s more in line with normal hen pheasant behavior. Hens aren’t noted for their intelligence though. If there’s a pheasant hit on the road odds are it will be a hen. Likewise they’re known for dragging their brood through long, wet grass, losing some of their chicks to chilling. I will give them credit: I’ve never known one to nest in a tree.
See you next week…real good then.