Finally, the scurs have a glimmer of hope as the Weather Eye is pointed in the right direction. Will we see a relapse or are we on the way out of the Ice Age? Starting Wednesday, cloudy with a good chance of rain. Highs in the mid-40’s with lows in the upper 30’s. Thursday, cloudy with rain likely changing to snow by evening. Highs in the low 40’s with lows in the mid-20’s. Mostly cloudy on Friday with highs in the low 30’s and lows in the upper teens. Saturday, mostly sunny with highs in the low 30’s and lows in the low 20’s. Mostly sunny on St. Patrick’s Day with highs in the mid-30’s and lows in the low 20’s. Monday, mostly sunny with highs in the mid-30’s and lows in the mid-20’s. Mostly sunny for Tuesday with highs in the low 40’s and lows in the low 30’s. On March 17th we will see a full 12 hours of daylight. The normal high for March 17th is 40 and the normal low is 23. The scurs will have their corned beef and cabbage ready for the occasion.
Do you dislike this time change stuff as much as I do? Well, it appears people are finally getting fed up with the Daylight Saving Time change and are doing something about it. Several states are proposing to stay on DST year round. While I wholeheartedly agree with stopping the nonsensical time change, I’m not jazzed about stumbling around in the dark for an extra hour or having kids waiting for the bus in the dark all winter. Maybe that’s OK in the south, but in the north where odds of slipping and falling on your butt increase, not so much. I’d rather see Standard Time return permanently. If businesses, government and other organizations choose to adjust summer/winter hours, they should have that flexibility. Most of us have cell phones, Facebook, Twitter, etc. While it might (God forbid.) require a little forward planning, people would adjust without the rigmarole of messing with their clocks twice a year.
Of course all of these proposed time change measures at the state levels are contingent upon federal approval to be implemented. Leave it to our federal government to screw something up. If you’ll recall, they were the geniuses who pushed the time change back to early March to conserve energy in the first place. It didn’t work. I think of them every time I use one of those crummy new gas cans. People waste more time and spill more gas using the new-fangled contraptions than they ever did with the older gas cans. If they really wanted to save energy and all of us a lot of grief, they should outlaw these new gas cans!
Doing chores in the low light of Monday morning I was greeted by the singing of a male cardinal. In my semi-conscious sleep deprived state I thought to myself he must be close. Sure enough when I looked up I could make out his shape singing from the silver maple sapling about 15’ away. The sun was just starting to peek over the horizon, so he became more visible with each trip in and out of the lambing barn. Nothing better than listening to someone performing live music while you’re doing the chores.
Chickadees are singing their spring song too, “fee-bee, fee-bee.” They’ve been regular customers all winter as have the goldfinches whose yellow color is making a return. The pheasants put on a show this past week too. On Saturday there were 10, all hens at the corn feeder. Sunday, there were several roosters and no hens. On Monday morning the hens were there early and were joined by several roosters that came running over the tops of the snowbanks. The sun caught the roosters just right, making their breasts look almost red in color as they scurried towards their corn. It’s just nice to see them after a rough winter, all appearing to be in good rig. Most gratifying is the number of hens.
In the lambing barn we’ve whittled the number of ewes left to lamb down to three as of this writing. Thank goodness the weather has warmed some. Hauling numerous five gallon pails of water daily from the house to the barn was getting old. We’re still hauling some 6 quart pails to the lambing barn for the most recent mothers. The ewes like warm water and while they’ll drink cold water, the warm water stays thawed, so they have access longer between feedings. Not only that, but it appears they drink more water and if they drink more water, odds are they’ll milk better. The lambs are the clear winners in deals like that.
Speaking of lambs that are winners, we had one little buck lamb that wound up being orphaned. Doesn’t sound like winning just yet but I’ll explain. Our time to diddle around feeding bottle lambs comes at a premium these days. Luckily there’s Agnes’s Home for Wayward Lambs. After a few days of his noise in the house at the ranch it was time to make a move. I made the call to make sure it was OK and took off with the little tyke.
The gravel roads were a fright, but we were careful and arrived in one piece. A spot was already prepared for the lamb on the porch, right beside a chicken named Myrtle who was convalescing after a broken leg. The lamb would receive care over and above what we could provide it, not to mention being spoiled rotten. I even managed to get a dozen fresh eggs (11 of them were brown) and some chocolate chip cookies out of the deal. If that isn’t winning I don’t know what is.
See you next week…real good then.