The scurs and Weather eye dished out a more typical November last week. Anything less than 50 for a high became a disappointment. Are we back to the 50’s or will Old Man Winter tighten his grip? Starting Wednesday, mostly sunny with highs in the low 50’s and lows in the low 40’s. Thursday, partly sunny with highs in the low 50’s and lows in the low 30’s. Mostly cloudy Friday with a modest chance of evening rain and snow. Highs in the mid-40’s with lows in the low 30’s. Saturday, mostly cloudy with a fair chance of a rain/snow mix. Highs in the low 40’s with lows in the upper 20’s. Mostly sunny on Sunday with a slight chance for snow. Highs in the upper 30’s with lows in the mid-20’s. Monday, mostly sunny with highs in the upper 30’s and lows in the upper teens. Partly sunny for Tuesday with highs in the mid-40’s and lows in the low 30’s. A sneak peek at Thanksgiving Day looks like partly sunny with highs in the mid-40’s and lows around 30, along with a slight chance of rain/snow mix. We continue to lose daylight at just under 2 minutes per day, starting the 21st. We’ll slide below 9 hours and 30 minutes of daylight on the 19th. The normal high for November 19th is 39 and the normal low is 22. The scurs will be loading up for the Thanksgiving feast at Wagner’s and Lerberg’s. Hopefully the turkey police don’t stop their fun.
Most are conceding they’re done with fall fieldwork and anhydrous ammonia applications after last week’s precip left soil surfaces greasy and slimy once they’ve thawed. This hasn’t kept some of us from waiting for freezing temperatures overnight to allow some manure spreading activity without tracking mud on the roads. Aside from that, purchases are being made for the upcoming season’s inputs. Prices have rebounded on the soybean side, such that corn prices will have to respond in order to keep pace on acreage. This hasn’t happened for a few years, so there are plenty of acres that were corn on corn that could go into soybeans, considering the usual higher input costs and reduced corn yields. It is amusing to listen to those who were recently deriding some for raising soybeans suddenly deciding that raising poverty pods maybe isn’t such a bad idea after all.
The pastures at both the ranch and the kindly neighbor’s continue to hold, although the clock is ticking. One can see an uptick in mineral consumption, indicating that, while the ewes may be getting full, the quality of the forage is decreasing nutritionally as well as in volume. One can always put a round bale or two out in case the flock is truly hungry. Usually though, they’ll just pick at the bales a little, then head out to pasture anyway. As long as the pastures remain open, the ewes prefer to wander about, foraging for whatever they can find. Getting fresh air and exercise is just as important for them as it is for humans. Only bad things happen when you stay inside eating to your little heart’s content all the time.
Something unusual happened at the kindly neighbor’s when I stopped there last Friday around dusk for chores. I’d opened the cap on the pickup box to get the shovel to clean out the ewes’ trough. As I closed the cap, I noticed there was something white on top of the cab. A pure white pigeon or dove had landed on it and, as I moved closer to get a look at it, it flew off into the shed and was last seen in the rafters. A few days later I got a call from the kindly neighbor describing the white bird to me. We decided it must belong to someone, as tame as it seemed to be. If so, they might want to retrieve it. Bad things happen to birds sometimes in circumstances such as this.
My sister had a pet pigeon when we were growing up. Its name was Scuttles and she had raised it from a nestling when it had fallen out of the nest. It was a pretty cool pet, all things considered. Scuttles lived in the barn on top of the sliding door to the hay chute. We left the chute door open in the summer and it made a nice shelf for birds to roost. The pigeon had been imprinted by all the human contact. It liked people and was seemingly always interested in what we were doing out in the yard. It had a habit of appearing out of nowhere and landing on top of your head, sometimes leaving a little “present” behind.
In addition to farming, Dad was also involved in real estate. We frequently had people stopping in to go look at property. I recall one lady screaming hysterically when Scuttles became entangled in her hairdo during one of those patented landings. It was almost like something out of Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds.” Of course, we kids thought it was hilarious. Dad probably not so much, as it was unlikely the prospective client bought anything after that episode. Unfortunately, poor Scuttles’ life came to a tragic end shortly after that. Seems a cat figured out where the bird was camping. One day when Scuttles didn’t show up, we went looking for her. Further investigation on top of the hay chute door revealed a pair of feet, all that was left of the avian pet. She was still a lot of fun while she lasted.
Still need to get at barn cleaning, but again, as long as the weather stays relatively moderate, it’s not a rush either. In the meantime I’ve spent seven out of the last eight weekends cleaning and moving things around at Mom’s for the pending property sale. There have been many long days and sore muscles after these events. Plenty of treasures being hauled back to the ranch, too. Of course, the trouble is, in order to house it all, it means cleaning out space for that to happen. In some cases, there are boxes that will need to be sorted through first and the contents integrated into what we already have. In other words, the stuff in the junk drawers from Mom’s will likely wind up in our own junk drawers. It’s really not junk. It just isn’t useful until you really need it and can’t find it.
See you next week…real good then.