After the past week the scurs and Weather Eye only wish they could steer us back into the weather doldrums again. Will Old Man Winter continue his icy grip or will we see some relief? Starting Wednesday, mostly cloudy with highs in the mid-single digits above zero with lows around 10 below. Thursday, mostly cloudy with a slight chance of snow. Highs around zero with lows around -15. Partly sunny Friday with a slight chance of snow. Highs around 5 below with lows around 15 below. Saturday, partly sunny with highs around 5 below and lows around 15 below. Mostly sunny on Valentine’s Day with highs around 5 below and lows around 15 below. President’s Day, partly sunny with highs in the mid-single digits above zero and lows around 5 below. Cloudy for Tuesday with highs around 10 above and lows near zero. We go over 10 hours and 30 minutes of daylight on the 15th. The normal high for Valentine’s Day is 27 and the normal low is 9. The scurs are rejoicing. Their goody stockpile will be replenished. Hopefully it lasts until Easter. That’ll be a long time coming.
The cold weather has everyone’s attention after we were spoiled much of the winter. It takes some getting used to, some adjusting to be sure. The wind this past Friday and Saturday sucked the life out of a person quickly. As one sage observer noted, you can dress for the cold, but you can’t dress for the wind. We should be somewhat used to this, however. The past two winters, February was colder than January, and we are rapidly on our way to this happening again, unless late February decides to do an extreme about-face. The present cold spell shows signs of staying put until mid-month and then temps promise to remain below normal until late month. Not much good news in that.
The snow last Wednesday night at a little more than 3” was more than expected. With the wind Thursday and Friday, snow plows and blowers were out in full force. It was no exception at the ranch where the tractor was plugged in in anticipation. More of the lighter, drier snow that disintegrated when it went through the blower. Trouble was, even though it wasn’t real deep, it blew around a lot, so after cleaning the driveway once, I got to do it again. The snow plows weren’t helping matters as I saw a neighbor struggle to get out of his driveway, making several runs at it. I blew a windrow of concrete-like snow 2’ deep off the end of ours. I’ll have to compliment them on the job they did after I cleaned it though. They’ve made a point of keeping it clean ever since.
The weather has made lambing less than enjoyable. More have arrived since the last writing and how they’ve done has been somewhat dependent upon their size and how aggressive they are. We had two sets of twins just ahead of the big chill. One set was a little larger and more aggressive. They were fine throughout the weekend. As a shepherd one has a built-in thermometer. If you put your finger in a lamb’s mouth and they’re mouth is cold, it’s time to act immediately or the animal will be lost.
That’s exactly what happened with the smaller set of twins. They nursed well initially, but due to the wind sucking the heat out of the building, they got chilled quickly. Their mouths were cold, so additional food in the form of milk replacer was called for. More bedding and a heat lamp were added. Heat lamps scare me. More than one barn has burned down resulting from their use. We use them only as a last resort. The one lamb spent about 24 hours in the house and luckily his mother was willing to accept him. That doesn’t always happen. Some days there is a God.
It’s not all gloom and doom in the lambing barn. All bundled up as we are, it’s hard to hear. Not that we hear well to begin with. We’d been watching a little natural colored buck lamb that provides live entertainment while we’re bottle feeding the crew in the pen next door. Cute little bugger, unique color pattern, very animated, sleeps on top of his mom’s heavy fleece like a big fluffy couch. No name for him, however. While we were feeding the pens one morning, I asked Mrs. Cheviot if any of them needed hay yet. She said the black ewe does. “That’s racist!” I said, to which Mrs. Cheviot responded, “You wanna call that lamb Raisin?” A star was born.
The dummy lamb that’s been living in the house is in the garage now and likely will be for a while. While still not real bright, he’s big and super aggressive; two reasons he’s still alive. The will to live is critical. When you let him out of his kennel for a bottle, he immediately does as lambs do, starts poking with his head as if he’s looking for the ewe’s udder. The only problem is he’s so aggressive when he takes a poke at your knee, it’s painful. Hopefully it warms up, so we can take him back outside before he gets too much bigger. We may well be raising our very first attack lamb.
Was talking to a friend the other day and he was saying that there just wasn’t enough time to get everything done anymore. He was wondering if a lot of it was because of cell phones. Makes sense. Too much accessibility just dilutes the time available to focus on the things that are really important, in his case fishing. As I’ve mentioned, I don’t know how many times over the recent years someone has pestered me with calls regarding an expired car warranty, school loans, Google business listing or any other number of time wasters. It adds up. Not only that, some folks decided that if someone else has a cell phone, they’re fair game 24/7/365. To make matters worse, some of us have been foolish enough to receive our emails on the phone as well, compounding the privacy problem. If you have free time, someone seems to think they’re entitled to a piece of it.
It’s a little different for those of us who didn’t grow up with today’s techno gadgets, including PC’s. As kids we were just happy to have a bicycle, a BB gun, a transistor radio, a party line phone and a TV. It’s been a steep learning curve to catch up, which has taken a lot of time. You can imagine how some of us react after we get these updates on our cell phones. Icons change, their locations change and the formats to operate some of the apps and programs have changed. I think we’ve figured out the time loss situation. My plan when I can finally say I’ve retired is to take my 3 lb. hammer and smash one of these little hand held time wasters to bits. Symbolism over substance, but it’ll make me feel better. Works for politicians. They get reelected all the time for doing just that.
See you next week…real good then.