After Old Man Winter’s cruel joke on Monday, the scurs and their Weather Eye are off a lot of Christmas card lists again. Was the snow an early April Fool’s prank or was that just the beginning of Winter 2.0? Starting Wednesday, cloudy with a good chance of rain. Highs in the low 40’s with lows in the low 30’s. St. Patrick’s Day, partly sunny with highs in the upper 40’s and lows in the upper 20’s. Mostly sunny Friday with highs in the upper 40’s and lows in the upper 20’s. Saturday, sunny with highs in the low 50’s and lows in the mid-30’s. Partly sunny on Sunday with a slight chance of an evening shower. Highs in the upper 50’s with lows in the upper 40’s. Monday, cloudy with a decent chance of rain. Highs near 60 with lows in the mid-40’s. Cloudy for Tuesday with a slight chance of a rain shower. Highs in the upper 50’s with lows in the upper 30’s. On St. Patrick’s Day we go over 12 hours of daylight. The first day of spring (astronomical) is March 20th and the sun will set on the 23rd at 7:30 p.m. CDT. The normal high for the 23rd is 43 and the normal low is 26. The scurs will be fielding calls from angry hens when their eggs stand on end on the first day of spring.
More activity around dooryards as the weather last week was downright excellent. More field cultivators and even a few planters emerged from their storage. There were even a few mornings where we didn’t have to drain the garden hose to fill water buckets. This of course was cut short after the Monday morning snowfall event that turned the landscape totally white again. Plenty of moisture in the snow and with the frost out in many places, much of it will end up in the soil profile. While not bone dry, yards and fields firmed up to the point that it should easily absorb it. Not a bad thing to have a little additional moisture going into the growing season if it happens to be one of those summers where it gets to be a lengthy time span between rains.
Fortunately I was able to get a haircut recently. The winter’s growth got to be almost unbearable to the point I was peeling clothes off in order to keep my cool. There’s a reason the Boy Entomologist used to call me a” little furbearer.” The warm weekend was a clue that perhaps it was time to begin molting my winter plumage for spring. Ruby has started hers, too, and Sundays make good days to brush the living bejesus out of her. Wads of Ruby hair blow across the yard like miniature tumbleweeds as she tries her best to avoid any more brushing than absolutely necessary. Fortunately she’s fairly obedient, so the process can be completed with a minimum of consternation once you get her attention.
Yes, for many people their least favorite day of the year is the spring time change. It’s been linked consistently to accidents. As a result many states and countries, along with the EU, are in line to repeal the notion that messing with clocks is somehow a good idea. Some are in favor of staying on daylight saving time year round which is fine. Some, especially those in northern countries, favor staying on standard time. Shouldn’t matter. There’s no reason, with the abundance of communication methods at our disposal, that people couldn’t run on whatever hours they wanted. Likewise in the winter months. Want to close at 4 or 4:30 p.m.? Go ahead. Adjusted hours can be listed on the internet, Facebook, newspapers, etc. And for those who still use phones to actually talk to someone, there’s always that option. It may take more planning ahead, but that’s something this society is woefully inept at. Time to change all that.
It was a watershed weekend getting things done in anticipation of spring. It took some doing, but the electric fence was put back up and charged, marking one of the earliest dates for that occurrence at the ranch. Along with that some time was taken to gather pussy willows from the wetland area. They are prized for spring decorations, or so I am told. Their catkins are unique, although they don’t stay that way long before flowering and leafing out. In the case of pussy willows, they are dioecious, meaning there are male and female plants. The catkins can be male or female depending on the plant and are borne on one year old branches. Hopefully, the cooler early week will allow me to harvest another batch or two. I’ve been sure not to harvest them too heavily as they serve as an important species to early season pollinators. That and I’m too old and lazy to climb very high.
I also noticed the hazelnuts I’ve struggled to keep the bunnies from destroying have some catkins of their own. The catkins aren’t fuzzy like pussy willows, but closely resemble the catkins on our river birch trees. Their reproductive process is very similar. We had some hazelnuts along a fenceline where I grew up. My memory was that they weren’t consistent producers of nuts, or at least we didn’t get there before the wildlife did very often. The evening of the 13th I noticed a small moth flying about on the patio. Earlier I’d noticed a grass spider amongst the feed sacks I was bundling. It was very much alive and mobile, leading me to believe that spring had indeed arrived. Then Monday happened of course. Silly me.
The daffodils transplanted from Mom’s continued their progress up until the snow. There are 16 or 17 of them that emerged as distinct plants. Best of all, many of them are budding already, making me anxious to see their yellow flowers in contrast to the brown grass. Monday morning all that was visible was the tips of their leaves. Mrs. Cheviot was concerned that the snow might hurt them. Like alfalfa after it breaks dormancy, extremely cold temperatures might affect them. Snow by itself, given the temperatures we’ve had, doesn’t concern me. If the rain won’t hurt the rhubarb, then snow surely won’t hurt the daffodils.
See you next week…real good then.