Some exceptionally nice February temps delivered by the Weather Eye last week has the machine back in the scurs good graces. Most everyone else’s as well. Has Old Man Winter been vanquished or is he just biding his time? Starting Wednesday, mostly cloudy with temperatures falling throughout the day. Highs in the low 30’s with lows around 10 above. Partly sunny on Thursday with highs in the upper teens and lows around 0. Sunny on Friday with highs in the upper 20’s and lows in the low 20’s. Saturday, sunny with highs in the upper 30’s and lows in the mid-20’s. Partly sunny on Sunday with highs in the upper 30’s and lows in the mid-20’s. President’s Day, partly sunny with highs in the upper 30’s and lows around 10 above. Mostly cloudy on Tuesday with a fair chance of snow. Highs in the mid-20’s with lows around 10 above. We’ll see 10 hours and 30 minutes of daylight on the 15th. The normal high for this year’s President’s Day is 28 and the normal low is 11. The scurs struck it rich in the Valentine’s Day goodie department. No guarantees, but this should tide them over until the Easter baskets show up.
It was indeed a welcome stretch of weather this past week. Since winter got started in earnest back in mid-November, any moderation in temperatures helps this time of year. It also helps keep the frost from going much deeper while shrinking the snowpack slowly but surely. With southerly breezes blowing across it, that snow cover has kept temperatures from reaching their forecast highs some days. Where tillage left some fields relatively free of residue last fall, large patches of dark soil have emerged. The frost depth continues to be a question from individuals. The last reading at the SROC on the 6th showed the frost depth to be 10”. With above normal temperatures occurring most days since then, it likely hasn’t moved downward. In fact, after a puddle formed in front of the walk-in door on the barn ahead of evening chores last weekend, I figured I’d be wading through it for several days. That or slipping and falling on the ice after it froze up again. To my surprise, it disappeared overnight and was nowhere to be found the next morning. Not much frost there I’d say.
I have been in my full winter plumage much of the season. Back when Mrs. Cheviot fell, I’d decided there probably wasn’t enough time to slip away for a haircut, so I might as well let my face go too while I was at it. On some of those colder days and nights, I wasn’t sorry I did. I’m not one of those guys who can grow facial hair like a werewolf, so it takes a while to cover. Probably the best part is that, aside from my muzzle, the dark color absorbs the sunlight and warms my face on a cold winter’s day. The longer hair doesn’t hurt sometimes either, although it is a pain in the neck to deal with it. I’m sure some who have seen me think it’s Doc from Back to the Future. Bad hair days are one of the reasons they invented hats. Eventually it’ll get too warm, and I’ll gladly shear it off. Until then it’s here to stay a while through the cold that’s yet sure to come.
I had my chance to get a free haircut last Friday when the sheep shearer arrived. He’d been over to survey the situation a week earlier and must’ve decided with all the lambs hitting the ground, it was time. Was glad he did. We enlisted the services of the Garden Gnome to catch the critters, so it was game on. I got the geezer duty of running the wool bagger. Not as strenuous as using the wool box used to be. It’s still work, but doesn’t require the muscle required to catch and tip the sheep. My left shoulder awaits a serious exam once Medicare becomes a reality. We got through the group of 31, then moved to the big barn to finish the last seven. When we were done, Mrs. Cheviot had food on the table ready and waiting when we came in. I can’t say for sure, but I’m guessing this was probably somewhere north of 50 shearing sessions for me. The best thing about shearing is still when it’s done for another year.
As mentioned, Mrs. Cheviot continues to pick up speed on her recovery. Able to drive herself to therapy and doctor’s appointments, it’s helped take some of the pressure off me. It’s also helped that she’s riding down to the barn in the Gator to mix up feed pans and feeding the ewes in pens. She even held the lambs on Sunday, so I could tag, dock, and vaccinate them. She couldn’t walk them down to the main barn, but at least she could open the pens up, so I could grab the lambs, and the ewes would hopefully follow. Her efforts put us in a position, so we could empty some pens in order to make room for more new arrivals. Climbing over the top of panels is overrated, especially at our age. Nice to have her back in the barn again and she seemed to approve of what I’d been up to when she couldn’t be.
Some of the dog people we know have wondered how we made it as long as we did without getting another dog. It's been wonderful to hear the clicking of dog toenails on the laminate flooring again on a daily basis. Poppy has a little different cadence to her footsteps than the 25 years of Border Collies we’d become accustomed to. Her short legs make for quicker syncopation despite her long wheelbase. Her trips to the barn have increasingly included more interaction with the sheep, in particular with her wanting to tail them and push them ahead of her. They seem to have developed a respect for her one on one. Hopefully that translates into pushing ewes back inside of a gate and tailing them when we move ewes with lambs between buildings. We’ll be missing her briefly this week as we get her spayed Wednesday, delivering her to the vet on Tuesday. Hopefully all goes well, and we can get her chipped while they’re at it. It shouldn’t be a prolonged stay and will be nice to have her back where she belongs.
See you next week…real good then.