The scurs tweaked with the Weather Eye last week, but to no avail. Is this Old Man Winter’s last hurrah, or is he on the extended stay plan? Starting Wednesday, partly sunny with a modest chance of evening rain showers. Highs in the low 40’s with lows in the upper 20’s. Cloudy on Thursday with a good chance of rain changing to snow by evening. Highs in the upper 30’s with lows in the low 20’s. Mostly cloudy on St. Patrick’s Day with a fair chance of snow before noon. Highs in the mid-20’s with lows in the upper teens. Saturday, partly sunny with highs in the mid-20’s and lows around 10. Mostly sunny on Sunday with highs in the upper 20’s and lows in the upper teens. Monday, for the vernal equinox, sunny with highs in the mid-30’s and lows in the low 20’s. Mostly cloudy on Tuesday with a good chance of snow showers. Highs in the upper 30’s with lows in the mid-20’s. The normal high for St. Patrick’s Day is 40 and the normal low is 23. The scurs will be enjoying corned beef and cabbage on Friday. On Monday, hens will become annoyed when their eggs stand on end.
The spring or vernal equinox will occur on March 20th at 4:24 CDT. This is considered the first day of astronomical spring, which for most purposes is more likely to resemble spring weather conditions than the meteorological date of March 1st. Most of us get that the latter divides the year into nice, neat units for data collecting purposes. However, those of us who spend a fair amount of time outdoors this time of year know that spring and March are frequently not synonymous. For quite some time, March was actually our 2nd snowiest month of the year surpassed only by December. With more rain falling in March during the most recent 30-year normal data period, it’s fallen to fourth place behind February. So far, it’s doing a good job of keeping pace this year and the month will be half over by the time this reaches print.
Our snowfall & precip totals for the previous four months and including the first two weeks in March have been impressive. So far at the ranch, our tally measures 67.8”. Equally impressive is the amount of liquid equivalent precip that has fallen in that timeframe, taking into consideration that total is a preliminary 9.91”. The normal for November through March at the SROC in Waseca is 8.11”. There continues to be ample evidence that some of the precip is going into the soil. If the nasty ruts and slop holes we drive through almost daily during chores are any indication, there should be plenty of moisture to green the lawns up quickly, not to mention the gardens and crops once planted. The temperatures have been slow to warm, so the thaw has been extremely gradual. That’s a good thing for keeping more water on the land ahead of the cropping season.
Lambing progress has slowed to a snail’s pace. There are only a few stragglers left to come in yet as we monitor their progress. A set of twins born Sunday morning represents part of a small handful of March born lambs. Not complaining as it’s nice to have the bulk of the lambing done before that. The mild winter has meant the lambs on the ground are growing at warp speed. Having the creep feeder set up and operating makes a world of difference. One can see the increase in the amount of feed and water consumed every few days. Some of the older, larger lambs can almost compete with their mothers at chore time. Now we need some cooperation from Mother Nature, so we can let the brood ewes with lambs outside on a regular basis. March being the fickle month that it is, expecting we can start to turn ewes on pasture is usually pie in the sky.
We did have a little excitement in the main barn this last week in the form of an unwanted visitor. Could detect Pepe Le Peu’s presence & essence occasionally, making us nervous when we were choring. After smelling skunk enough times, I set a live trap outside the barn, hoping to get a shot at the varmint without stinking the barn up. I caught three out of our four cats and hadn’t noticed any odor. Was hoping perhaps it had been run over or one of my neighbors had shot it. Couldn’t be that lucky. Went down to the barn last Thursday to start chores. The normal routine starts by feeding the cats, so I turned on the lights and peeked my head inside the door. I saw the usual complement of cats, but noticed an extra black one in the corner on top of the empty cat food bags. This one had a big white stripe down its back. Yipes!
I quickly slammed the door and ran as fast as I could to get my loaded shotgun. Thank goodness it was at the ready as I was fixing to do battle upon my return. Better than the option of wondering where the skunk was the entire time we were doing chores. I poked my head in the door and noticed the varmint was still there. I didn’t give it time to take aim at me when I unloaded the first blast, stepped back out quickly and shut the door. After a few seconds, I opened the door again and noticed it didn’t stink. Seeing the skunk was still wiggling, I let him have it with barrel #2. Then it stunk. After removing the skunk and cat food bags, the smell dissipated to a large degree. At least I hadn’t been sprayed and the intruder had been vanquished.
During Mrs. Cheviot’s recuperation, the birds have provided some welcome entertainment. The pheasants in particular are daily visitors to our backyard. It’s been many winters since we’ve seen as many goldfinches as this one starting back in November. They’ve really chugged through the thistle seed. When I commented that it’s getting really expensive, Mrs. Cheviot chimed in that it’s still worth it. I’ll remember that if I want another tractor someday. As mentioned in past editions, Poppy likes watching birds too. A sandhill crane flew over on the 9th, making that almost prehistoric call. She was looking skyward, cocking her head, trying to figure out what the strange noise was all about. Deer don’t fly, but if you really want to set her off, wait until they show up in the backyard around dusk. Fun for the whole family. Poppy’s been cooped up inside a little too much methinks. Robins have had at least three snows on their tails here at the ranch. Time to see some green grass. It’s been too long.
See you next week…real good then.