Change, nothing stays the same

The scurs fine tuned the Weather Eye for yet another week of improving temperatures. Is Old Man Winter on hiatus or on permanent vacation? Starting Thursday, mostly cloudy with a good chance of rain and/or snow. Highs in the low 40’s with lows in the upper 20’s. Sunny Friday with highs in the mid-40’s and lows near 30. Sunny on Valentine’s Day with highs in the upper 40’s and lows in the upper 20’s. Sunday, mostly sunny with highs in the upper 40’s and lows in the mid-30’s. Partly sunny on Monday with highs in the low 50’s and lows in the mid-30’s. Tuesday, partly sunny with a good chance of rain changing to snow. Highs in the low 50’s with lows in the upper 20’s. Mostly cloudy on Wednesday with highs in the low 40’s with lows in the low 30’s. On the 15th, our daylight increases to over 10 hours and 30 minutes. The normal high for Valentine’s Day is 26 and the normal low is 8. The scurs have garnered the long awaited Valentine’s Day goodies. It’s been so long since Christmas.

 

Someone asked about frost depth the other day. While it tends to vary across the landscape somewhat, I’ve tended to follow some reliable sources such as the SROC at Waseca. The most recent reading there under bare soil is 26” measured back on February 2nd. My fail-safe measurement at the ranch has gone a bit awry. Like clockwork, when the frost depth measured 19” at the SROC, the walk-in door frame would heave on the barn door at the ranch. It did this every year the building has been there up until this one. What happened?

We had to run a new water line to the barn when we had the well project done back in November. There was some excavation done with a backhoe to reconnect the water line to the hydrant. Very likely the soil disturbance changed the building’s usefulness for measuring frost depth. We may have to recalibrate.

 

The alien has taken up residency at the ranch this winter. We’ve both had the crud for the better part of a month. The first go round included coughing such as I’ve never experienced. After coughing so hard I could barely breathe, my ribs and diaphragm hurt for days following those episodes. It was tough to laugh let alone cough anymore even though I wanted to. After a couple of weeks I thought I’d beaten it. Perhaps I had, although my stamina wasn’t much.

I’d get gassed just doing the chores. Otherwise I felt just OK for almost a week before I started to feel crummy again. This time it was more of a head cold with a scratchy throat and copious amounts of nose blowing. Unfortunately, I didn’t buy stock in Kleenex last fall.

 

Of course, lambing has been going on all the while, albeit at a relatively measured pace. As it has progressed, we’ve run into more death loss than we’ve seen in many years. Lambs were born appearing normal, then died within a day or two. More recently we’ve had a higher than normal percentage of stillborn lambs the first few times. We blamed the ewes lying on the lambs, which happens occasionally, but it started to manifest itself more as stillborn lambs.

Something else was likely afoot, but what? After some research and talking to others, it appears as if we might have an answer. It may explain some other things such as late breeding ewes.

 

There is a mosquito borne disease known as Cache Valley virus. The symptoms fit with what we’ve seeing, and the infection happens at breeding time. Lord knows we had plenty of mosquitoes, thanks to heavy July and August precip. The warm September when many of these ewes were breeding also fits the timeline. Typically if the infection occurs early on in gestation, the lambs are aborted and absorbed by the ewe. This may explain why we’ve seen occasional late lambing ewes over the years. There is no effective vaccine for the Cache Valley virus. The good news is that, once the ewes have been infected, they develop immunity. We’ll know more once the group is shorn.

 

Speaking of shearing, that date is drawing nigh. With our health being a major factor, it hasn’t happened. Eventually it will, however, even though the lambing barn hasn’t been cleaned yet. As it is, we almost have to wear crash helmets when navigating that barn at chore time to avoid hitting our heads on some of the bracing inside. The muddy yard simply didn’t allow it to happen after the well project was completed. Once it’s cleaned it will be decision time as to what happens to the building. It’s served its purpose but needs repair. It is not in a good spot on the yard either for maneuvering with equipment, making right angle backing a necessity at times. When dooryards were first designed for horses and later for small, narrow front tractors capable of turning on a dime, this is not uncommon. However, change is inevitable.

 

Poppy’s chore time has been curtailed lately. First it was the bitter cold and more recently, it’s been the arrival of the mud. It probably didn’t help matters that on one of her few recent trips to the barn, she apparently ingested lots of things that didn’t agree with her tummy. Dogs in general are noted for eating things that they shouldn’t. Corgis are noted for their rather sensitive digestive systems, so it’s not unusual to find presents on the floor as a result. Fortunately, once the gastric storm has passed, there is a calm following. Poppy’s system stabilizes quickly, so she can get back to her regularly scheduled programming. 

 

See you next week…real good then.