No complaints over lack of snow

The scurs and Weather Eye continue getting the cold shoulder, pun intended. Will Old Man Winter let up or is he in it now for the long haul? Starting Thursday, mostly sunny with highs in the upper 30’s and lows in the upper 20’s. Partly sunny on Friday with highs in the upper 30’s and a low around 10. Partly sunny Saturday with highs in the mid-teens and lows around 5 below. Sunday, partly sunny with highs around 5 above and lows around 5 below. Partly sunny on Monday with highs around 5 above and lows around 10 below. Tuesday, mostly cloudy with highs in the low teens above zero and lows around 5 below. Cloudy on Wednesday with a chance of snow. Highs around 10 above with lows in the low single digits above zero. Some good news: On the 22nd our daylight stretches to 9 hours and 30 minutes with our daily increase in daylight reaching just over two minutes per day. The normal high for January 22nd is 21 and the normal low is 4 above. The scurs are licking their chops with all the Valentine’s Day ads. More goodies on the horizon.

We’ve reached what is typically our coldest part of the year and Old Man Winter is delivering as if on cue. The period from Jan. 16th – 23rd brings us an average daily temperature of 12.7℉. We continue to dodge the snowflakes for the most part, although we did see our first measurable snowfall of the New Year recorded on the 10th. It still hasn’t meant anything for those relying on snow for recreation or snow removal for income, yet. Will that change as we move into the upcoming months? It is a possibility as La Niña has finally arrived according to Pete Boulay, MN DNR climatologist. He also states that, while it isn’t a slam dunk that the La Niña will bring more snow, the trend is that the wintry aspect from them is more apt to appear in the second half of the season. As he points out, if the storm track would shift more to the north coupled with storms coming from the southwest hitting a cold air mass, the picture could change suddenly. Stay tuned.

At the ranch, we certainly aren’t complaining about the lack of snow and ice. Two winters ago, when February rolled around, we were battling snow almost daily. I recall blowing the yard out three times in one day just to get chores done. The resulting icy conditions were no picnic either, keeping emergency rooms busy with people who had fallen and broken bones. So far the worst thing at the ranch has been the ruts when temperatures went above freezing a few weeks back. It left the sheep lot uneven and a prime spot to turn an ankle when bumbling around in the dark feeding grain to the ewes. One needs to be careful where water buckets are dumped too, so icy spots don’t appear where not welcome. On the extremely cold days, the oblong fecal pellets excreted by the sheep can almost become like ball bearings on top of the manure pack when it’s frozen. Luckily, those days have been short-lived.

After jockeying things around and getting the last of the wheel weights on the tractor thanks to neighbor Jon, was able to haul manure last Saturday while temps moderated. Had everything greased and ready late Friday. Probably the biggest hassle was trying to get the PTO shaft hooked to the tractor. It was just cold enough, so it was stiff and wouldn’t slide on the spline easily. It took 45 minutes to get that latched properly. The barn cleaning itself went better than anticipated. I wasn’t sure what I’d find. I was concerned the pack would be too frozen to go through the spreader. Sheep manure pack is some of the densest there is. When frozen it’s like slabs of concrete and can shear spreader pins. Fortunately, being inside a building it remained thawed. There were even some maggots seen wiggling exposed to the 20-degree air. They were in for a rude awakening once the beaters broke their home into pieces and scattered them to the wind, not to mention the below zero temps that it ushered in.

Got about one-third of the barn cleaning done. Hard to say what the rest will be like after the cold snap. If it’s too frozen, it’ll just have to be stockpiled. Luckily, the biological reactions occurring in the pack tend to create heat, especially where it’s thickest. Where it’s shallower, that reaction can come to a halt more quickly, increasing the odds it may be too frozen to go through a spreader. Again, since this is a newer model spreader than what I grew up with, one tempts fate sometimes and dumps a big frozen hunk or two in it. The shear pins in the old Schultz spreader wouldn’t have handled anything that hard or that large. So far, the New Holland 520 always tolerated it, but there comes a point where discretion is the better part of valor, lest one ends up grunting a load off the spreader with a pitchfork. Better to let the 656 grunt it off as intended.  

Our feathered friends continue visiting the backyard daily, although their schedules are sometimes interrupted by a Cooper’s hawk that frequents the area. Its stay is usually not long-lived and within a matter of an hour or so it finds other places to go. The blue jays and crows make it difficult to get by with much. I’ve saved the ear corn gathered from the yield checks performed over the years to be fed to the birds including pheasants when in need. Some years the collection is impressive with many large, showy ears staring back at me when I open the lid on the storage can. This year, not so much. There are some, but noticeably fewer than there were the past two seasons. Fortunately the birds and squirrels really don’t care. So long as it’s available when the temperatures plunge, that’s all that matters.

Speaking of squirrels, chasing them is part of Poppy’s daily ritual. It takes some forward planning to get the sliding glass door thawed out, but after an hour or so, it happens. Lately there has been a fair amount of change in the yard with a wagon or two parked here and a tractor and spreader parked there. Poppy brings it to our attention that things are out of place. Her favorite job when we’re home, indoors and back out of the cold is to wedge her body against your leg and fall asleep. She becomes your very own large hot potato, capable of warming up the chilliest person on a frigid night.

See you next week…real good then.