‘AI’ is all the rage these days

The scurs and Weather Eye finally forecasted their way out of the deep freeze for a while anyway. Will Old Man Winter take some time off, or will he linger on? Starting Thursday, sunny with highs in the low 50’s and lows around 25. Sunny on Friday with highs in the upper 30’s and lows in the upper teens. Mostly cloudy Saturday with a slight chance of snow. Highs in the mid-30’s with lows in the mid-teens. Ground Hog Day, partly sunny with a slight chance of snow showers. Highs in the upper 30’s with lows in the mid-teens. Cloudy on Monday with a fair chance of light snow. Highs in the mid-20’s with lows around 10 above. Tuesday, cloudy with highs in the mid-20’s and lows around 10 above. Mostly cloudy on Wednesday with highs in the low 20’s and lows in the upper teens. On the 1st, the sun will rise at 7:30 a.m. CST. On Ground Hog Day, we see our day length increase at 2 minutes and 30 seconds per day. On the 4th, our daylight increases to just over 10 hours per day. On the 5th, the sun will set at 5:30 p.m. CST. Whew! The normal high for Ground Hog Day is 23 and the normal low is 5 above. The ground hog should see his shadow, once again guaranteeing we’ll see at least six more weeks of winter like usual.

Lots of speculation about where this winter is heading as we chew our way through February. Some are convinced we’ll see winter return with a vengeance, including more snow. It would have to work at it to snow much less than it has. We’re sitting at about 5.9” for the season in town so far and 5.5” at the ranch as of 1/27/25. The best thing about February is looking at the temperatures trending upwards after January. Not that this was the worst January, but we really weren’t conditioned for it. Soil moisture is something people are starting to worry about. There’s talk of needing rain before spring planting. If one recalls the past two growing seasons, we were just fine without that. After last year, the last thing we need is heavy spring precipitation. We have ample moisture in the subsoil and received some rainfall last fall in addition to the scant amount of snow that didn’t run off when it melted. People forget.

At the ranch, where we experience weather several times daily, it’s been a mixed bag. It’s meant little need for tire chains on the tractor and the snow blower has been idle thus far. The frost depth at the SROC last week was 20” and, as if on cue, the door frame on the walk-in door in the barn heaved, keeping it from latching. Warm chore clothes were called for this past week as the wind raked my face when feeding brood ewes outside. The neck gaiter helps, but when not adjusted perfectly, it fogs glasses up, making for a winter nuisance. Luckily there’s little ice to worry about, except where we’ve been tossing water out of buckets once they thaw in the heated garage.

Still plenty of buckets to be hauled as new lambs continue to trickle in. There will be an uptick in that department as we move into February. Earlier lambs and ewes need to be moved to more spacious accommodations for their sake and ours too. All those small pens are time consuming and put a drag on feed supplies as the ewes tend to waste more hay than I’d like. If you’re the person procuring the hay, that becomes a real concern. We should have the loafing area and creep feeder set up soon, taking the heat off the bucket brigade. Might not be a bad idea to hook onto the snow blower during a lull in the action to grease it and lube the chains up just in case. Doing so may help ward off the wrath of the snow gods.   

It seems AI (Artificial Intelligence) is all the rage these days. It’s been particularly noticeable recently, running across it in the word processing software I use. More often than not, it’s an annoyance. It increasingly attempts to finish sentences in addition to adding or subtracting words. I didn’t ask for that kind of help. If it would just go away, I’d be fine with that. Well intentioned perhaps for someone whose life involves sitting in a cubicle, but as the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Much of my writing is done in the vernacular, well versed in farming, agronomy, soil science, livestock, IPM, or genuine rural Midwest living. In other words, real world experience, rather than some imagined version of it. If I followed their corrective recommendations, the column would be utter gibberish or at least worse than it already is.

It reminds me of a writing project I did for an ag related company about 20 years ago. They wanted humorous anecdotes about dealing with customers problems and how they were solved. Another gentleman was assigned the task of editing my copy. I’d email it to him, then he’d send the edited copy back for my approval. Bear in mind, he had worked a desk job in the auto industry, with no farm or agricultural background whatsoever. When I got the first copy back, I just shook my head. I called him and politely explained that, while I appreciated his efforts, his edits would make the article totally nonsensical to the intended audience. Once we established some guidelines, we got along fine. So far, AI has a long way to go in that department. In the meantime, the focus should be on real intelligence and critical thinking rather than following blindly. In my case AI so far means Added Inconvenience.

Poppy certainly hasn’t been inconvenienced by the winter thus far. She can wander about the yard to her little heart’s content. As a result, it’s littered with little Poppy grenades awaiting enough snowfall, so the snowblower will fling them into the ditch. Even if it doesn’t snow, spring rains plus a few trips over the lawn with the mower and problem solved. There aren’t even any Corgi-depth snowbanks for her to wade through on the way to the barn. About the biggest inconvenience for Poppy has been the sliding glass door freezing shut. It delays her squirrel exercise program. Once we get it thawed out, it’s been strange to watch the rooster tail of dust following her turn into a cloud as she trees the squirrel. It certainly hasn’t been the case in her previous two winters and probably won’t be again.

See you next week…real good then.