Monday, April 14, 2014

What the Heck?!, It's Snowing in April!?

Yesterday afternoon it was hot, dry, and windy with temperatures in the 80's, and the weather forecast was for a cold front to come in Sunday evening, with low temperatures today in the 30's, a frost warning, and the possibility of some light snow.

I didn't see any frost this morning, but it was cold with a wind blowing out of the north.  It didn't matter if it was hot, cold, wet, or dry, I had a couple of cows that had either calved or were getting ready to calve yesterday, so I had to go hunt them up this morning to check on their calves.  Almost as soon as I started walking, the wind started howling out of the north and it started snowing, which made it pretty easy to find those cows and calves since there's only a handful of spots in that pasture that are down out of the wind.

Most of my cows seem to have enough sense to hightail it to these spots when it gets cold and windy, and one of them was down there with her day-old bull calf, while the other cow was over in some brush with her calf (she's a little camera shy, so no picture of her or her calf).
Cow and Calf Hunkering Down Out of the Wind
While trying to get a few pictures of the snow blowing almost horizontal, I gained a little respect for people that make a living with their cameras.
Interesting Looking Rock out in the Pasture

Same Interesting Rock

Cattle in the Blowing Snow
I can't remember the last time I've seen it snow in April, but the forecast for tomorrow is for a low temperature somewhere in the low 30's or high 20's.  I'm just glad the wheat is a little behind schedule or there would be a very real possibility of freeze damage, but there's nothing I can do about it, so I try not to worry about it too much (easier said than done).

I feel sorry for those that work in climate-controlled offices that don't get to experience the simple pleasures of walking around looking for day-old calves when it's hot, dry, wet, or cold.

5 comments:

  1. It certainly makes it hard on the body to be 80 degrees one day and below freezing the next. We are supposed to get down to 25 degrees tonight which will certainly put the hurt on all the flowers and tree buds starting to poke out. At our last house, we had a cherry tree and I think after I planted it, three of the five years we lived there we never got cherries because a late freeze always nipped it.

    There is nothing better than walking over your own land looking at things, at least in my opinion. I am always amazed at something I have never seen before even though I have been walking the same land for many decades.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was kind of looking forward to picking some peaches this year since we had avoided any late freezes, but if it gets down to 28 like they're saying, there won't be any peach cobblers this summer.

      Delete
    2. That's a neat rock. I love checking out interesting rocks around here.

      I like those redbuds in the photo too. They are blooming strong here, along with all of the other flowering shrubs and trees. Just today, all of the dogwoods bloomed here.

      But we're in a hard freeze warning here. I covered the lettuce, radishes, and turnips (although maybe they would have been ok) and the rhubarb...

      But I'm pretty sure I'll lose out on peaches, apples, and plums this year. I thought about running sprinklers... instead I've just got my fingers crossed.

      Delete
    3. I happened to be thinking about that rock while I was looking for cows today and realized that I didn't really tell the entire story about that rock. I'll try to tell the rest of the story in a blog post.

      It was somewhere around 29 this morning, so I might have lucked out and Ma Nature might have just thinned some of the excess peaches off of my trees.

      Delete
    4. It was 25 here this morning when I woke up! No fruit cobblers for me either.

      Delete