Weather

Now it is spring in SD.  We had very little snow in central SD this winter.  On March 16th, the temperature reached 80 degrees and today, St Patrick's Day, it is around 75 degrees. It was a nice day for a leisurely walk through the alfalfa and hay field.  The weather, tho, seems to me to be too warm considering we had very little moisture.  Many years on this date, we would still be digging out of the snowbanks. 
The big trucks going by send up huge clouds of dust on our gravel road. The grass is greening up, my tulips and iris are several inches tall.  The American Gold Finches that I feed are turning back to their gorgeous yellow, with black tipped wings.  The robin family has returned to my yard. Seed catalogs are waiting to be read and orders made for seed.

Snow

The wind howled during the night, sounding like a blizzard, but it was not.  We now have about an inch of snow on the ground, but it is not blowing in the air.  We are welcoming some snow to cover the dusty ground we have had all this winter, an unusually warm winter.  It was about 25 degrees this AM, so not so cold, but the wind makes it cold by blowing through you.  However, the weatherman is promising back to warmer weather by the weekend.  He says it will be 52 on Sunday.  This is unheard of in South Dakota in the winter time.

Rain

Welcome to the rain we have had the past two days!  A slow drizzle, now amounting to .90 inches, and it is soaking into the ground.  The fields have been so dry as they combined soybeans, sometimes the dust was blinding on the nearby roads.  All the corn is still in the field, except for what has been cut for silage, but the now dried up husks are protecting the bright yellow kernels, yet to be combined and sold.  A fire at the edge of our small town on the day before this rain was a scare for everyone. Several farmers took tractors and dics to the site, and helped the firemen by blackening the dirt beyond the dry cattail slough, and cutting into the ground where the burn was, put a stop to the danger to the nearby houses.  The fire was apparently started by a spark from a vehicle passing by on the nearby interstate. 

Snow

April 15th and we have snow in SD again.  15 inches in some places.  We had 6 or 7 here.  It is a little hard to tell how much, as there was rain first, and then the snow melted in places, like the driveway, etc.  But there is a lot on the yard and the pasture.  The weather promises to be cold next week too, 24 degrees tonight, then in the 30's at night next week.  The interstate must be snow covered, as I 90 is partly closed.  Some idiot ran the Sheriff of Hansen Co. down as he was assisting with pulling someone out of the ditch.  I think there should be a HUGE fine for these people who will not slow down when they see flashing lights.  This is not the first time someone has been run over, hurt or killed in SD because a driver cannot or will not drive the conditions.

Weather

A little reprieve today.  Temp this PM was 36, which means some of the snow and ice were melting, hopefully enough to clean off the roads a little.  This also might put a crust on the snowbanks, so when the wind comes up again, the snow will not blow willy nilly, creating a mini blizzard.
Just have to report on the wind towers again.  They, all 107 of them are up now, and many of them have red lights on the top.  (They don't all have to have lights, but enough that they do not create a flying hazard.)  At any rate, there are a LOT of red lights.  They blink off and on, all at the same time, and can be seen for miles.  Our farm is lower, so we can only see a few from here, but when we came home last week from Miller, a town north of here, we came to a rise in the elevation, and there they were, blinking and stretching along the horizon for miles.  We were more than 30 miles away when we saw them.  We tease our neighbors that live close to the towers that they now live in the Red Light District!

Weather

Here we are in SD on January 10 with lots of fluffy snow, about 6 inches, that came yesterday, and an inch or so today. It was kind of like someone was up there with a sifter, sending it downward.   Luckily, we did not have our typical SD winds, so it has come down and pretty much stayed put.  Of course this means that farm yards and calf pens are retaining a lot of snow.  I scooped off the back step twice, the second time, the snow was harder, and will get harder as the wind picks up tonight.
When Roger fed cows this AM, he noticed in the tree belt south of us, there were a lot of pheasants, mostly roosters. Some were on the ground, but mostly were in the trees, which is not very usual.  As he unloaded his hay, he noticed a very large coyote, rather mangy looking come running out of those trees.  This explained the pheasants in the trees, so I'm guessing some of the birds got wise, and others made a good meal for the coyote.

Happy New Year--2011

Happy New Year to my friends out there.  Roger spent the morning moving snow, then I went out in the calf yard to be the guider, as he tried to clean off the cement "apron" that the calves stand on to eat silage.  The calves had it so packed and frozen, he was only able to take 4 or so inches off, but it will help.  Don't want them to stand higher than the cables that keep them in the yard.  The wind had gone down, so only my feet got cold.  I am not used to the cold anymore!!  He loaded and filled the bunks up again, so their stomachs should be full to stand the cold, which is going to be with us all week.  We got about 5-6 inches of snow, but the northern part of SD got much more, 12 and over in some places.

Snow

The snow fell all morning, and when I walked to the mailbox, there was no wind. It was a beautiful afternoon.  The snow had fallen straight down, about 3 inches of big flakes, was pristine, white, and had no marks on it yet.  No animal tracks, deer, rabbit, possum or cat;  no human footsteps; no tire tracks.  I picked some snow up, and it was almost sticky enough to make a snowball, which I did.  When I walked back, the snow was disturbed by my previous steps, but still beautiful.
Of course, those in northern SD or in MN were probably not calling this beautiful, as they got a lot more, and had more to begin with.

Soup

The wind is blowing and howling here in SD.  Roger fed the cows, and came in and pronounced "It is cold out there!"  He retired to his chair, and I watched & listened to my TV quilting shows.
Weather like this calls for soup, so I browsed the frig and my recipes, and decided to make broccoli soup with the wilting heads I found.  An hour later, broccoli and onion, some carrots I found, and a piece or two of cauliflower I found, are cooked.   Made some thickener with whole wheat flour, added chicken bouillon, thyme, some milk and cheddar cheese, and noon lunch was on the table, along with a hamburger from our own beef.  Tasted good, and good for us!

Cold

Cold day, this day before Thanksgiving.  More snow flurries, icy in many places in the State.  A day to stay inside.  Painted my office, trying to go thru, throw and organize.  What an accumulation of paper!!

I made pumpkin roll up cakes to take to my sister's tomorrow. Have to put in the filling yet, cream cheese, powdered sugar and kool whip.   Baked squash from the abundance I raised this summer.  It is in the crockpot, ready to heat.  My brother from Texas is here, will see him tomorrow.

Hope the weather lets up, and allows for safe travel for everyone!
Happy Thanksgiving!!

First Snow

We had our 1st snow this morning.  Fortunately, my calendar was empty for today, so I did not have to leave the house.  The ground was covered, with some big flakes over the day, adding a little more.  The snow fluffed in front of my feet as I walked to the mailbox. 
The ice underneath yesterday caused car accidents in parts of SD during the day and last night.  It always seems to take a little while for drivers to remember how to drive in winter weather.  Takes the first snow and ice to remind everyone.
I used my free day to catch up on computer book work, reply to some emails, and continued to put away and hang things back up after painting.  I have several boxes of books that have to be taken somewhere, and all the pictures of kids and grandkids and ancestors that I took down are in boxes with no plans to put them back up.

Winter is coming!

The weather turned here this week, to give us a taste of the coming winter.  It got windy, then cold, then last night a little precipitatjion that put a very fine spray of ice over everything.  It was deceiving, as you could not see the slick, until your feet started to move in odd directions.  Pastor sprinkled ice melt over the cement parking lot, but it was still a little treacherous after Church. 
I moved my apples and squash from the garage to the porch for the night, and they are still on the porch.  The temp is 26 degrees this PM, so it will get colder tonight.
The gerbera daisies are now gone, as are the arugula leaves, laying on the ground, cold and icy.

Reprieve

We did get high winds, and snow on Oct. 26 & 27th.  Some ditches here have drifts along the fences.  Temperature for 2 mornings was 25 degrees.  The rest of the snow has melted.  I think they got more snow in northern SD, however.
We did get a reprieve, tho, and have had several nice days.  We got the caulking nearly done, the last window trim painted, the frozen garden hoses thawed out, and I drained the water from them and got them hung up.
Garden is not cleaned off, but there is so much foliage, and it is only frozen, not dried.  Cleaning garden will have to wait awhile.  I don't have any way to grind it for the compost, and don't have enough room in the compost ring for all the garden throwaways unless they dry down, and maybe not then.  May have to start a new pile.
I did throw some ground hay over the carrots, but noticed that something is eating on the parts that are out of the ground, so think these had better get dug sooner than later!
I hung a basket of washing on the clothesline this AM, and wind was chilly, reminding me that winter is around the corner.  (Love the fresh smell of line dried clothes).

Chilly Fall Night in SD

The cold wind blew very hard today.  On the way home from work, my car shook as I drove.  Now the first winter weather advisory is out for the north part of our State.  It will get cold here tonight as well, and tomorrow promises only temps in the 30's and 40's.  However, the weekend forecast puts us back up in the 60's.  The football playoffs were tonight, a very cold, windy and blustery night to play that game.  Looked like more running games than passing ones tonight.
I brought into the house, my three pots of Gerber daisies.  I just can't bear the thoughts of those pretty flowers freezing tonight.  One pot is heavy, so I am not going to do this too many times.  I had some moss roses in with them, and they are only seed pods and stems, so will pull them out before I put the pots back on the step.
Well, we will see tomorrow if anyone gets snow tonight!!

Rain

We got a little shower of rain today, really needed it.  The dust was so bad on our gravel roads that when you would meet someone, especially a truck, if the wind was in the right direction, the dust cloud enveloped you, and you were blinded temporarily.  You had better not be going very fast, so that you could stop, until you could get your bearings and see exactly where you were.  Fortunately, the wind removed the dust rather quickly.

When I was on the ladder a few days ago, painting more trim, the trucks were flying by here with loads of corn they were combining, delivering it to a neighbor that has a cattle feedyard.  The dust was flying around them as well.  They were happy for the dryness of the fields, tho, letting them get their crop out.  This fall has been nice for farmers in that regard, they were able to do fall work without rain and cold hampering them.

Frost in Central SD

We got our first frost of the season last night.  It frosted what was left of the squash vines, and the outside of the tomatoes show black and curly.  Still time to pick the last tomatoes tho.  We have the squash picked up, and have apples yet to pick.  The first frosts do not hurt them, makes them sweeter.   The carrots are still bright and green, they can go much longer before being dug.  I have dug them out of the snow on Thanksgiving week, and they were sweet and tasty.
Most of the deciduous trees show various colors now, faded green to bright yellows.  Some flowers hanging on yet...cosmos, some calendulas that did not dry up, and on my step, the Gerbera daisies in pots.  Wonder if I took them in, how long they would bloom in the house?   Not enough light, I imagine, now with shorter days.