March 2025

March 8 It’s back to winter. Yesterday was chilly, breezy and dismal. Then the light rain gave way to snow. Last Tuesday, I think it was, it snowed briefly with some of the biggest snowflakes I’ve ever seen, but it didn’t last long. Pretty, though. Yesterday evening’s snow flakes were small but there were a lot of them and it kept it up well into the night. The skies cleared during the night and today dawned clear and bright. Most of the snow had melted by afternoon and balmy weather is forecasted for the coming week.

Abigail and I managed to remove lasts year’s garden growth in between snow and wind. Friday we worked on getting the horse weathervane back up. We took it down last year because the mounting was getting loose. Friday, we experimented with using the method once used to support power lines running between the house and the barn. It consisted of a four by four about 15 feet long attached to a short telephone pole, maybe 10 feet long, with a long bolt through both. A second long bolt was used to keep the 4X4 upright. It could be removed so the 4X4 could swing down giving access to the top where something could be mounted. Then the pole could be returned to the upright position and secured with the second bolt. That way something could be mounted high up without having to get on a ladder.

March 16 Lawdy, we was hanging on for dear life Friday. After a Monday thru Wednesday benign stretch of weather, it changed. Sunrise to sunset the wind blew as much as 70 mph. Cousin Ken called that evening to see if we were okay. He had seen on the news reports of multiple 18-wheelers blown on their sides, which must have been exciting for their drivers and traffic around them. I told him we were fine, just lots of twigs and a few larger limbs blown down. Abigail and I will be busy cleaning all that up for some time.

All that notwithstanding, things are looking pretty good on SA. The smaller of our two apricots is in bloom, as is the peach tree, one of the plum trees and the lariape. Of course the weeds are coming on strong. Early in the week, I sprayed Roundup on the sock weeds (little barley?) in the garden. That’s an experiment to spray them before the grass starts greening up. Those weeds germinate when the weather is cold and the desirable grass is dormant. Trouble is, it is difficult to find weather suitable for spraying during that time. Here’s hoping I don’t wind up with patches of dead grass. Hopefully we won’t have to spend mornings digging up sock weeds in the garden in May and June like we did last year.

Abigail I and managed to rig up the 4×4 on the telephone pole in the garden so we can mount the weathervane without having to get on a ladder. We didn’t get the weathervane mounted last week, which is just as well considering the wind Friday, but we should be able to this week. I look forward to seeing it back up. It has been about a year since we took it down for repairs.

March 23 We experienced the wrath of March this week. After the previous Friday when an F2 tornado might have been an improvement, we descended into the maelstrom again on Tuesday and Wednesday. Wednesday was particularly entertaining when it blew like crazy out of the southwest most of the day, then switched to the north by late afternoon. The wind died down by Thursday morning but so had the temperature. Our friendly local prognosticator predicted a hard freeze, but my thermometer only registered a low of 31 so I’m hopeful our fruit tree blossoms were unscathed. There’s plenty of time left for them to get got, though, but for now we still hope for some fruit.

Abigail and I got the weathervane mounted this week and it is so nice to see it dutifully indicating the current wind direction. Its moorings got thoroughly tested this week and held up nicely. We are satisfied.

Friday night was symphony night and, after some of less than entertaining performances of the last two concerts, we were hoping for something better. The Amarillo Symphony’s own trombonist performed as the solo artist. His concerto was good. At least it was a big improvement over those of the previous two concerts. ASO gave season ticket holders vouchers for free tickets to a concert, which worked out nicely since Hans came with Chris when he returned from Switzerland. They will accompany Kari and I to this month’s performance.

SA is looking pretty rough, what with all the tree debris and weeds, but we’ll just keep whacking away at it until we whip it into shape. We hauled two twig and limb loads to the brush site last week and moved a lot of leaves to corner of the 1911 fence and the Quadrille fence where we are hoping the chickens will shred them with their scratching, saving us from having to do so. The shredded leaves will be stuffed in black plastic sacks to compost, which, since they have been shredded, will happen faster than when we put unshredded leaves in compost bins. Here’s hoping this new method works.

Passing thoughts… Kari was putting the cat food bowl on top of the cat condo to keep it out of reach of the chickens. Usually there is a little food left over but lately it had been picked clean. One early morning she was passing by the window to the porch and opened the blinds to see what she could see. There was a possum grinning back at her. It had been helping itself to cat food.