Could it be our seemingly never ending winter is at an end?? Saturday morning it was 9F when I got out of bed, Sunday turned out to be the nicest day since October, with a high maybe in the 60s and not even a whiff of wind,bright sunshine all day long. Today we are to get close to 70F, and while there is a slight chance of rain later in the week, for the first time in what seems like a decade, there is no snow in our forecast. I was able to get most of the N on the wheat and cool season grass Friday and Saturday while the ground was frozen.
The signs are unmistakeable that spring is around the corner. We have done our income taxes, the time changed Sunday, the garden seed catalogue came Thursday, the cattle are reaching through the fence for the green road ditch grass. I increasingly shed my heavy brown coveralls for my lighter and more fashionable pinstriped ones, and the furnace doesn't have to run all the time.
The last heifer has calved, I have about 30 cows to go. Soon, very soon plumes of smoke will dot the sky as the Flinthills are turned black. We have a love/hate relationship with fire here. It is an essential management tool to prevent trees from taking over the prairie, take the fire away and you get acres of brush in 10-20 years. But, we don't want it burnt to early, or even every year in many cases. A grass fire in October-February results in a flurry of activity to stop it in its tracks....by the first half of March a wildfire is usually kept away from structures and unless it is a very windy day, allowed to burn itself out, generally by hitting a road or tilled field. From the last half of March on it is just a matter of stopping fires when the wind changes direction unexpectedly or there is a problem burning up into a neighbor who doesn't want to burn. This spring,with the heavy growth of old grass from last year and ample subsoil moisture, I would predict 90% of the pastures will be burned. The surest signs of spring in the Flinthills are bright glowing fires all around in the evening with the heavy smell of grass smoke in the air and the frogs serenading.....you know for sure then any cold snaps will be short lived, and it is only a matter of days before the cattle are munching green grass and the corn planters are running.