Yet another weather report featuring chickens

This is more like it!

In this part of the country March is generally rather raw and unpleasant. The air temperatures are usually warm compared to January (coldest month) and February (second coldest month) but skies are often overcast, the air is usually quite humid, and there's a near-constant north wind.

The combination of moist, 35 degree air and brisk winds make it uncomfortable to be outside. March is almost never just like June or July. There are usually a few brilliantly pleasant days, but in the main, March weather is rather yucky.

So we had a few very nice days early in the month; calm, sunshiny, and almost shirt sleeve warm.

Then the more familiar March weather arrived.

The last several days have featured cloudy skies, air temperatures hovering around the freezing mark, humidity in the 80-100 percent range, stinging cold rain and snow driven by howling winds, freezing fog and (for this area) ice storms, and a generally unpleasant out-of-doors experience. Followed by a little bit of sunshine yesterday afternoon as well as a spectacular sunset. Then the clouds and fog rolled back in.

This morning was foggy to overcast and the day has been very humid and damp, almost windless, and slightly warming with air temperatures inching up from 32 degrees at sunrise to 40 degrees at 3 p.m.

The chickens were loving it! The majority of them abandoned the Hühnergefängnislager by flying over the fence and were happily scratching for and finding springtime bugs and worms and tender, green-green grass and weeds.



This meant I'd have to go ahead with phase one of building a fence around the "berm" which is a tree nursery and tulip bed. Phase one is gathering up steel posts from where they've been long abandoned in place, just waiting for this day.

Gathering those posts would involve a lot of walking, but zero digging as the ground is presently soft and wet.

So of course I turned it into a hike, and the first leg of the hike took me straight up the steepest pitch of my own private Isandlwana Ridge. Naturally I had to visit the glacier on the back side of the ridge.



The post gathering was easy and not very interesting, unless you're interested in an old fat man's ability to trip over wire and not fall down. Leg strength and agility. In this old fat man's world, its better to have those than to not have those. Oh, I also got into an interesting discussion with Red about what we're allowed to call a mail carrier who is not a man. We didn't solve the conundrum.



Just past the five mile mark I decided to do a cool down hill. Along the way I said mean things about the nanny state. It's right at the end, feel free to skip ahead. Unless you're into heavy breathing. In that case watch the whole thing.



At the end of the cool down hill I made a video response to a whatsapp query from Herefordshire (the one in England) asking whether I was still alive or one of the 10 million norteamericanos who have succumbed to the wuhandromeda strain. Sadly, I had to report my non-demise. I just know somebody is going to steal "wuhandromeda strain" and get rich publishing a smell-all book using that title.



And I know, that's not what the teevee says. Here's the deal. If you did 7th grade science in 1970 or earlier (and possibly later) you were exposed to everything you need to understand not only that the teevee is utterly wrong, but why it is utterly wrong. The response I got from Herefordshire (the one in England) is encouraging.

"Nice to hear a voice of reason. ;-) "

After 5.5 miles and 40 steep hill ascents, I was feeling good and even a tiny bit fresh.



If the weather entities (can I even say that? I mean it's got the word t-i-t in it!) are correct we're likely to see 24 hours of "heavy" snow beginning Wednesday night. Something to look forward to! I understand that snow is very effective in cleaning the, uh, well, as a stand in for bog rolls (Jackspeak (Royal Navy vernacular) for toilet paper).

Be well and embrace the blessings of liberty.