Not! and ice shoves

 Not needed!

Here is my dear, old, tattered clothes pin bag...hanging ready...waiting...looking worn and forlorn!  With this wild weather, as you can see in our last post, nothing will be billowing from the clothes line anytime soon!  This bag, by the way, was my Grandmother's bag.  She made it many decades ago.  I remember it hanging from her clothes line, in the bright light of youthful memory.  Every time I reach in for a clip, I feel her close by, knowing her hands reached in countless times long before me.

 Not seen!

This picture was taken on April 10th of last year!!  So hard to believe!  This year, our grass is still mushed down from deep snow, still brown, still wearing the grime of winter.  Mud is everywhere.  There is no color. 

Not yet!

No!  No grass...no lambs...no sunlight!  Sigh....all I can do is hurry up and wait!

Well, we didn't get another round of ice storm, but we might tonight!  This is our third night of freezing temps, pouring rain, and wind.  It's a bit like the Shetland Islands around here!  Several trees on our farm were snapped or damaged in the ice.  One was on a power line to the house, sagging it down.  Ice would rumble off the roof, only to crash to the ground and smash in pieces, making the dogs bark.  The rams outside were scared of the crackling, weighed down shade trees outside their pen, and I found them at the far end along the fence, scared to come closer to the trees.  I put them in the barn now, as their land is flooded with rain that cannot seep down due to frost still in the earth.  The ice falling off trees, onto the barn roof was deafening.  The sheep were not fazed, remarkably.  Wish I could say the same for myself! :)

Have you ever heard of ice shoves?  Near our farm is a big lake.  I grew up on that lake.  Every spring, as the deep ice thaws and cracks up, there is a threat of the ice being blown around by strong spring storms.   If the wind is strong enough, it can blow huge chunks of ice up onto the shoreline, creating huge piles.  Around here, we say the 'ice is shoving', or 'there was an ice shove last night'.  It's a familiar sound to me...the cracking/booming/and tinkling sound of ice moving, shattering, crawling.  It brings rocks up from the shoreline, and takes out anything in it's path...shrubs, light or flag poles, boat lifts, boats, and sometimes even parts of houses that have been built too close to the shoreline.  Well this storm created a dandy shove this year!  Wish I had pictures for you, but I've stayed close to the farm with several ewes ready to lamb.  

Hope we don't get more freezing rain tonight!  Where's spring?