Harrowing Adventure

We have had a Nascar trip planned for awhile, and this was the week for us to take off.  I had to work on Monday and Tuesday and we were to take off on Wedsnesday.  M was very nervous about the weather and checked the forecasts daily saying that maybe we should leave after work on Tuesday.  I was the optimist, sure that everything would work out.  Right after I got home from work on Tuesday the wind came up.  There was snow in the forecast, too, so that was a bit worrisome.  M had darts that night and got home about 10:30 saying, "if we're going, we have to go now or we won't get out of here."  Luckily, we were pretty much packed and ready.  R was also at darts and on his way home.  He was coming to pick up our dog and trade pickups.  He put his in our garage and took the bale pickup and the dog and headed to his house, and we headed toward Richland.  We didn't get very far when the cell phone rang.  R was stuck.  He had also lost the fan belt (again) and the pickup was heating.  We turned around and headed to R.  I can't explain how bad the visibility was.  The snow was swirling so much.  We got almost to R but were afraid to go too far in case we would get stuck, too.  R and Pete came running through the snow and climbed in with us.  We took them back to our house where R would stay for the night and then ride his snowmobile to his house in the morning.

I was doubtful that we could make it to Richland and didn't want to go, but M was determined so off we went again.  It was slow going, but I could see out the side window and let him know if I thought he needed to go left or right to stay on the road.  At least where there were big banks of snow on each side we knew where the edges of the road were.  We had just gone by the turn to our neighbor's house where there is a slight curve in the road and I was saying, "go right, go right" but he didn't react fast enough and we dived in the ditch.  What a sick feeling.  I thought M was going to cry.

I called the neighbor's house and told them we had driven into the ditch and politely asked if they'd like to come pull us out.  Our neighbor came and after several tries was able to pull us out.  His wife had just gotten home from work in Scobey and said that the weather wasn't bad when she left work.  It was so awful where we were that I said if we made it to Richland we weren't going any further.  We got to the highway and headed into Richland and the situation seemed much better so we transferred our stuff from the pickup to our car and headed toward Scobey.

The situation wasn't as good as it seemed earlier and we basically followed the yellow line on the highway.  That worked well until the lines disappeared under snow.  At one point we would have been in the ditch again but happened to veer off where there was an approach.  We had to buck a few snowdrifts along the way.  Things did improve farther down the road with less wind, but it was still snowing heavily.  M didn't feel comfortable taking the road from Scobey to Wolf Point since it has been bad all winter so we dropped in on his parents at 1:30 am , two hours after we had left home, and spent the night there.  I told M my mouth had never been so dry and it must have been from the fear.  I was gripping the door handle so tight that I developed a terrible cramp in my arm.

Luckily, the snow didn't continue much longer.  We headed south at about 8:00 am and although there was still some ground drifting the road was basically bare and dry.  So, we continued on and stopped for the night 14 hours and 900+ miles later.  But, after driving through Cheyenne, Denver, Albuquerque and Mesa I've decided I would rather drive through a blizzard than drive in traffic!

Digging out.......again!

We had quite the blizzard yesterday.  M was up early since they had two trucks loaded with peas, and he was determined to get them to the elevator.  He left the house about 6:00 am, while it was still dark.  About 45 minutes later he called to tell me I could stay in bed because I wasn't going to make it to work.  He had been sitting on the road most of that time waiting for the wind and snow to let up so he could see the road to get to town.  He lost the fan belt on his pickup and no one was able to get to work at the station in town so he wasn't going to be able to fix it.  He was going to call me later when he decided what he was going to do.

We have a row of grain bins practically in our backyard and there were times when I could barely see them for the blowing snow.  I called M and told him not to try to come home.  I didn't want him stuck and stranded.  He didn't listen, though, and attempted to come home in one of J's work pickups.  At one point he would get out and walk ahead and put a shovel in the snow so he would know where the road was, walk back to the pickup and drive to the shovel.  He said he did that about 20 times before he got into some serious snow and was worried he was going to get stuck.  At that point he found a small patch of bare road and managed to turn around and go back to town.  J was still in town and wanted M to get home before he left and headed back to Scobey in case he got stuck and needed help so they set out together.  J has a jacked up pickup with big tires so he went first and plowed and shoveled his way through and then M would follow.

M said he would let me know when he left town but didn't.  Said he didn't want me to worry, but he knew I would tell him not to come and chew his butt for not listening to me.  I saw him walking across our yard and wondered how far he had had to walk.  Turns out it wasn't far.  He was able to blast through most of the drifts but couldn't see how big the last one was until he felt like he was in the air.  He almost made it through!

J was out bright and early to come plow us out and R plowed his way from his place to ours.  When they hooked the tractor on to pull the pickup out, they couldn't even budge it until we shoveled some snow from underneath.  J and R plowed all day.  It started snowing again about 3:00 and is still snowing at 10:30 so they may have just wasted their time.  This is getting really old!

Our driveway

A little stuck

Trying to pull it out with the tractor

The hole left after the pickup was out

No Snow Fun

The days are all starting to run together, wind one day, stuck the next.  M got stuck the day he forgot his cell phone at home.  He managed to back out after some shoveling and get back home to wait for the plow.  The county plow was finally out here over the weekend and improved our road condition immensely!  Kudos to those guys for being out there all day every day trying to make everyone (or at least Someone) happy.  They didn't have much success on the road to the farm where R is currently holed up.  He has had to bring the tractor to the main road a few times and have a friend pick him up.  He may start going everywhere on snowmobile.

I have had to be at work every day this week while my boss is enjoying some time off in Mexico.  I've been packed and ready to stay in town.  I haven't had to stay yet although the past two nights I wondered if I was making a mistake by coming home as there was considerable ground drifting.  There are high winds in the forecast for tomorrow and Saturday.  Great!  I just keep thinking that every day is one day closer to spring.  Bring it on!

The road to the cows

Our front yard--looks kind of bleak

A Sad Farewell

After many months (maybe years) of discussion, debate and procrastination we finally had our old dog, Cruiser, put to sleep on Saturday.  No one wanted to be the one to finally say it had to happen or to make it happen.  R has been saying that he was depressed by seeing him the way he had become.  He finally said someone needed to man up and take care of it, and he ended up being the man.  On Friday, the vet was out to Bang's vaccinate our replacement heifers.  He comes down from Canada and was planning to stay overnight so he and R made a date for Saturday morning.  R also needed to take his dog, Trip, in for some shots.

M made pancakes for breakfast (usually a Sunday morning thing) because Cruiser LOVED pancakes.  We were going to let him into the entryway to eat his share, but he couldn't get up the two steps from the garage into the house.  R and M loaded him up in the kennel and into the pickup and off they went.  While they were gone, I attempted to find the grave we had dug in the fall (like I said, we'd been contemplating this for awhile) under two feet of snow.  I didn't really have much trouble finding out and dug the snow out of it.

M wasn't here when R returned and R didn't have his boots on so I had to bury the dog by myself after carrying him across the yard and over snowbanks.  It was an exhausting process but I did it.  I started filling in the hole but got pooped out so waited for M to come home and we finished it together.  Well, we finished it until spring when we'll have to do a better job.  It was a cold, snowy, blowy depressing day.  We'll plan a little service for him in the spring and put out a marker.

I always said that he ruined us for all other dogs.  He had the best disposition, so calm, so obedient, so loving.  He was my walking companion and will be missed so much, not just by me but by the whole family.

 

Snow Fun

We have had quite the week.  On Wednesday I went with M to do cow chores and help sort out the calves that R was going to take to Glasgow to sell.  It was a beautiful morning, the sun was shining, there was no wind.  We got the calves in and sorted and moved a feeder.  Then M was worried that I was getting cold so had me shoveling out the alley way to warm up while he finished feeding the cows.  So thoughtful.  The snow was a couple feet deep and we needed to run the calves through the alley to load them in the trailer.  It was just fluff but there was nowhere to put it.  I thought I was going to throw my back out trying to throw it over top the boards lining the alley.  R showed up just in time so I let him finish since he is younger, stronger and taller!  R and I then went to hook up the trailer.  When he tried to move it he noticed that one wheel wasn't turning so they had to take it off and get it in the shop where they had to work on the hub.  Finally, he got the calves loaded and headed to Glasgow.

I was planning to pick up my mother-in-law and go to Flaxville for haircuts after lunch, but J was going to change the oil in my pickup before I went.  Just before I was ready to leave the wind started howling and it clouded up.  I took the pickup into Richland so J could change the oil and was ready to change my mind about going on to Scobey because I was afraid the road would drift in and I wouldn't make it home.  M assured me that it wasn't that bad and that he would be behind me if I had trouble, so I went.  I made it home but it wasn't much fun.  M was actually several hours behind me and told me to pack a back because if he got me out to the highway to go to work I shouldn't come home.

I followed him out in the morning but could hardly see his tracks because everything was the same color, the sky, the road, the ditch.  I spent the night in town with my in-laws and worked the next day.  R plowed the road so I made it home the next night.  The wind came up during the night and howled into the morning.  R moved from his place into his grandparents house so if he's snowed in, he'll be snowed in with the cows.  He'll stay there until calving is over.

We had a funeral to go to Saturday afternoon and weren't sure we would be able to go.  The wind let up some and we didn't get as much snow as predicted so we decided to go.  I had a bad feeling that we had stayed in town too long and wouldn't make it home and bucked some snow drifts on the highway and plowed our way up the gravel road in 4-wheel drive and made it home.  The wind came up even more shortly after we got home and has howled all day today.  R got stuck in our yard this morning and M didn't try to get to the house with the pickup this afternoon.  The wind is still howling so who knows what it will be like tomorrow.

The guys are trying to haul grain to Wolf Point but have to plow to the bins every day and the road to Wolf Point isn't totally clear either.  Everyone in the country is having a tough time getting anywhere and are afraid to leave home.  This winter weather is really getting old and there is no end in sight, but every day is one day closer to spring!

Head 'em Up, Move 'em Out

The goal this week was to get the neighbor's cows hauled back to Harlem.  It took a day of M, R and J plowing snow on Thursday as well as the county snowplow working on the road to all that to happen.  They had hoped to do it today, but then looked at the weather forecast and worked furiously to be able to move that up a day.  So, yesterday M was up bright and early to feed and then get to the neighbor's with our two trucks.  M and J each took a load and there were five other trucks also to haul out 350 head.  They had a good day for it with good roads, no snow, not much wind and temps in the 20s.  Pete did a great job of helping to get all the cows into the corral.  He'd love it if he could do that every day.  R was busy getting all the trucks loaded while M and J took off with their loads.  I missed all the fun because I was at work.  Not sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.  At least it is one more thing off M's shoulders.

In the afternoon R took his turn with the new dozer and had some fun plowing snow.  He plowed the main road in spots and plowed the access road into our yard and got my car back to the garage.  M had taken it to town to get a new battery and then couldn't get home with it because the snow had drifted in at the main road.

It was a good thing they got that job accomplished yesterday because this morning we woke up to a blizzard with heavy snow and high winds.  Not a good day to be out doing anything, but M had to get to the cows and I had to give a ride because the loader tractor ended up in town.  We spent the afternoon watching football.  The snow tapered off this afternoon and the sun peeked out but just for a minute.  The wind is still howling so it will be interesting to see what we wake up to tomorrow.

Road Trip

One day when I was in Arizona, M mentioned that he had found a dozer blade in Nebraska and he was going to have to go get it.  At that time, we weren't sure how I was going to get home from Billings after I flew in there.  I told him that if he picked me up he'd be halfway to Nebraska so we could go from there.  I did not know what part of Nebraska we were headed to, and M neglected to tell me it was only about 40 miles north of the Kansas state line.  Someday I will learn to keep my mouth shut and not be so practical or ask more questions before I come up with these good ideas.

I arrived in Billings on the night of January 2nd (flight was late again, but only an hour this time).  We were on the road by 7 am the next morning heading south through Wyoming pulling a 32-foot gooseneck flatbed trailer on our way to Imperial, Nebraska.  It had snowed overnight, and we ran into some ice just across the Wyoming border and began to think it was going to be a VERY long trip.  Thank goodness we ran out of it pretty quickly and had good roads and weather the whole rest of the way.  It was so cloudy that I couldn't see the Big Horn Mountains until they peeked out of the clouds.

R gave M a Tom-Tom navigation system for Christmas so he thought it would be a good time to put it to use.  We quickly found out that it needs to be updated and that it gets confused.  South of  Douglas, Wyoming we got off the interstate and angled down into Nebraska.  I was wishing I had mobile internet so I could google some of the places we passed, like Fort Laramie.  There was a historic site there, but I didn't know the significance.  I came home and looked it up.  That was where the United States government signed a treaty with the Sioux in 1868 where they agreed to settle in the Black Hills area of the Dakotas.  When gold was discovered there all bets were off, however.

We went through Torrington, Wyoming and soon arrived at Scottsbluff, Nebraska which I found out was a significant landmark of the Oregon Trail.  There are a lot of interesting rock formations.  It would be fun to hike there.

We decided at that point that we had made a mistake getting off the interstate.  We may have been saving miles but not time as we had to slow down and go through so many little towns.  We were hoping to get to Imperial before closing time so we could get loaded and make as many miles back as we could.  We could see that we were cutting it close.  So, we headed south to Kimball and got back on the interstate, through Sidney (the worldwide headquarters of Cabelas) and then on to Ogallala, then south to Imperial, arriving about 5:00 pm.  We had been in touch with the salesman all day so he knew we were on our way and knew when to expect us.  They were nice enough to hang around a little late to get us loaded and strapped down, and then we were off again.

As you can see, the load was hanging off a bit on both sides so we made the decision to stick to the interstate and avoid the 2-lane roads as much as possible.  We stopped for fuel and some KFC and were back on the road with Cheyenne, Wyoming as our destination goal for the night.  We made it there about 10 pm, but then decided to keep going to Wheatland.  M wasn't sure he wanted to navigate through traffic at night in Cheyenne to find a place to stay.  We stopped at the first motel we saw in Wheatland, a Motel 6.  Sixteen hours and 650 miles later.  Appropriate since we were there about six hours. Parking that trailer was an adventure in itself.

We were on the road again by 6 am, hoping to get home before dark, heading through Douglas and up to Gillette.  There we refueled and grabbed breakfast and headed to Broadus.  It was a good feeling to cross back into Montana to roads we were familiar with.  There was a lot more snow, however!  Grabbed sandwiches and fuel in Miles City and headed north.  To avoid truck traffic on a narrow highway we took the scenic route through Fort Peck and back roads from there home.  It occurred to me that during all the years that I have lived here close to Fort Peck I never knew the history behind it.  I found out that it was originally a trading post on the west bank of the Missouri River and later an Indian agency.  It was eventually abandoned because the river was undermining the bluff on which it sat and it crumbled into the river at some point.

Crossing the spillway at Fort Peck Dam

Substation at Fort Peck

Fort Peck Dan Powerhouse

We arrived in Richland at about 4:15 pm, safe and sound 1500+ miles (1800+ for M), 26 hours actually on the road, lots of gas station food, and 160 gallons of fuel later.  I like to say it was a good bonding trip for M and I.  I felt like I had been gone for so long, and we had a lot to catch up on.  It's been go, go, go for the past month, and we are both ready to stay put for awhile