Hat Tips

Hello,

We were lucky. Real lucky.

I’m sure you have seen the stories and pictures of last week's snow storm in North Dakota. For an October storm, it was a doozy. Up to two or three feet of snow and strong winds. But we missed it here in the west. I guess by about fifty miles.

Two days before the storm, we decided to bring cows home from a pasture we had rented over in Kidder county. A hundred and sixty miles east of here. I know, I know, you say I must be crazy. Don’t tell me. Shirley has made that abundantly clear.

Thanks to a friend, I was able to borrow a truck and trailer. A big truck. One with all those wheels.

Now, as I’ve often mentioned to Shirley, “I used to be a hotshot.”

A hotshot was a delivery guy in the oil field. We hauled lots of stuff. Pipe, mud motors, drill bits, sucker rod, whatever was needed. We hauled most things with a pickup. I haven’t driven much truck in a lot of years.

So I crawled up in this big rig and hit the road. There are lots of gears in a big truck. Like 13 of them I guess. I’m not sure. They say it’s like riding a bike. Once you get started, it stays with you. Evidently they never crawled up in a big truck in a hurry to beat the storm.

Since I was empty, I didn’t need all of those gears. I found a couple that got me going and once on the highway, I could find a high enough gear to roll along pretty good. Oh, it was kind of tough at first. Occasionally I would come to a standstill after making a turn and missing a gear. Or missing several gears. If you happened to pass a big truck with a long trailer sitting on the shoulder of the road last week and wondered what was wrong, it was nothing. Just me.

But thanks to that neighbor, and a couple others, when the storm hit, our cows were safely home.

Others weren’t so lucky. The pictures that have been posted show the devastation that was caused by a late spring, cool summer, and early winter. Crops are still in the fields. Beans, beets, corn, and a lot of wheat are snowed or mudded in. It was warm enough, I don’t think the cattle losses will be great, but any loss is heartbreaking and the mental toll is exhausting.

Hopefully, you and your neighbors are alright. I can thank our neighbors that we are.

Later, Dean