RAIN

[burnt]

This part of the province is quite dry having received less than 1" since the snow left. But the upside is that the grain and corn are pretty well all planted into good soil conditions. There are a lot of soys planted already with no letup between each successive crop. It seems early but the ground is ready and the big equipment out there gets it done in a hurry.

But pretty well all the farmers would like a good soaking rain for a few days to get things up evenly and to give them a rest!

[mrj]

We had another 1.6 to 2" rain/snow Friday thru Sunday. Most of the snow went off today. I hear we had six to eight inches in the higher areas, less on the creek bottoms. Not terribly hard on the calves, it seems. People checking on them got pretty wet and cold, but we sure needed the moisture, and that is worth a little suffering, so long as we don't get the terrible weather some people were bludgeoned with.

mrj

[Faster horses]

Friend of ours in Oklahoma related a story to us about a rancher there going to check on his cattle along the Red River. It was flooding and he found his cows swimming, and screaming in distress. He found some 'rednecks' that stripped down to underwear, jumped in the river and managed to get behind the cattle and herd them to shore. I guess it was something, thanks to some natives who knew what they were doing.
Our friends had offered to come and help, but was told, "you aren't country enough for this job."
It was about 25 pair and they rescued them all. What an amazing deal.

[mrj]

That sounds like a really wild story.......which I have no doubt is true! Because, sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, especially when cowboys are involved and their critters are threatened!!!!

Many years ago, in the pioneer days, people learned not to trust even the little creeks around here. They can run horribly fast, with quite a drop in elevation in a short distance. At least one cowboy lost his life trying to ride across a creek, and just a few years ago and experienced kayaker died in the Bad River. Few 'locals' would get into that stream when it is up at all! I think he was a wildlife expert of some sort working for Ted Turner on his ranch near Ft. Pierre, if I recall correctly.

My spouse once got caught on the wrong side of the creek behind our house when he was bringing in the horses in early spring. He caught and saddled the most trusty, tallest horse in the herd and followed the other horses across a wide crossing we drive across most of the time. This is an intermittent stream, btw, which usually only runs a few weeks in spring. What we didn't know was that the horse could not swim. The kids and I were on this side with an oats bucket to lure the horses across, and that horse really loved the kids. He would go under except for his nose, walk a few strides, and come back up again, then submerge and so on until he got the few feet to higher ground. He earned his oats that day!. It is a LOT of miles to ride around that creek as it runs into the river about three miles below us, and stays pretty deep and wild for several miles upstream.

We are getting a good rain this evening. The clouds were pretty heavy and suddenly opened up with quite a down-pour. Electricity went off and hasn't come back on in over an hour, which is rare here. Suppose I should call and see if it is a general thing, or maybe a pole or something got knocked down in our area.
Just guessing by the puddles in driveway that we may have close to an inch by now and still sprinkling.

mrj

[Big Muddy rancher]

Was a clip on RFDTV yesterday about a man and his three sons age 12, 10 and 8 in Texas that had to ride across a raging creek to bring some rodeo broncs across to higher ground. The boys did a great job.

[Faster horses]

When we lived on the Powder River in Wyoming, things got a little western there from time to time.
Like when it was high one spring and our friends were crossing with their young son; all were horsesback. A tree hit the youngsters horse and knocked him off into the water. His dad jumped in to save him and then they were both swept away. Another friend/neighbor ran horseback down the creek bank and finally was able to throw them a rope and pull them out.

Another time they jumped some bulls off into the Powder in the spring (against their wishes and advice--but they were outvoted) and the bulls were swept downstream. It was miles and miles before all the bulls got out and were accounted for.
Lots of wild stories told about the Powder River. You could never trust the bottom as it changed constantly. You sure found out what horses were your 'river horses.' It was especially bad when the ice went out above but not below. It took a special horse to step into that water with ice underneath and ride the ice while it cracked and broke around them. If they tried to go too fast and wouldn't wait til the ice broke, they could easily break a leg. I could never do today what we did back then.

[mrj]

We have had some good showers since the earlier post, and got over one inch this morning. Quite a few areas in western SD may have had some flooding from that line of storms coming from WY, but so far, we are getting just about the right amounts. Many of the dams are full, and grass and hay are coming along pretty well. Still has been mostly cooler than 'normal', if there is such a thing. Midland is starting our MHS 'old timers' class reunions (in that you are supposed to have graduated 30 years ago to come to this one), and the town is 115 years old this year.

The town of Midland was started by a man who saw a future as a trade center, with trails going through a particular place where the Bad River had a fair sized valley between the higher hills along it, with Mitchell Creek coming in from the north, and Ash Creek coming from the south, and Brave Bull Creek (originally called the Ree River) with maybe two or three miles between all three creeks. That would seem to assure a dependable water supply. Dependable? Not totally, but the water table under the ground was fairly accessible and dependable. Good, or even safe, not so much if alkali was troublesome to your digestion. In good rainfall years, it isn't too bad, and is probably better than no water.

The trails went between the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation to the north, and the Pine Ridge and Rosebud Reservations to the southwest, and southeast. Of course, the river was a route to Ft. Pierre to the east, and the Badlands Wall to the west, eventually on to the Black Hills, Rapid City, and other towns. It looked good to a trader and he established a store which did quite well, as did the town until politics intervened and it lost the bid for county seat. That was the beginning of the decline of most towns west of the Missouri River that were not county seat towns. Not many still survive, however Midland does have tenacious people and good businesses serving a wide ag trade area.

And the people in the area get high quality water mostly from the Missouri River rural water systems! We aren't dependent on the creeks and rivers for our household water today!

mrj

[Faster horses]

That was interesting, mrj. Thanks for posting!

[mrj]

Thanks FH, we are praying for NO rain today, tomorrow, and until at least noon on Sunday. The city park is already well watered, to the point there was a few inches in some of the low spots last night when our dau. and son-in-law went in to put up a trellis for the vines planted the day before. Others were putting up a shade shelter, and mothers of young children are probably praying extra hard for there to be NO mud puddles available for the little kids!

We will all have a great time even if it has to be in the auditoriums instead of the park, and will be thankful for the rain we get because it is so much better to have a little too much than not enough for pastures and crops, which is the more frequent case in this area.

mrj