Getting a Little Cool again!

[greg]

We're at 51F this morn.....maybe a wiener roast in order for Xmas eve,no sliegh ride though

 

[theHiredMansWife]

It said they had a bad blizzard in 1887 I think it was that killed up to 60% of the cattle.

The entire northern high plains had a horrid winter that year. It wiped out a lot of the cattle barons and essentially ended the days of open range.

PS: We're supposed to have mid50s for this weekend. 8)

 

[Faster horses]

Behold a Pale Horse

by Mike Logan

Montana 1886.
A pale horse first appears
White shadow on a drought-struck range.
The coldest fall in years.

That horse he was first sighted
Up north on Crooked Creek
The day the year's worst storm blew in
And howled for more'n a week.

He seemed some awful phantom
Some harbringer of doom.
That pale horse lopin' cold and guant
Through winter's gatherin' gloom.

Most outfits wintered cows that year
That usu'lly they'd 'a sold,
'Cause cattle prices dropped so far
That cowmen chanced the cold.

He ghosted down the Musselshell
Behind a warm chinook
Froze sheaths of ice on all the grass
With just one pale-eyed look.

That horse loped towards the Judith
And filled the range with dread.
'Cause where he went, great blizzards struck
And whole cow herds lay dead.

He worked his evil cross the plains
And up the Little Dry
Wreaked havoc as he passed that way.
More herds lay down to die.

It got to where, to cut his track
Filled cowmen's heart with fear
As coulees clogged with starvin' cows
That grim and direful year.

Cowhands lost toes and fingers
As they fought to save their herds.
The sight of cattle dyin' slow
Was pain too fierce for words.

That horse's passin' iced the streams
And thirst-crazed steers broke through
And drowned as others pushed 'em in.
Weren't nothing man could do.

When spring it finally came that year
Old timers still take vows
That men could walk for miles and miles
On carcasses of cows.

The Hell that followed with that horse
Was in the eyes of men
Who'd rolled the dice with nature
And seen their life's dreams end.

The called it The Hard Winter.
It blew the winds of change.
When death he rode a pale horse
And killed the open range.

 

[Been There]

I think it was J. Frank Dobie that wrote of the heartbreak, during the terrible winter of 1886 - 87, of longhorn steers bunched on the leeward side of a cabin, looking in the window and lowing, as if begging for feed, and knowing nothing could be done to help them.