This will be the last 'blurb'. Now you'll have to go get the books.
Maybe when George gets back he'll post some pictures of the "Home Ranch"
The Flood
The years 1947/1948 were arctic blizzard and flood years. According to Rich Hobson in his third book "The Rancher Takes A Wife", he was told the weird weather had to do with the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima that created extra dust in the air and changed weather patterns. Who knows? Maybe it's true.
In July of '47 Gloria received a message that her aunt living in Vancouver was terribly sick and Gloria left Rimrock Ranch to rush to the woman's side.
Late in the afternoon after Gloria left, Rich noticed ominous clouds building up, turning day into night and and blinding flash after flash of lightning heralded an unbelievable downpour that lasted all evening and until daylight the next morning. The Rimrock crews had just begun haying a luscious crop to carry cattle and horses through the coming winter, so there were two cowhands on the place, one in the bunkhouse with his family, a 'confused' lady cook, and Rich.
They woke the morning after the storm to find the ranch house standing alone above a rushing torrent of water six feet deep.
As Rich watched, he could see his fence posts, uprooted trees and his hay rolling past in the water. He lost his entire crop, both haystacks and hay that had not yet been cut.
The only other things Rich could see in his line of sight besides roiling water were the stables with milk cows trapped inside and a few young calves perched precariously on top of some manure piles.
The cowboy with his family in the bunkhouse rowed over in a wooden dinghy to the main ranch house standing only eight inches above the muddy, still rising water, to inform Rich that his own family was ok and the bunkhouse was still over a foot above water, and then rowed the boat with cowboys in relay to rescue the stranded calves. The calves went into the kitchen of the ranch house while a stranded wrangle mare was put out in the glassed in front porch with some hay. The rest of the horses and cattle had stampeded to the woods and higher ground the night before after a few loud crashes of thunder, and other than a couple of bloated cows that floated past the ranch house the first day, it was some time before they saw the herd again.
The cowboys gathered up a couple of the milk cow's calves and hauled them in the boat to the far Rimrock side hill where one of them held the bawling calves. The milk cows were then let out of the barn sitting in rising water to swim for their calves.
A remarkable scene ensued the following morning when everyone watches as Rich's St. Bernard cross pup swims from the barn yard to the front porch where he deposited the small form he held in his mouth. It was a tiny kitten from a litter born not long before to Rich's pet cat that had taken up residence in a now completely submerged calf shed, and it was still alive. The dog swam back again from the barn yard with another small form, this one no longer alive. The dog continued swimming back and forth between barn and ranch house until he brought six tiny kittens over, three of which lived. A little later everyone turned to see the mother cat dripping wet and purring over her three remaining kittens. No one new if the dog had brought the full grown cat over or not.
The dog had just fathered pups of his own shortly before the flood and the ranch house was beginning to smell and look like a zoo, with three calves, a mare, three dogs, four pups, two cats, three kittens and the mix of humans stuffed into the house.
The water had risen to lay a half inch on the porch floor but had remained stable most of the day and now looked like it might begin receding. Rich Hobson looked out on his Rimrock Ranch and could only be glad that Gloria wasn't there to see their ranch devastated and the probable stock losses.
The remainder of the story about the flood is quite funny in places, especially when Rich's brother arrives with two other friends at the ranch in a car and proceeds to drive into the six foot deep lake now surrounding the ranch because he was busy talking after sharing a bottle of scotch with his friends and not paying attention to what was up ahead of him.
That devastating summer is followed by a killing winter with blizzard after blizzard and temperatures that often held at fifty below zero. Somehow, like many frontier pioneers, Rich and Gloria continued slogging through horrendous temperatures, weather, bad luck, and horrible conditions year after year. They faced their losses with wit and the sheer determination to succeed in their dreams.
