Chris and technology don't always agree and he wouldn't know how to get to this page to create/post an entry so he wrote it on his iPhone notepad and emailed it to me to post. :)

As I squat on my knees looking down at the sweat that falls, the blood from my nose drips, and the thoughts in my head wont stop. I wish I could just start praying but there is no time, God is going to have to hang on for the ride at this point. The wind just wont give me a break as snow slams me in the face and goes down my heavy winter coat. Here I am again cold, tired, wet, hungry, and scared. Which is not unusual for several months out of the year but this is too early. The 4- wheeler is stuck in a foot of snow with mud underneath, I have a shovel in my hand and all the best intentions in the world. I tried to get to our fall calving cows and their calves in one of the worst blizzards I have seen in a long time. 

The cows aren't ready for this I keep telling myself. It was 95 degrees 5 days ago and maybe I'm not either. I have to find them and see if I can help anybody, my safety is not important right now, their's is all that matters to me. At this point it has nothing to do with money, happiness, lifestyle it is all about the animals. They are in my care, they are my responsibility, their well being is more important than mine. I dig with all the energy I have left and get out one more time ( I have been stuck 3 times so far). I have done it, I have found the cows and calves!!! They are crowded in the trees and plum thickets they have for protection. I can't see much but everything I can see seems ok. I can only roughly count about 1/4 of the cows in this pasture. So now I go down the draw, a place I have grown up in and been in my whole life not a problem!!! I go down the draw 1/2 a mile to the south east I can't see my hand in front of my face but I have to do this. When I get to the end I turn around to see if I have missed anything maybe a chilled out calf, a cow stuck ,anything I can help. I have too, that is what I am in trusted to do. 

This is where this goes wrong - I try to go up the same draw but as I turn around the wind and snow hits me like a bag full of cans I can't keep my eyes open. I keep getting stuck every 30 ft or so ( I think) but I have to keep going this is my responsibility. I finally make it back to the cows I found earlier so I now I am only a 1/4 mile from the gate to go home. I start on my journey home worried about what I might have missed or didn't see. I keep going towards the gate not being able to see or even keep my eyes open. I drive and drive getting stuck and getting stuck finally I think something might be wrong. The landmarks I grew up with knowing my way around are still there but snow and wind block them from view unless they are about 6 inches away from my face. I am going north towards the gate I know this but maybe I might need a little help. So I pull out my phone and get the compass app which I used a lot last year at this time when we had grass fire after grass fire, different world I guess. It says I am going east towards the neighbor's pasture which can't be right I know what I am doing. So I re-calibrate the app and it says the same thing!!! I must be wrong. I use it to get to the north and find the gate out and our drive way that sits on the other side. 

I walk into the house and my wife asks me what I found. I tell her everything is fine which is a BIG lie, but I can't break her heart. We have given everything to get where we are today so I will keep the worry to myself and let her have one more day before we actually go see what is left of our lives. THEY ARE, the cattle and the land are our lives, this is what we chose and it choose us. We have sacrificed so much for our dream, a place of our own and cattle that we can take care of, we don't say we own them because in all actuality they own us. We will give anything and everything for their well being. They are our family and family comes first. 

When the storm finally died down in all the pastures we lost 3 cows. Which is a blessing for as bad as it was and all the people that lost so much more, but don't think that those 3 cows were taken lightly. I have asked myself every day what I could have done to prevent this. If you asked me if my life was worth those cows you might be surprised by the answer!!! They are my family and my life. We do everything we can to make sure they have grass, water, and protection. This was just something that happened and no one was ready for. I feel for the people that lost so much more. It was their family and their life. All I have to say to the people that say it is all a money thing or an unprepared event - you don't have a clue what was lost or the damage that was done. This will have effects for years to come and the damage that in some cases will never be fixed. Their family has been taken or hurt and you don't mess with that. We have been damaged, hurt, bruised, and destroyed, but we are resilient we will come back from this because this is the life that chose us and no one else is strong enough to do it. Atlas kicked us in the groin and it knocked us down but when we get up we will be fighting mad!!!! This is just my story I have from the storm, many more are much worse and devastating. 

By now you've probably seen or heard that western SD was part of a devastating blizzard last weekend. While we were on the far eastern edge of storm and were very fortunate to lose only 3 head of 2 year old (coming 3's) cows many others were not. I was asked to write this post about our experience through the storm and afterwards. It's the hardest one I've ever wrote. I also apologize for the novel that follows. :)

Farmers and ranchers usually don't pick this profession because of the fame or money because let's be honest, what fame or money? Back in November 2008 (day after the election, you can make your own jokes about the timing) we have a blizzard that we still talk about. We lost power for 11 days and got to see the fuel man twice in two weeks. Don't get me wrong we get along great with our fuel supplier but when he has to deliver fuel that often it doesn't make us happy to see the bill. ;) While losing power and having oodles of broken power poles we were again lucky because we didn't lose any cows. The calves had been weaned since September, the cows had been moved home from their summer pasture and had grown their winter coats. With Atlas it was OCTOBER 4TH!!! the earliest I can remember getting snow was October 18th and that was a dusting. The reason I remember it was because it was the morning we sold calves and had to pull the semi and trailer around with the 7140 tractor. That blizzard was just a snowstorm compared to what Atlas turned into.

Events leading up to Atlas around our place....

We had steers calves consigned to sell October 3rd so on October 2nd I helped the neighbor finish haying, yes I said haying, in the morning. The game plan when I left that morning was to finishing the haying and then trail the cows from pasture to corral and then trail the other set of cows to another set of corrals for load out the next morning. Like most things we do around here we plan something and five minutes later it nothing like we we originally planned (90% of the time that's how it works). So that afternoon after haying was done we set up panels in the pasture and hauled them to the corrals where the other pairs would be eventually be trailed in by headlights later that night. The weather forecast still said at most we'd have 6 inches of snow  it just depended on the timing of rain changing to snow.

Sale day morning had arrived and with it rain but only enough to get the ground wet to settle the dust and 'wash' the calves. That morning we were put in a winter weather advisory with again only at most 6 inches of snow depending when the rain changed to snow. While Chris was concerned about the first and second calf heifer pairs because their summer pasture didn't have very much protection we went to the sale because we weren't suppose to get much snow plus it was the first week of October and it had been 90 degrees only a few days ago and it hadn't even froze once yet this fall! 

While we were at the sale barn watching the steers sell, it rained all day long and not a nice warm rain but a cold, chilling rain. Which it continued to do all day Friday. I also had 5 fall cows left to calve and one of them decided to calve Friday morning so we trailed her and baby 3/4's of a mile into the driving rain and howling north wind to make sure the calf would be ok.  Then it was off to feed/bed down the cows that had the steer calves we sold the day before we could go into the house that afternoon to eat and warm up the the nasty weather. When I went out to dump the rain gauges Friday night (2 1/2 inches, btw) it was still coming down and we had been watching the radar all day to see how close the snow was getting. Did I mention it had been breezy since Wednesday afternoon and changed to windy by Thursday night so we were really hoping that the snow would stay away as long as possible, at least a month. Meanwhile Chris had made the rounds to the other two pastures where the cows with heifer calves at side were at. The pasture we were most worried about they were huddled into a corner and Chris tried to move them but they weren't moving. As long as it was raining and only a few inches of snow they would be fine. 

This was the scene Saturday morning. Chris had made it 3/4's of a mile to check the fall pairs, who were tucked into a draw with plum thickets for protection, and had gotten stuck several times and lost in the storm. He'd been in that pasture millions of times and still got lost and had to use the compass on his cell phone to get turned in the right direction to make it home. 

Saturday night when there was a break in the storm we made out to the fall pairs and at the bottom of the hill at the dam (a half mile away) we saw our bred yearlings who drifted a mile and a half from their pasture. It had started to storm again but we took off to make it as far as we could with the pickup to check the 1st/2nd calvers and Chris unloaded the 4-wheeler and got to them to find two already perished and half the herd missing and the rest standing in the middle of the road. He pushed them across the road into a neighbor's hay field were they could use the bales as protection for the remainder of the storm which was suppose to be over by now. Saturday night was a sleepless night worrying where the rest were and how many more wouldn't make it.

When Sunday morning dawned we were outside plowing the way to feeding the fall pairs and get the calves counted and to the hay so they would have a dry place to lay down. Incredible relief to see all of the baby calves made it through the storm. Once that was done it was onto the pasture eight miles from home to feed and see what disaster awaited us. Chris took off in the pickup and I followed with the tractor and bale processor. He made it 3/4's of a mile before he buried the pickup and had to yank it out with the tractor. By the time I got to the pasture he had got the group he pushed across the road the night before back to the pasture gate where I then feed them and checked them over. For what they had just been through the last two days they were in good condition but exhausted. They ate for maybe five minutes, which gave me enough time to get ear tag numbers written down and make sure they were ok, before they all laid down in the hay to sleep.

While Chris was out searching for the other half of the herd, I stood on the steps of the tractor with the binoculars searching in all directions for cattle hoping to find some alive, be them ours or the neighbors'. While standing up there and seeing dead cattle a mile away your heart sinks hoping they are not yours but knowing they are someone else's livelihood too. As I follow the road to the south I start seeing cattle coming out of a draw but Chris is northeast of them on foot because the snow is too deep to get to the dead cattle I spotted earlier with the 4-wheeler. By the time he has confirmed that it wasn't our pair, the cows were coming down the road towards me. That hopefully means they are ours coming back 'home'! These girls are not as exhausted as the other group already sleeping behind me. After driving the draw and getting everyone that could be found pushed out and back to the pasture we have two fatalities and one missing that we are assuming is dead unless one of the neighbor's would happen to find her when they bring home their pairs later. 

As the day wore on the feeding of other cows and checking the other pasture with pairs were done and all seemed to be accounted for we asked ourselves why and what could have been different. The horror stories that Chris had been hearing all day from people calling were starting to make us realize that we were lucky, so very lucky. The stars aligned when we decided to sell steers because they were in very open pastures that are not meant to have cattle in them during the winter months so our losses could have/should have been worse. 

As the days pass and the images were posted on facebook our hearts broke for the livestock and the ranchers. Having been on the edge of the storm and not suffering the losses as bad as others makes you weary of posting things like the above photos. The original plan was to sell calves on Thursday and bring the remaining pairs home this week to wean. I had a huge amount of guilt when I posted these photos of trailing home the 'survivors' on Wednesday because you know there are going to be people that have lost so much see them and wish they could do that too this fall. 

We can't stop thinking about what is going to happen to ranchers that lost their herds because it was by not their fault that this freak storm changed lives forever, it wasn't predicted to be this bad, that amount of wind and snow or rain beforehand, the cattle weren't ready because it was almost 90 degrees just days before.

Below are links to other bloggers that are much better at this them I am:

Questioning Cattle Deaths in South Dakota

TEN THINGS YOU MAY NOT KNOW ABOUT THE ATLAS BLIZZARD AND CATTLE! - by Red Dirt in My Soul

Character and Death - by Just A Ranch Wife

My Heart Break - by The South Dakota Cowgirl

Here are a couple Facebook pages that are taking donations to help the ranchers

Atlas Blizzard Ranch Relief and Aid 

Ranchers Relief Fund