Written by Kevin Adolph
Wow, are the winters in the Midwest changing? On New Year’s Day my grand kids where looking through some old pictures and they ran across a lot of winter pictures. It was hard for them to believe how snow could be that deep. I told them that in the winter time there were very few weeks that we went to school for the whole week. Most of the time we would listen to the radio and the announcer would say that the busses are running on black top roads only. Since we lived 2 miles from a black top road my dad would get the 560 with a loader and heat houser ready to give us a cold ride to the bus. Many times we would stop by the neighbors and pick them up also. On the return trip home, it would be the same thing all over again.
There were several times after a snow storm the snow would be as high as our machine shed, so we would climb to the top and sled down from the peak off the roof down to the ground. We also had a long rope that my dad would hook to the barn and the house so we could find our way back to the house when we went out to do chores in the out buildings. One of the worst storms I remember was the winter of 1975, known as the Super Bowl Blizzard of 1975, or the Storm of the Century. My mom and dad left to take my mom to the hospital in Rochester and shortly after they left it started to snow and blow. Three days later we got 16” of snow with 90 mph winds. We couldn’t get the tractor out of our machine shed because the snow drift up over the shed. We had a stack of hay and a cattle pen in-between the tractor and the other door and It took my brother and I a full day just to rearrange the shed just to get the loader to the other door. Once we were able to move the snow from in front of the door and get the tractor out, the cattle pen was the only place to put the rest of the snow.
School was closed for over a week that time. There was a lot of livestock lost that year because the fences were snowed over and cattle would just walk over them and head out walking with the wind and freeze to death. My dad spent most of that winter helping neighbors keep their fences clean. He had a tractor with a loader in front and a snow blower in the rear. When he was not cleaning yards he was working for the township cleaning roads. We made sure we had a full week’s supply of feed on hand and mom made sure we had plenty of food in the freezer and a full pantry. Sometimes it would be longer than a week in-between trips to town.
It would be interesting today to see how a three day blizzard would change the way things get done. In today’s age, it could more catastrophic loosing cattle and we might have more flooding from the snow milt if we got that much snow. But, now that I am a bit older I don’t miss the big storms or keeping snow removal to a scoop or tractor and loader. Let’s think warm thoughts. Don’t worry, spring will be here soon again.
Photo by Across the Flow Blog.
The Super Bowl Blizzard of 1975 was known to have lingering cold temperatures resulting in over 100,000 livestock killed. In several Midwest states, the strong winds made snow drifts up to 20 feet high. When all was said and done, the total amount of property damage tallied up to an estimated $63 million. It was known as the Super Bowl Blizzard because it landed on Super Bowl weekend. By the time Super Bowl Sunday rolled around, the storm sputtered its last gasps and the Steelers beat the Vikings, 16-6.
*Daily Globe
Kevin grew up on a family farm between Fulda, and Worthington, MN and now lives in a small town in Rushmore, MN. Prior to working at AFS, Kevin worked for an independent retailer in Okabena, MN. There he sold crop inputs for 9 years. While working in Okabena, Kevin updated his Agronomy degree with more Ag education. Kevin came to AFS with over 30 years of experience in chemical, seed, and fertilizer sales. Quality, and service are two of Kevin’s high priorities at our Fulda, MN location. When Kevin is not working at AFS you can find him in a farm shop just on the outside of Rushmore. He enjoys working on farm equipment getting it ready for the next farming season and spending time with his family.
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