I was either in the 7th or 8th grade at The Brothers School, which was the either the late 50’s or the early 60’s. On this particular day the weather was sort of warm. For some reason I had a horse out before the drive to school.

For some good reason I tied the horse to the steps of a shed. Rule of thumb for me was to always tie the horse so the rope was nose level to the standing horse, or tie above its head. I was not to be bothered with such rules, I think I was in a hurry. I tied the horse to the steps. I climbed the steps and was reaching for the shed door when things got exciting. The horse set back and pulled. The steps tore off the shed. The horse became frightened and jerked back. I was standing on the steps. I found myself airborne looking at the sky and then the ground.

The steps were firmly tied to the horse, but they were no longer attached to the shed. I was thinking this was a mistake, and wondering how hard it was going to be to catch the critter dragging the steps. The ground got in my way and I crashed while using my left arm as a landing support. My thumb sort of really hurt. However, the horse came first. I remember catching the critter and putting it back in the corral. I don’t know if that entailed taking a saddle off. I surveyed the shed and the wandering steps. I think I tried to reattached the thing, but I was not able to do that. I went to the house and reported my adventure to Mom. She examined my swollen thumb and decided I should stay home from school. She took my brother and sister to school. I stayed home contemplating life after Dad discovered I had destroyed the new steps.

About 1 or 2 in the afternoon it started raining very hard. Hard enough that Mom decided to drive to Brothers and retrieve the students. I wanted to stay home, but that was not to be. We got the kids and headed back. There was a river of water washing down the road. Our driveway was about 4.5 miles long. Then the temperature began to drop and by dark it was snowing hard with a brisk wind, Dad was not home. He was in the Madras area checking on the sheep and their herders.

Dad was not home and we went to bed. I think he stumbled up the stairs to the house about 10 pm. He said he started down the driveway, but the pickup got stuck in the snow. It was a one ton 1948 Dodge, two wheel drive. He started walking. He could not see, but by shuffling his feet he managed to stay in the road.

The next morning we awakened to a world of white. The snow was deep. Our corral fence was six feet tall and one could walk over it without knowing the fence was there. There was somewhere around six feet of snow. The wind was no longer blowing but the temperature had dropped over night to about 30 below zero. We didn’t have a tractor with a bucket and there was no place to drive because the snow was deep.

I had visions of staying in the house and enjoying the warm fire. No such luck. There were 40 head of yearling heifers in a pen that had to be fed. They were only a 100 yards or so from the hay stack. The hay had to get there and equipment was not working. We got out the toy sleds. First we broke a trail to the heifers. By working we discovered we could haul 2 bales of hay, per sled. That took care of the hay. It took a trip or two, but the heifers got fed. As long as the critters had good feed they were not cold.

The next challenge was to get grain to the critters. The sleds did not seem to work for the grain. We had a donkey. He wanted attention, I guess. We found that he could carry a 100 pound sack of feed without being stressed, and he carried it a whole lot easier that we could. Since a path had been made through the snow we simply led the donkey while balancing the feed on this back High tech.

Next there was another problem. The heifers had no water. Their trough was frozen solid. We built a fire against the trough and melted the ice. I sort of recall that some of the heifers had pink eye that had to be treated. We wrestled critters and treated their eyes daily.

Back to the house we went. I don’t recall being cold. Inside the house two things happened. First I learned about being snow blind. It took several minutes before my eyes adjusted and I could see. That was time I could not bear. Remember the injured thumb? It liked cold weather, but hurt really bad in the warm room. I was staggering and falling to the bathroom where I would run cold water on my hand until I could bear the pain.

For entertainment we did a couple things. we melted spots through the ice on the windows so we could sort of see out and we played cribbage. I learned how to do math in my noggin. My grandfather was snowed in with us. He was a stickler for counting correctly. I thought I was a whiz at the game. On my honeymoon I whipped out a cribbage board. My bride promptly cleaned my clock.

We got into the routine of working with the stock and surviving in the house. Then one day we saw a wonderful sight. The county road grader was plowing its way to the house. We were set free. I think my grandfather took his pickup ad drove back to his home in Bend. Dad was able to retrieve his pickup. In the back of the pickup was a box or two of food and our pet dog. The dog had died of cancer and Dad was bringing her home to bury. I don’t recall running low on food, but I sort of recall having a limited menu.

From this storm I learned that we could survive in adverse conditions and that the livestock depended on us to eat. They were the priority. The storm killed off a lot of our resident quail; I think they burrowed under brush and could not get back out through the snow. We did have several horses on the open range. I wondered if they would all die. After the storm broke they came to the house in good condition. They were tough.

Life went on. The weather warmed and the sheep and cows still had to be attended to. We even had to go back to school.