Blizzard of 1888

This is a timely reminder of the extremes that Mother Nature can throw at us in the winter time. I think that folks caught a whiff of this out on the plains this winter.

The abrupt temperature inversion is a long way from beginning to recover, and the record shows that it will take many years. In fact, the sun is perhaps slightly cooler and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation is long gone. This is a new development that is a clean break from the preceding north hemispheric warming that lasted twenty years.

As I posted last winter, it began with the heat blow out into the Arctic of 2007 that likely discharged the driving energy of the PDO.

We can now expect a further measured drop in global temperature and also more this coming winter or two before this has run its course. I do not want to say that this will continue for at least a decade, because we do not know, but it certainly is setting up for it. The historical record slants the probability strongly in that direcrtion.

We will soon be talking at how much cooler 2008 was when the numbers are released and this winter will be dragging into the spring, just like the good old days.

http://www.mccookgazette.com/story/1494559.html

The Blizzard of 1888

Walt Sehnert
Monday, January 19, 2009

Note: The January meeting of the Buffalo Commons Storytellers produced many good stories about the great Nebraska Blizzard of 1948-'49. Since the blizzard stories proved so popular, it seemed appropriate to bring back some stories about another great Nebraska Blizzard -- in 1888.

The Blizzard of Jan. 12-13, 1888, one of the greatest tragedies that ever hit the State of Nebraska, has been referred to as the "School Children's Blizzard," as it trapped so many children in country schools across the state. The storm was widespread, reaching from the Rockies, across the Midwest, and as far south as Mississippi. A later storm, in March of 1888, hit the Northeastern part of the country, and New York State. That storm was not as severe, but affected more people. It is more often reported, and cited as a great tragedy, which it certainly was, even though loss of life was not as great a factor as the Midwest storm.

Strong winds made conditions especially trying in the Midwest. In that day women's and girls' skirts were full and reached nearly to the ground. In those strong winds the skirts wrapped tightly around the legs, making progress difficult. The temperature fell in 24 hours from an unseasonable 70 above zero, to almost 40 below zero. The Colorado River, in Texas, was frozen one foot in depth, the first time in memory that that phenomenon had happened. The winds were so strong that voices were not audible, barely six feet away.

Snow, as fine as powder (which people caught in the storm referred to as "ice dust") was propelled by the wind into minute cracks in buildings. Snow drifted into barns where horses in stalls continually stomped it down, till they were three or four feet above the ground. Stock, in the open, drifted with the wind, straying over drift covered roads and fences -- drifts packed so tightly that cattle could easily cross, as if the obstruction never existed. But cattle also exhibited a homing instinct, and cattle bearing into the storm toward home suffocated from the powdery snow packing into their nostrils.

Across the Midwest some 235 lives were lost in the Blizzard of 1888. In Nebraska there are conflicting reports of deaths, but apparently somewhere between 40 and 100 deaths were attributed to the great storm. For a great number of years the "Blizzard of '88 Club" was very active. Survivors met annually, usually in Lincoln, to swap stories about their experiences. Babies born during those two days seemed to have special status, even into old age, and obituaries often carry a reference to that person as "The Blizzard Baby."

As is the case in any widespread disaster -- tornadoes, floods, fires, and blizzards, stories of tragedy, heroism, and ingenuity are repeated again and again, in various locations, involving different names.

In the Plainview, Neb., cemetery there is a monument erected by a teacher, Loie Royce to the memory of three of her pupils. Miss Royce was a teacher in a rural school north and east of Plainview in 1888. The morning of the blizzard she had nine pupils in school. As the blizzard worsened, Miss Royce sent six of the older students home. Some reports say that she ran out of fuel at the school, some say that there was still fuel for the stove. At any rate, sometime in the afternoon Miss Royce started out, with her three youngest pupils, Peter Poggensee, 9, Otto Rosburg, 9, and Hattie Rosburg, 7, for the nearby farm home where she boarded.

Mrs. Ella Rosburg Martin, a younger sister of two of the victims, was not yet of school age at the time of the blizzard. In a story in the Plainview Diamond Jubilee, 1886-1961, Mrs. Martin offered this account of the events of that day, regarding Miss Royce and three of her pupils. "Unable to face into the storm, the four drifted to the southeast and became lost. Peter Poggensee died first, about 6 in the evening. About midnight Otto Rosburg became still. The little girl, being plump survived until daylight. Wrapped in her teacher's arms, she kept repeating, over and over,

'I am so cold, Mama. Please cover me up.'"

Conrad Rosburg, father of the children, and H. Lorenz found them in the morning. Loie Royce was alive, but her feet were frozen so badly that they had to be amputated above the ankles. It is thought that she became panicky and so left the schoolhouse.

Said Mrs. Rosburg Martin, "My folks were restless after that and moved around a lot. I don't believe they ever got over the deaths of my brother and sister."

At a farm south of Wisner, in Northeast Nebraska (the family farm of my wife, Jean) young Harry Leisy managed to string a rope from the barn 60 yards to the house, which he used to keep from getting lost in the swirling snow, as he traveled that short distance back and forth to the barn. Using this rope he was able to keep a regular milking and feeding schedule for the animals in the barn, during the two days of the blizzard.

Some years ago, the late Harry Culbertson, a railroader from McCook, related his story about the Blizzard of '88. Harry was attending a country school near Culbertson in 1888. For a mid-January day it was extremely mild and sunny, though there was a lot of snow on the ground from previous storms. That morning Harry decided to take his shot gun, as he walked to school, to get in a bit of hunting on the way.

He had managed to bag a couple of quail (or some small bird), and as he neared the schoolhouse, he buried the birds and his shotgun in the snow beside a certain fencepost, not wanting to take either the birds or the shotgun with him into the school building.

Though all morning there was an unusual amount of electricity in the air, the snow did not start until near 1 p.m. The snow began as large silky flakes, but soon turned into a fine powder, which was propelled by strong winds into a full-blown blizzard. The teacher of the school was young, but capable.

She dismissed the school and sent the older children home, but kept the younger children with her. She managed to keep them close and together they made it to a nearby farm place where they spent the night.

Harry had a mile or so to go to reach home. Even though the storm was raging, and the temperature had dropped dramatically, he was not worried, as he knew he could follow the fence all the way home. He said that conditions were worse than he at first believed, and he should have been more concerned, but with the confidence of youth slogged on. The worst part was that he could not see the buildings of his farm and would have gone past had there not been some sort of farm machine near the fence, which he recognized and that enabled him to get his bearings. When the winds abated slightly he caught sight of the lantern in the kitchen window of his home, which allowed him to make it to the house and safety.

School did not resume for a week, and some of the youngsters were gone for longer than that. The subsequent drifts completely covered the fence that Harry had followed on his trip home that day. It was late in March before he made his way back to the spot where he had left his shotgun and the two birds he had bagged the morning of the storm. He was much relieved to find that a little oil and cleaning was all the gun required to be restored to prime condition, and the two birds were still frozen solid. He laughed as he told how he had taken them home, thawed them out, cleaned them, and the family had eaten them for supper that night -- only two and a half months late.

Source: Plainview News Diamond Jubilee, 1886-1961

In Ireland where the Buffalo Roam

This story is a bit of fun as it appears that the first buffalo herd, or so they say, lands in Ireland. The story even managed to mention the buffalo commons. It is at least a start and it looks like a good start..

There are vast regions of the Eurasian plains and woodlands that are very suitable for buffalo culture. This will firstly replace the original buffalo herds hunted to extinction by our ancestors and make for superior land usage.

Yet this is how it must begin. A few small herds here and there will get it all started. And no, we do not need to introduce wolves and bears into this mix. We do a much better job.

One only wishes one could be there a thousand years from now to see how it all works out.

http://montanagael.blogspot.com/2008/11/green-fields-of-gaothdobhair.html

Saturday, November 29, 2008

The Green Fields of Gaothdobhair
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It turns out Donegal is the new Buffalo Commons.

Patrick Doherty, a hotelier from Gweedore (birthplace of the neo-Celtic songstress Enya, doncha know) has imported a herd of bison to graze in his green fields. They're doing very well, thank you. The herd's grown on the grass of Ireland, and has seen two calves healthy this year. The whole concept is a bit of a stretch, but it's good with the tourists. Doherty owns the An Chúirt Hotel, and his guests don't mind a view of the great beasts. Sure now, our Montana Ted has convinced the world that buffalo's good to eat. And, after all, wild Donegal is the last Irish frontier.

Next they'll reintroduce the wolves.

There's a lovely old song about Gweedore, and in the interests of hearing it more often I post the lyrics here. It dates from the seventeenth century, but there's obviously been at least one verse added in the last two hundred years:



THE GREEN FIELDS OF GAOTHDOBHAIR


Down past Dunlewy's bonny lakes
one morning I did stray
until I reached sweet Clady banks
where the silv'ry salmon play
I strolled around though old Bunbeg
and down along the shore
and gazed with admiration on the
green fields of Gaothdobhair.

I visit Magheraclocher,
on Middletown Heights I stand.
Beneath me lies the ocean wide
and Magheragallon strand;
those sandy banks so dear to me,
those banks I do adore.
Behind me lies sweet Derrybeg
and the green fields of Gaothdobhair.

The bonny Isle of Gola
and Inish Meán so near--
I see the little fishing fleet
as it lies along the pier;
I wander through the graveyard
where those have gone before
that once lived happy and content
by the green fields of Gaothdobhair.

I see sweet Inish Oirthir
and far off Tory Isle.
I view the ocean liners
as they steam along in style.
On board are Irish emigrants
with hearts both sad and sore
as they gaze on old Tir Chonaill Hills
and the green fields of Gaothdobhair.



My most favored version is that of Clara Sanabras and William Carter on The New Irish Girl CD.

Here's the Clannad version--they're Enya's relatives, so it's their hometown, too. Like Montana, their landscape is breezy and lovely; note the wind generators in the background.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t78NLFwM8YM&eurl=http://montanagael.blogspot.com/2008/11/green-fields-of-gaothdobhair.html

Make Way for the Buffalo

It is good to see this topic a little boost. There has been scant coverage this past year, but the industry itself is steadily growing. In fact, it would take a modest effort to expand the current North American herd ten fold over the next several years. It might be as simple as funding a marketing board or a dedicated meat production facility in the right places.

All the right things are happening. Now we just need to get the herds big enough to put buffalo meat on everyone’s table. We may even see pemmican restored as a staple.

The latest burst is promoted by an enthusiast who sees merit in selling far western land to provide capital to buy down the failing lands of the buffalo commons. I guess the idea is for a giant unfenced open plain covered with huge herds. I will pass on that thank you.

We need those fences to manage herd size and provide grazing control. We may never fully restore the prairie back to the original buffalo grass of the past, but we can certainly try. In the meantime, a monoculture of buffalo is not smart either. We have already shown success in mixing cattle and buffalo. And once the deep rooted grasses are reestablished we may even have luck handling a few goats and sheep on those grasslands.

Recognizing that these lands are superb fodder lands for well managed animal husbandry that survives principally on live fodder, even sometimes in the winter with appropriate augmentation from hays is the only viable protocol for these poorly watered lands.

Make Way for Buffalo

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Published: October 29, 2003

This forlorn farm town Rawson, population 6 -- is a fine place to contemplate the boldest idea in America today: rescuing the rural Great Plains by returning much of it to a vast ''Buffalo Commons.''

The result would be the world's largest nature park, drawing tourists from all over the world to see parts of 10 states alive again with buffalo, elk, grizzlies and wolves. Restoring a large chunk of the plains -- which cover nearly one-fifth of the lower 48 states -- to their original state may also be the best way to revive local economies and keep hamlets like Rawson from becoming ghost towns.

Rawson used to be a bustling town with a railroad depot, two stores, a hotel, a bank, a post office, a gas station, a Lutheran church, a lumber yard, a grain elevator and a school. It had its own newspaper, The Rawson Tribune, and its slogan was ''Rawson, where opportunity awaits you.''

It has been downhill ever since. Two years ago, after the election for mayor ended in an exact tie (one vote for Nels Heggen and one vote for Garvin Gullickson), after the four adult residents tired of taxing themselves to pay for seven streetlights, they dissolved the city and turned it into an unincorporated village.

''My children won't come back here to live,'' admitted Mr. Heggen, whose grandfather ran the hotel in town.

''There isn't much to do here. Right around here, it's kind of desolate.'' (Some journalists reach judgments about a place after interviewing just a few inhabitants; I boast that I talked to half the town.)

It sounds cruel to say so, but towns like Rawson are a reminder that the oversettlement of the Great Plains has turned out to be a 150-year-long mistake, one of the longest-running and most costly errors in American history. Families struggled for generations to survive droughts and blizzards, then finally gave up and moved on. You can buy a home out here for $3,000, and you can sometimes rent one for nothing at all if you promise to mow the lawn and keep up the house.

The rural parts of the Great Plains are emptying, and in some cases reverting to wilderness.

It's immensely sad to travel through the Dakotas' ghost towns or Nebraska's cattle country -- where Loup is the poorest county in America -- because they are full of warm, hard-working, honest farmers and ranchers who are having their hearts broken. How can one not admire the people of Sentinel Butte, N.D., where there is no attendant at the gasoline station but the townspeople all have keys and pay on the honor system?

Yet honesty and sweat aren't enough to make farming and ranching successful in marginal lands. The farms produce plenty of grain and beef, but they will never make much money, even with billions of dollars in agricultural subsidies. The economic model will be even less viable as underground aquifers run out in the next two or three decades. Much plains farming relies on the vast Ogallala aquifer, which is dropping at a rate of four feet per year.

So it's time to reach for something bold, like the Buffalo Commons idea, proposed in 1987 by Frank and Deborah Popper, two New Jersey social scientists. This would be the biggest step to redefine America since the Alaska purchase. Pushing it would give the environmental movement a chance to be known mainly by what it's for instead of for what it's against. But it would take close cooperation with the people with the most at stake: struggling farmers and ranchers, who for now are irritated by East Coast city slickers trying to turn their land into a buffalo playground.

''Why not let us manage our own affairs, just as people in New York would want to manage their own affairs?'' asked Keith Winter, a veteran rancher, during a break from working with his calves.

It's a fair question, and a Buffalo Commons can be achieved only if it benefits North Dakotans more than New Yorkers. That should be possible, for states like Colorado, Utah and Idaho have boomed by branching out from their traditional economic base to embrace tourism and recreation, and Buffalo Commons would become one of the world's wonders.

If Buffalo Commons comes about, perhaps a hotel can reopen in Rawlins, and Mr. Winter's ranch could draw German tourists who would pay to herd cattle. If the thunder of buffalo hooves is again heard on the open plains, that will not be the death knell for towns like Rawlins -- it will be their last, best hope.

E-mail: nicholas@nytimes.com

Blog Anniversary Overview

I have been writing this daily column for a full year now. I think that there were only one or two instants that I lacked an obvious topic. In any event, this is as good a time as any to reformulate my theme of the application of agriculture to resolving our perceived difficulties with CO2 in particular and environmental issues in general.

I have always looked for ways in which the small farmer, who represents a likely third of the global population, can adopt beneficial protocols.

My initial postings commenced with the need to restore good husbandry to the maintenance and use of the woodlot in temperate North America. We recognized the need to produce a larger authority than the individual who could be capitalized over the long time spans necessary. We opened discussions on the methods and established practical protocols.

What I am very conscious of is that all protocols must be first properly implemented by some form of collective agency that has access to title creation and enforcement. After all, why are you going to grow a Macadamia nut plantation if after five years I can come in and convert the wood to charcoal?

This form of agricultural barbarism is inhibiting agricultural development in the underdeveloped world. The impoverished and disenfranchised simply do not care if their neighbor’s family is thrown into poverty and this is the selfish foundation of so called ethnic cleansing.

We went on to almost immediately discover terra preta. There was little coverage then but that has since totally blossomed. The power of terra preta is that it clearly answers the age old problem of maintaining soil fertility and I showed how even the original makers used corn waste to make it happen. This can be done today by any subsistence farmer.

Getting that world wide problem behind us was extremely necessary and very timely. Now that we know how to produce highly fertile soils in only a few years, we will be able to at least tolerate poor practices until the current operators are replaced. We actually have the time. I expect to see the ruined soils of Mesopotamia to be fertile again.

Education and gentle pressure will do the rest.

More exciting, millions of acres of tropical forest soils, now been cropped on a slash and burn system can be converted to continuous sustainable agriculture, This actually puts feeding our projected population of ten billion within easy reach.

We talked about the buffalo commons development that is quietly underway with no need to call on government involvement. I expect that in two centuries, that we will have more buffalo ranched than was ever alive in the wild. This particular protocol will also be implemented in the Asian steppes where their brethren were wiped out many thousands of years ago.

Recently we have been made aware of the productivity of cattail culture which allows a wetland protocol that will produce massive amounts of starch suitable for ethanol. This was unexpected and promises to be hugely productive and very low cost. The agricultural protocol can be applied from the tropics to deep in the Boreal forest. Whoever thought that there would be a crop that could prosper in those dismal swamps? Even the moose will be happy. The mosquitoes and black flies will be even happier which is why the work will have to be largely done after first frost.

We also discussed the onset of peak oil conditions in the energy markets. Pricing was shifted from an abundance regime to a chronic shortage regime. This obviously hurts and is now creating a huge immediate market for ethanol. Again, the obvious first step is to impose optional ethanol usage on all new vehicles. Industry and agriculture will sort out how to do the rest.

Many other protocols are now been experimented with and we have reported on these as they arose.

It is very comforting to know however, that almost all global soils in use can be easily restored to full health, that most wetland areas can become massive producers of starch for ethanol and if we care, for human consumption, and that temperate dry lands are best served by buffalo husbandry.

I have also commented on the need to bring the entire ancient hunter gather protocols under proper management. This will not likely occur until the hunters are run out of business. I do not think that it will be too difficult to restore the soon to be extinct salmon fishery or the soon to be extinct blue fin tuna fishery when the so called owners are completely out of business. It did happen to the world’s greatest cod fishery and once they are finished wrecking the ocean bottom so that any other form of fishing is impossible, it should be possible to get agreement with everyone to stay away forever and allow a full optimized recovery.

I welcome my readers to comment and I also welcome new ideas that I have never seen. Feel free to contact me through this blog.