As the light rose at the ranch, with what seemed to be a sleepless night, we were up with wonders of what we would see. My husband was already at work, he works at the Coal Plants just minutes up the road, and I anxiously dressed by 6:30 am and was out the door to check the damage from the previous nights storm. A phone call to MC to see if she was up with no answer. As I arrived I could see her walking about checking out the buildings and assessing the damage that had fallen upon the beautiful 100 year old farm. Driving  tears rolled from my eyes as the skyline to the east just wasn’t the same as the beautiful once land mark trees had been toppled over from the rath of the storm. Gain bins were dented on the west side from the power of the wind. They almost appeared to have been beaten with a sledge hammer leaving large caved in appearance on the top halves as well as one of them lifted off of the foundation which was bolted down. Snow fence to the bull pen was heaved in with metal panel sheets flapping in the wind, shingles and pieces of siding were hanging off of buildings and the damage to the tree lines were a sight to beholding leaving one awestruck. On the plus side the yearling bulls and heifers were standing in there pens looking content as well as the horses. I drove up to MC and asked her if she had seen the herd in the pasture. She said no and with that we gathered some feed in buckets and headed out the pasture to see if we could find them. With hopes and prayers the gate was open and we made way bouncing across the pasture landscape.

As we drove the pasture coulee hills, I could tell doubt was in the air from MC and myself. These wasn’t a bison in sight as we spied across the acres of land in sights vision. Down the mud covered riven’s and up hills slipping and sliding in spots with conversation of where were they at. As we neared the end of our properties fence line, we swung around toward the coulees bottom and there they were….hiding down in the shelters of the bottoms all safe and sound. With relief we snuck back home only to find Gramps standing outside looking at the down trees that lay in the yard of there home. What was once a pretty landscape area of beautiful flowers and rustic rock now was covered in depree of what was left of the beautiful trees that once waved in the North Dakota wind.