Blizzard party

It was a dark and stormy night. You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. Hubby and I went out to check the roads, and then out of the snowy darkness, a high-pitched exasperated voice exclaimed, “Who are you?”

Well, if that wasn’t about enough to give you the heebie-jeebies, I don’t know what was. Anyway, the aforementioned scary night did eventually end on a high note, but only after a few interesting quirks from Mother Nature. Read on for the rest of the story.

Dangerous Winter Blizzards

South Dakota is noted for many things but one area of well-known distinction is her dangerous winter blizzards. Quite often they appear so quickly that it almost takes one’s breathe away–literally. So was the case on the night of February 2 of this year.

Daughter Vicki had driven up for the afternoon to help us get the bulls ready to take to the farm show. We had spent a rather pleasant afternoon of brushing, blowing, and leading the critters followed by a leisurely mid-afternoon lunch and some good family conversation.

Clouds started to roll in from the west and Vicki decided that she had better head for her home. Our last words to her were to drive safe and come back if the weather got bad. With that, Hubby and I went to do our night chores and check the cowherd.

Well, it didn’t take long before the weather changed to high winds and blowing snow. For some reason after doing chores, Jim decided that we needed to go and check the highway. Highway 25 is only about a half a mile east of our

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place, but whoosh, we found ourselves in high tornadic- type winds as soon as we got beyond our shelterbelt. There we two old codgers were driving in absolute white-out conditions and wondering why we had even ventured out on such a night.

What are we doing out here?

But there was a reason for this excursion… for as we got to Highway 25, a snow-encrusted vehicle with its windshield wipers flipping madly was stopped across the road to the east of us. We could see another vehicle’s headlights beaming right down on us from the north country, and ye gads–there was one more set of headlights flickering slowly from the south. Between the high wind gusts and poor visibility, we figured there was certainly going to be a calamity and we were right in the middle of the whole she-bang.

So-o-o, my hubby rolled down his side window to take a better look at the situation. With that gesture, the driver who had been stopped on the east side of the road pulled over beside us, rolled down her window and shouted, “Who are you?”

“Jim Green,” was my husband’s shouted reply.

“Thank goodness,” was her immediate response. And to the relief of everyone, we soon figured out it was a good friend of ours, but what was she doing out on our road at this time of day and in this type of weather.

“Can I come to your house for awhile?” was her query. Well, of course she could come to our house and so she followed us back down the half mile to the safety of our farm home. Actually, she followed so close behind us that she put herself into a definitely dangerous position. For even though we knew the road to our home like the back of our hand, we almost ran off it a couple of times. Or maybe we were almost pushed off the road by the terrific winds we were experiencing. Whichever the case, it was a scary time for all of us.

There’s no place like home

As we finally trooped into our house, the words from an old song came to mind:

“Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.”

These words gave me a bit of comfort because my house was a wreck and I had a guest coming for a visit, but what the hey–we were all warm and safe and that was all that mattered.

Daughter Vicki soon also showed back up at the home front after remembering our words of warning about the weather. She had traveled only a few miles and concluded that the highway was no place for her and so she joined our group.

Well, where there are two or three or four gathered togetherÉit’s time to have a party. In this case, we had a blizzard party that lasted four hours around our old kitchen table with much talking, eating, laughing and reminiscing about past blizzard episodes.

Blizzard Party at the Green’s

I didn’t have a thing made for supper, so out came some steaks, a quick lettuce and tomato salad, some garlic toast, and some fresh strawberries. Why not?

There is something about going through a scary experience that makes one want to do something out of the ordinary. So, while the wind howled and the snow blew, we enjoyed our steaks and enjoyed each others company. What fun!

What’s that?

And just as quickly as it came; it left. The wind quit blowing and our guests checked road conditions and decided to head for their homes.

This blizzard experience is another one for the books and a lasting memory for the four of us and also for our families. I forgot to mention all the cell phone conversations that occurred while we were enjoying our steaks. Oh, my. Everyone was so worried about the gals. In the olden days, no one could have contacted them. Now a days, everyone has to be in communication with each other constantly.

The Great Constant

Times have certainly changed; but one thing hasn’t changed and that is the ferocity of a South Dakota Blizzard. Remember: You Can’t Fool nor Beat Mother Nature. Stay Safe.

Jane Green and her husband, Jim, live near Clark. Contact Jane for some public speaking, to order one of her books, or to register your comments. E-mail her at: jgreen@itctel.com