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Date Posted: 18:26:12 01/17/17 Tue
Author: Tanner
Subject: Weather

With our winter being as harsh as it has been, I was thinking about something I saw in another post: how our ancestors survived the winter conditions on the Northern Plains.

I know my ancestors when they first arrived in the spring of 1879, began building a house. There was limited wood on the vast open treeless prairies so they made their first house of sod. They cut the 2'x2'x2' blocks of sod from the native prairie and stacked them into a 20'x20'x9' tall building. They cover the roof with some boards, more sod and straw. The made a mixture of dirt, straw and water to parge on the walls. It wasn't much, but it was a beginning and the sod house kept them warm and protected them from the harsh and bitter winter winds.

They traveled to a wooded creek area and stocked up on fire wood for the winter, there was a cast iron cook stove to cook and heat the house with.

After two years of farming they saved enough money to order a shipment of wood and they built a house made of wood.

In addition to the sod house, they built a barn of sod too, and it protected their animals until they could build a real barn.

While the sod house was being built, they made a temporary house by digging a shallow hole in the ground, removing the top from one of their covered wagons, tipping the wagon over and living under thee wagon. I have tried to convince Kala this how we should start out, but she is not buying it. LOL.

During blizzards, when the high winds blew snow everywhere and it was hard to see more than 2 feet in front of you, some got lost and died of exposure. I read one account where a lady got lost between the house and barn, and wandered in the blinding storm and died. Her footsteps that didn't get filled with snow shows she passed near shelter a couple of time until she dies. Sad.

One of my ancestors left the ranch for town one day and while there a storm hit. On the way home, the storm got worse and he couldn't see. He decided to unhitch the horse from the wagon, jumped on the horse's back and let the horse get them home. About an hour later, the horse stopped at the barn door. The horse got them home safely.

My Dad remembers a three day blizzard when he was kid with blinding snow. His Dad strung ropes from the house to the barn, machine shop and other buildings. All they had to do was grab the rope and fallow it.

Lately I have be thinking about how my ancestors survived to build a home and ranch on the prairie.

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