[AT] Snow/Ice Storms

[Dennis Johnson]

Herb,

Where in Kansas did you live???
I grew up in McPherson area. I almost ended it in a 1 room school, but moved to town the year I was to start. Remember 1 winter where there was a drift about 15 feet high we tunneled through just for something to do.

Dennis


Sent from my iPad

> On Dec 17, 2016, at 8:44 PM, Herb Metz <metz-h.b at comcast.net> wrote:
> 
> We had some bad storms, and an infrequent blizzard in central KS, but very 
> seldom as bad as some recently mentioned.  Our one room grade school was one 
> mile north of us, so roads were occasionally closed because of prevailing 
> west winds.  I do remember several times when Dad got up earlier, hitched 
> the team of mules to our lumber wagon and my sister and I would hope in, we 
> would pick up several neighbor kids on the way, including the neighbor girl 
> where the school teacher stayed (who was not happy to see us pull into the 
> yard, because that meant we would be having school, so get in more coal 
> right away to get more heat into a cool school house), and the teacher, and 
> continued on to school.  I do not remember home many students showed on such 
> days (20 +/- 3 was total enrollment), but enough that we had school.  People 
> on east west roads were not as affected as us north-south residents.
> The township had a D-7(?) Cat with big V-blade for opening mostly badly 
> blown areas on north-south roads.
> At times like that there was much rubber-necking on our single wire rural 
> party-line phones without much objection because neighbors were concerned 
> about the well being of each other.
> Around 1945 the phone line/system was upgraded to two wire, twisted every 
> quarter mile or so.
> Herb(GA)
> 
> 
> -----Original Message----- 
> From: John Wilson
> Sent: Saturday, December 17, 2016 4:14 PM
> To: at at lists.antique-tractor.com
> Subject: Re: [AT] AT Digest, Vol 154, Issue 16
> Re: Speaking of Stuck
> Hate to think of all the times someone has been seriously stuck and I've
> been involved in fixing it.
> Fuel truck stuck in a 6 ft drift on the road in front of my house. Ended up
> with probably 25 Amish guys and 10 kids digging a bunch of snow out of the
> way to get him up there.
> Cattle feeding truck for a guy I worked for. About a 72 Chevy 2WD with a
> welded rear axle and pizza cutter tires. Home built rig to carry round
> bales. The guy had arthritis and just didn't get out much in the winter, so
> he hired some of his winter chores done. I learned really fast that snow
> and mud had little effect on the truck when it had a couple of bales on the
> back, so I drove uphill to feed and arranged it so I could drive downhill
> to a gate. Another guy wasn't so smart. He got it stuck and wasn't smart
> enough to stop and sat it down on the axle. The old guy called me and he
> drug a 20ft wooden beam out with his H Farmall. Dug a hole to get the end
> under the back bumper. Stacked some boards for a fulcrum and we raised it
> up 6 or 8 inches. Wedged boards under the axle and repeated the process
> until we got it out of the hole. More boards under the wheels and it was
> ready for the H to pull it home. Put the beam and boards on the back of the
> truck and the old guy made the kid who got it stuck walk back!
> One bad winter I was running out of cattle feed for my steers, so I needed
> to get my truck out. The feed truck was backed up for days because he had a
> 4x4 tractor escorting him everywhere he went. Rain, freeze, snow, snow,
> snow made for a heck of a mess. Tried to drive my Deere 2640 out, and it
> wanted to go downhill through the fence. Dug my way out toward the Deere
> with my Bobcat and it got hung about 10 ft behind the tractor. Pulled my
> truck out to try to winch the Bobcat out with a come along and watched the
> truck almost go through the fence just sliding along the path I'd cleared.
> My neighbor gave it a shot from the other end with a smaller Deere 4x4 and
> he finally got hung too. Ended up borrowing all the chain I could find and
> using a big oak as an anchor to use the come along to back the truck and
> Bobcat out. Neighbor put his bucket down and I was able to use the come
> along to pull my tractor around the curve and part of the way up the hill.
> Then started shoveling. Another neighbor brought us a scoop of gravel and
> we got the tractors out. I bundled up and drove the tractor to town for
> feed.
> Same winter as above, a D8 trying to get a road grader out end up stuck for
> three days! I got dinged for missing work because the road wasn't legally
> closed. Not sure how I was supposed to travel on a road a D8 couldn't
> handle.
> 
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