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Family ties helping South Dakota ranchers survive
CONNIE JO DISCOE
Regional Editor
KYLE, S.D. — Two weeks after a blizzard hit the southwest corner of South Dakota with the merciless force of a cyclone, Ramona Vocu and her family are still trying to dig out and count all their cattle.
"Three Mile Creek Ranch took an awful hit," said Ramona, who is the older sister of Dr. Wayne Watkins, DVM, of McCook. From 300 miles away, Ramona said they're relying on her brother's knowledge to help them keep their surviving livestock alive.
"We're saddling up today to bring everything in, and do a count … we've lost so many calves," Ramona said by telephone Tuesday morning. The frost has gone out of the ground, and melting snow and flooding from Three Mile Creek and the Cheyenne and White rivers have turned her family's ranch into mud and muck a foot deep. "We wouldn't dare take a pickup out there," she said, quietly.
It was cold, very cold, even before the historic blizzard hit March 13. The cows were having their calves, and they were all so cold. "They seemed to have no will to live," Ramona said, explaining that they have two calves close-by in their yard right now. "One calf, the mother died. The other cow just walked off … she didn't want anything to do with her calf." They're bottle-feeding both babies.
Knowing a bad blizzard was on its way, the Vocus moved their herds of beef cattle, rodeo stock and bucking bulls out of open pastures to safety. "But the wind … 70-mile-an-hour gusts … " Ramona said. "The cattle just drifted with the wind … through fences," she said. One bunch wandered onto an old snowdrift and new snow blew over the top of them, burying some of the livestock under drifts 8, 10, even 12 feet high.
After the blizzard subsided, Ramona, her husband, Dale, their son, Maurice, and their granddaughter, Jessie, walked toward their cattle, locating some by the sound of their breathing under the snow. "Their breathing had melted the snow around their faces," Ramona said. They used grain scoops to dig them out of snowdrifts.
"We couldn't get out there with a pickup," Ramona said. "Walking out to the cattle over the first three days was just what we had to do."
They dug out six bulls, including one yearling collapsed on top of one of the bulls. They're alive.
The animals are stressed, Ramona said, "but they're doing okay now. They're eating … cake and hay."
"Our vet is in Martin, 55 miles away," Ramona said. "So we call Wayne, and he can tell us what we can do to help keep them alive." "Cake" is a highly-fortified protein and mineral supplement.
She said, "I depend on Wayne a lot. It's nice to have a brother who is a vet."
Recovering after a horrific winter like this one has been is going to be tough, Ramona says. She says the family will apply to a federal government program, a Department of Agriculture livestock indemnity program, after they figure out just what and how many head they've lost. They're afraid it's half their herd.
"Hopefully, we can just start again," she said.
"We were almost in the 'eye' of that storm," Ramona said. "We've had blizzards before, of course … but not wind like that."
And now the flooding and the mud … and the forecast ...
The late week and weekend forecast is for rain turning to snow. Starting in Montana and moving across Wyoming and into South Dakota and Nebraska, the storm could dump from 3 to 12 inches of snow. Although winds will not be nearly as strong as the "bomb cyclone" of March 13, locally gusty winds may reduce visibility.
Temperatures in the 60's and 70's by midweek shouldn't fool anyone into putting away winter coats, mittens and snow scoops. Forecasters predict the thermometer will drop 20-40 degrees by Thursday and Friday behind the building storm system. The storm is expected to target areas of southern Montana, western Wyoming, southwestern South Dakota and the Panhandle and Sandhills of Nebraska.
Ramona sighed, and said, softly. "It just needs to start being nice."
Video here: http://bit.ly/2V4DV4V