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  • From: Mike Rock <mikerock AT mhtc.net>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] I'm a TN farmer also...flooded
  • Date: Thu, 06 May 2010 19:32:41 -0500

It seems like yesterday, but on June 9th, 1972 the Black Hills had it's 'hundred and some years' flood. We'd just married on the 6th of May and a month later lost it all. We lived down in Grizzly Gulch, south of Keystone (Mt. Rushmore). 'Project Hailswath', a government project to soften or disperse hail, said the had not seeded the clouds that day, but something sure got mother nature in a tizzy. We had 14" of rain that night and it was a real goose drowner. Our mistake on coming back from Rapid City that afternoon was driving across the last 8' culvert between us and the Iron Mountain road. We lost the trucks and cars of all the folks living down there. In Keystone we lost 28 folks.

Our garden was gone.....but we found sprouted potatoes twelve feet in the pine trees. There were trout caught up in branches! We were running man trailing Bloodhounds, the start of 31 years of raising them.
Lots of bodies found in the next several weeks..... Like I said, it is like yesterday.......

I can sure sympathize with you all. God does take care of his own.

Mike

Sue Dickhaus wrote:
I've been on this list for awhile and just reading and learning as I'm new to this farming..this is our 2nd CSA year. On Saturday as the waters were rising we knew it was time to move the goats and sheep up to high ground and we did. By the time we were through with that move of 21 animals the water was waist deep on me. My husband, sis and I tried to get to the rabbit area but were too late as the waters were swirling around back there. We lost them all, and most of the cages are damaged, waterers, feeders etc gone. We've lost all but 6 hens and 5 roosters(had over 30) We had two buildings move from one pasture to anther and our barn is a goner. We've probably lost about 3 ft of top soils off of the crop areas and all our fencing is down or just gone. We'd bought 400.00 worth of new pasture gates and they've all benn washed away. Our hoopshouse...I have no idea where that has gone to. The water rose in about 1 hour from when we started with the goats and sheep to when we knew we had to leave our home.They have since been evacuated to another farm. My
sister had just moved some storage up here from FL so she had a 27' Penske moving truck..that's what saved us. Our cars wouldn't have made it through. We got back Saturday morning and went through it all again on Sunday. More damage and higher waters. So far we've heard from the county mayor and sherrif that theyre's red cross shelters set up but no one knows what if anything can be done to help with our farm loss...but we are hoping that works out. We found out we do have flood insurance on the house and they are coming out tomorrow to access the damage. I like Carla, have so many tired and aching bones, but can't sit down as there is so much to do. We contacted our CSA members as soon as we could..and now we are just hoping someone with some wisdom in this will come up along side of us and guide in the next steps. We are grateful for our lives when there are so many who lost theirs. And for the most part our home is livable.





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