We can really say that Christmas is now all around us with the amount of snow that we have accumulated this past week. I went out this morning to shovel the walk and noted that we must have about 6 inches more and on top of the 9 inches we received last week. This sort of reminds me of the early years growing up on the ranch. I can well remember the blizzard of 49.

We had just returned to Valentine and it was so bad that we could not get out of town. As I remember we stayed at our Dentist's home, Dr David Summers, and spent the night. In the morning we had drifts up to the roof of the house on the North side and it was impossible to get the doors open. We ended up staying a week at his home before we could even think about leaving for the ranch. We did finally get out and left and as I remember it took many hours to get to the turn-off from the highway.

In many places only one lane was open. I can remember pictures of the train with the huge V plow on the front trying to get the rail line open for trains to travel the good old Chicago Northwestern Transportation Line East to West with goods, mail, and people.

I can remember my father, Bruce Sr., bringing the V-plow with a team of horses to the highway and we rode it home going through the hills and valleys to the ranch. It took about 4 hours to get back to the ranch. Dad was very lucky on the cattle as he had just moved them from the Cames' pasture home the day before the storm. If not, he would have lost about 200 head. Anyway we got to the ranch house on the V-plow and it was a sight beholding, the snow was to the slope of the roofs on our house, the north side of the barns and you could not see the corals in some cases.

The snow remained on the North side of the hills till about July. We had a great time sledding from the hill North of the house. We used the grain scoop to sit on and away we went down the hill. We had to fall off the scoop as the fence was not the best thing to hit. What fun we had in doing this.

Our cousin Leah Rae from California sent us a ski set that had a strap over the boot - but it worked. It is a wonder that we did not break our legs when we attempted to ski down the hill.

I remember the air-force flying over our ranch and dropping hay. You could only see tops of the hay stacks and it was almost impossible to get the hay onto the sled and naturally we used 6 head of horses to do this task. Once in awhile, the horses could not be stopped and we would pull the hay off the sled and had a mess on our hands.

Talk about cold, but we dressed for the weather and seemed not to freeze. The up-stairs in our old ranch house was not heated and you could imagine how cold it was during the night. We used many blankets and made it through the winter months. Dad would get up around 4 a.m. and go down stairs to start up the coal stove in the kitchen.

He normally started on the work around 5 a.m. and then would come down for breakfast about 7.00 or so. I guess it was good training for us and we had to milk about 10 cows each morning and night. It seemed that the milk cows did not run out of milk. We sure did have fun spraying our cats mouth so they had milk too.

We did not get to school for several weeks do to the amount of snow that this blizzard gave us. When we did get to school, the old pot-belly stove got so hot that it would turn red. It is a wonder that it did not burn up. We would get our desks and place our backs to the stove to keep warm. Taking out the ashes was always someone's job and we took turns to do this job.

After school, back to the ranch to do the evening work. We would eat about 6-7 p.m. after the work was done.

Christmas was fun and we did not get much but the parents did what they could for this special day. Mother was the best cook in the world and we never went hungry. Even through the war years, we would save sugar so that we could have a cake or cookies once in awhile. These were the good old times that one cannot forget, even when we get older and the bones start to hurt once in awhile.

I hope that each of you have a great Christmas and remember the "good" old times that we had growing up. I would not trade this for anything even though it was tough. Catch you all later - keep warm and "god bless" each of you and your families.