Summer blues and greens

By Paulette Haupt Tobin

 8/2/01

For nine years now, Grand Forks has lived with the wet. We've had lots of rain, lots of snow, the worst flood of the century and several lesser floods. Before we moved here, we lived for six years in Rapid City, S.D., during a terrible drought. As a farmer's daughter, I feel guilty saying this, but I miss the drought.

And this summer, the freakish weather continues. A couple of weeks ago, we got three inches of rain in a half-hour. This week we had several days of intermittent downpours, strong winds, hail, flash flood warnings and tornado watches. On Tuesday at 11 a.m. the sky was pitch black (actually, it was blackish-green) with gale-force winds. I expected Dorothy, Toto and the house from Kansas to go flying by the window at any moment. Later I walked around the house and every inch of the way heard, "squish, squish, squish." They say the ground here is now so saturated that if a rabbit urinates along the banks of the Red River, the river will rise. And did I mention the mosquitoes? They LOVE this weather.

Despite a sump pump that is pumping like crazy, we've still got "seepage" in the basement, as do perhaps 75 percent of the homes in Grand Forks, including the ones with multiple sump pumps. So far I haven't found mushrooms growing in the corners down there, but it's happened before. (I told this to one of my co-workers and he said: "Were they morels?") In the future, I plan to never again own a home with a basement. They're nothing but a headache and a waste of space. There's no amount of decorating that will change the fact that a basement is still a hole in the ground. And, seriously, think about what most people have in their basements. We could get rid of 90 percent of the stuff down there and not miss it.

OK, enough whining. My brother Gerry and his wife Patty farm and ranch south of Eureka and they suffered terribly during the drought years of the 1980s. At one point they moved all their cattle to eastern South Dakota because they had absolutely no pasture. The wet years haven't been kind to agri-business either. Crops have been flooded and the wet has bred mold and other diseases that ruin wheat and barley. Equipment has gotten stuck in the field, harvests delayed. I asked Patty which was worse, the drought or the wet. She said she preferred the wet. At least during the wet you can grow alfalfa and feed your cattle, she said.

When I think back to growing up on the farm near Eureka, I remember plenty of summer nights when the thunderstorms and threat of worse drove us into the basement for shelter. (All right, I concede that basements can provide a refuge from tornadoes.) My dad would herd us all down there if he heard much more than a couple of thunder claps. It wasn't until I was an adult that I realized that not everyone headed for the basement at the first sign of bad weather. I don't know why my Dad was so vigilant about this, but he was. Summer storms really scared him.

There's nothing wrong with having a healthy respect for the weather, especially here in the Midwest. Those of us who've lived here all our lives can become complacent about the extremes of heat and cold. Just yesterday, one of the Vikings football players died of heat stroke following a practice near Mankato, Minn. Many of us know of people who have been caught unprepared in winter and who suffered frostbite or worse as a result.

When I was about 10 years old, my Mom and Dad, brother Dave, Greant-Aunt Emma Schmidt and I went to Aberdeen one Sunday afternoon to visit relatives. It was a scorching hot day and humid, too. By the time we headed home, we were all tired and cranky, but not too tired to notice how black the sky getting. By the time we hit Leola, we knew we were in trouble. When we got to the place where Highway 10 starts winding through those hills, it was raining so hard we could barely see. The adults were discussing what they should do. Aunt Emma thought we should keep going, but Dad was driving, and he decided it was time to get off the road.

At the Long Lake turn-off, Dad took a left and pulled the car into that little farm that you can see from the road. (I believe it is a Kiesz place.) By the time we got out of the car, the wind and rain were so strong we could barely walk. The people who lived there must have seen us approach, because they were at the door, urging us to come inside. As mother pulled David and me toward the house, out of the corner of my eye I could see cattle running in the pasture. The noise of the storm was deafening.

As we hurried into the basement, and the tumult outside was incredible. The house creaked and groaned above us. We were all soaked to the skin, and I remember Mom got out a hanky and was trying to dry my arms and legs and David's, too. I suppose we were scared, but I don't remember that. I just remember wondering why Mom thought she could get us dry with one little hanky.

Later I thought how glad I was that Dad hadn't listened to Aunt Emma. That was the night tornadoes wrecked six or seven farms near Long Lake and even tore up pavement on the highway. I believe there was at least one storm-related fatality as well. We drove by some of those farms a few days later and the devastation was unbelievable. Pieces of buildings and farm equipment had been blown for miles, homes wrecked and personal belongings from clothing to pots and pans scattered everywhere.

The summer blues of rain have brought us the summer greens of brilliant lawns, trees and gardens. Our years here in Grand Forks have been so wet, I can count on two hands the times in eight summers that we've had to set sprinklers to water the lawn. That's definitely a good thing. Although if we get much more rain, we might have to import one of Gerry and Patty's cows to keep the grass down.

(Paulette Haupt grew up 12 miles northeast of Eureka and graduated from EHS in 1973. You can email her at tobin@infi.net.)