A Quick Trip, But Worthwhile

By Edwin B. Petersen

HELLO FOLKS — The minute men of today are the ones who can make it to the refrigerator and back with a sandwich while the commercial is on. 

—

FOR A MAN with no experience you're certainly asking a high wage," said the prospective employer.

"Well sir, the work's so much harder when you don't know what you're doing."

—

WE GOT A fill-in on the Yellowstone Earthquake. My in-laws came to visit us. Some of the incidents were pretty gruesome, but there were some amusing.

Some of the 'shirt tail' relatives had gone up into the mountains near West Yellowstone to cut timber. They took a car and trailer along with enough food to last them several days.

The night of the earthquake they were awakened by a lof of rumbling (missing text).

So they turned over and went back to sleep. The next morning they went to work little knowing what had befallen the area.

Back home the family was greatly concerned when the didn't hear from the 'boys'. So they send word to the rangers to look them up.

The ranger found them busy cutting timber.

"Don't you boys ever get in contact with the folks back home?"

"We do when we get tired of cutting timber?"

"Don't you ever read the papers or listen to the radio."

"Don't have a radio and haven't been to town to see a paper?"

The ranger rode off. A couple of days later they ran out of food and decided to drive into West Yellowstone and stock up. There they found the town in a mess. Stores were closed and streets broken up. They had been almost on top of the disaster and didn't know anything about it until they got back to civilization. It hadn't been bears at all.

I guess the ranger had at least notified the home folks that they were all right.

"No use bothering to tell busy (missing text) the burning issues of the day? Try cutting timber.

—

THE BLARNEYSTONE Ranch near Hebgan dam had a big barn that stood right in the way of the fault the earthquake made. Part of the barn went down with the fault and the other crumpled to kindling. The drop is 15 feet. Fences were torn down by the quake and one place the cracks appeared every few feet, varying from a few inches to a foot. The horses won't go near the cracks and water and sand bubbled out of them.

—

FOR ONE fellow the quake was a blessing. Nephew Paul Bragg who covered the disaster for the American Broadcasting Company was offered a handsome position with another radio station. They now live in Idaho Falls.

_______________________

UPDATE

The 1959 Yellowstone earthquake also known as the Hebgen Lake earthquake was a powerful earthquake that occurred on August 17, 1959  at 11:37 pm (MST) in southwestern Montana, United States. The earthquake was registered at magnitude 7.3 – 7.5 on the Richter scale. The quake caused a huge landslide that caused over 28 fatalities and left $11 million (1959USD, $74.1 million 2006 USD) in damage and also blocked the flow of the Madison River resulting in the creation of Quake Lake. Effects of the earthquake were also felt in Idaho and Wyoming.

Click here to read more

A Dry Year, But Good One

BY: Edwin B. Petersen

HELLO FOLKS! — The year 1963 will go down in history as one of the driest years on record, as well as one of the biggest in harvest. The hay crop was not the biggest but our rains came at the right time to make corn and soybeans.

According to my records we have had 19.5 inches of moisture this year. What the rest of December will bring we of course don't know, but had the rains came at any other time than when they did we would not have had nearly as big a crop.

Had the bulk of the 19 inches of precipitation come early in the spring, with more this fall there would have been a near crop failure.

The 19 1/2 inches of moisture this year is a real contrast with the precipitation of last year. During 1962 we had nearly double what we have had this year. My records indicate that we had 37.4 inches of rain and snow that year, most of it coming in the form of rain; with only about one inch as snow.

We went into the spring with an abundance of subsoil moisture which complemented the timely rains. For next year we will have to depend on rain or snow entirely as the subsoil is negligible, except where there have been fall rains.

—

The RUN-DOWN by moth read like this:
April—3.3 inches.
May—2.9
June—3.1
July—5.3
August—1.6
September—1.7
October—0.2
November—1.4

—

THIS JOSEPHUS whom I mentioned the other week gave us an insight of many things that the Bible barley mentions. For instance he describes what the tower of Babel was made of and how the people were able to build such a tower.

He also enlarges our knowledge on a man whom the Bible barely mentions. This man is Nimrod. Today's hunters are call nimrods. This is in reference to the man whom scripture refers to in Genesis as a mighty one in the earth, and a mighty hunter before the Lord.

It seems that Nimrod, who was a grandson of Noah, was one of the greatest politicians the earth has had. He did not hold the priesthood, therefore could not legally lead the people. However, he had personality and persuasiveness and he gathered around him a tremendous majority of people. This put him in direct conflict with the Prophets. The prophets tried to get the people to spread out and settle in the low valleys where there was an abundance of food and water. However, Nimrod, seeing a chance to gain from the natural fear the people had of low places, due to the memories their grand-parents had of the great flood, encouraged them to build the tower. This they did with great zeal; thus the tower became very tall, very quickly. It was built of brick and porter and sealed with bitumen.

So, as with all politicians, Nimrod's empire came to an abrupt end, and he ended up just a poor man anyway. As I recall, Josephus says that the bitumen eventually caught fire and destroyed the tower.

UPDATE

Minnesota WeatherTalk Newsletter for Friday, October 28, 2011

On a statewide basis this has been a very warm October, warmest since 1963 and probably 4th warmest in history.

Grandpa was right, 1963 is a threshold for weather Minnesota still uses today!