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One Hundred Thirty Miles of Missing Fence - REPLACED!
Thousands of volunteers have helped our neighbors in North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Minnesota with disaster recovery since the spring of 1997. The work continues. Blizzards from the winter of 1996-‘97 left snow-banks 20-feet-high in many places and killed livestock of all kinds in the three-state area. The floods that followed in South Dakota and along the Red River of the North made national news. Orphan Grain Train and “One Good Cow” shipped building supplies, equipment, and nearly 1,000 pregnant cows to North and South Dakota in ‘97-‘98. But the media did not report the lost fence-lines of the western Dakotas.
The first blizzard covered warm soil in October 1996. A new blizzard came each week until January 1997. Several feet of snow accumulated though out the winter with no thaw. The resulting ice pack drove fence-posts into the ground like “nails into a board.”
Melting snow made floods the next concern. By the time “One Good Cow” started shipping in the fall of 1997, Orphan Grain Train heard comments like, “Don’t send cattle until I get my fences fixed.” OGT volunteers and Lutheran Social Service (LSS) understood the need when they saw the miles of missing fence. Braids of barbed wire stretched from sunken post to sunken post, creating a landscape of “connect the dots.” Old-timers had seen nothing like it before.
Orphan Grain Train worked with LSS of South and North Dakota on fence replacement. With Lutheran Hour Ministries relief money, OGT purchased posts and wire at less than wholesale cost. Donated trucking moved the materials from Utah, Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas to the Dakota’s for use by Laborers for Christ and Lutheran Disaster Response volunteers.
This summer volunteers replaced over 130 miles of fence. As of September 30, the estimate in donated man-hours amounted to over 4,000. Estimated value of donated trucking, labor and food, as well as $86,000 worth of posts and wire, now total more than $400,000 for this project.
Gratitude to God has been etched on human hearts through this effort. Gifts from Lutheran Hour Ministries and Orphan Grain Train donors, coordination by OGT and LSS and much toil by Laborers for Christ made this work a blessing for those involved. One farmer, who could not finish re-fencing without help, thanked the Laborers for Christ foreman in a personal way. When the final strand of wire was hammered tight, the farmer reached into his pocket for an old arrowhead he found years ago. A prized memento of younger years, this gift for the foreman was his public tribute for help received.