Windy Wind

So much wind and it just doesn’t want to stop. A day to two days before the wind was to come in, we were being warned over radio and newspaper, that winds would be up to 60mph. We were being advised to take things out of our yards that could easily blow away and they advised not to leave smaller pets outside.

            Sure enough Tuesday this week I was driving to school and it was pretty windy and raining at the same time. It was no big deal, but when I left school to drive back to Winona, 45 minutes away, I had noticed a huge change in the wind. I was kind of feeling a little nervous about the drive the next day.

            While at work that night, all I could hear was the sound of the wind just howl past the house of the lady I take care of. When I left and was walking to my car that night, I could have sworn I could have blown away. I could notice that the wind had taken a lot of the leaves off the trees and they were blowing everywhere.

            When I awoke in the morning, I could see the damage that a lot of the wind had done to peoples yards, there were branches from trees and random things from peoples yards blown all over the place. When my mom woke up this morning to take the dogs out, she noticed that a garbage can, that had been pretty well contained in a spot on my deck, had blown all the way down to the road.

            Driving to school that morning was quite a workout, I drive a suburban, so wind hits the vehicle and pushes it around a lot. Going along the river it was pushing me everywhere. I was so glad to make it to school without any major issues. But the funniest thing was when I was on the Cass Street and 7^th Street intersection, a set of stoplights for the Cass Street side had been blown to face the 7^th Street. I couldn’t believe it, that’s some pretty powerful wind to do something like that.

            The best was yet to come; when I got to class I got to hear all the stories people had to talk about with what the wind did to them. I thought the best was when this one lady said she was going to leave and she saw a tree down at the end of her road, she was pissed, and then she saw one of the other guys that lived on a road coming down to leave. He saw the tree and said he would be back with his chainsaw, she thought to herself how perfect he came down when he did, because he does landscaping maintenance work for a job. So when he got back, he cut and she threw logs. She said it would have probably been hilarious to see them doing this, because it was so assembly line like.

            So when it came time to go home, I was a little nervous, but I figured the sooner I got going the sooner I’d be home. So once again, I was holding the wheel for dear life, hoping not to be blown around to bad, when I was about 15 minutes from being home, my thumb started to fall asleep, I thought that was pretty funny, because it told me I was holding the wheel very tight. Soon enough I was home, and very glad to be. I just hope tomorrow isn’t bad, I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

A Days Never Wasted If Your Wasted All Day

Who knew such a fun day could end the way it did. It all started last Saturday, my friend had asked me if I would like to go with him to the Winona State homecoming football game.  The game was at 1, so I arrived at the field around 12:30. It was crazy, people everywhere, tailgate parties, people selling things, and lots of drunken students coming for a good day. I had a great day at the game with my friend, I even won a t-shirt, but unfortunately the Warriors still lost the game.

            It was funny because all through the day I kept hearing about how many parties there were, and how crazy it was downtown. I ran into this friend of my moms and he said he had gone for a drive downtown and said this is the worst he has seen the parties in a long time, people drinking and passed out all over along the roads.  It was kind of funny to hear about all the people that had been partying the night before and to hear other people at the game bragging about what time they woke up in the morning to start drinking, so they could be feeling good for the game. Then most of these students’ conversations quickly turned to where to go to party, and what was going down at these parties. I thought it was interesting how many people gave up in the game at half time and took off to go start partying and drinking again. But for me this day just seemed to come and go as another day.

            The following morning I went to work at 11. The lady that had been their prior to me had said she had heard shooting down by her house the night before, but she really didn’t know what was going on. She kept telling me how she thought that this year was one of the worse homecomings. She said people just got way to out of control. I told her then that if there was a shooting, I was sure we would read about it in the paper.

            Well just like I had guessed it was a headline on the front page. It said that there had been two men, the one confronted a group of people outside, hit someone over the head with an object. The residents then went into the house and closed the door. The man then smashed the window. There were two women outside and they began to argue with the man that had broken the window, then all of a sudden the man began firing shots, the two women dropped to the ground. The two men then ran from the scene. Both of the women had been shot, one in the leg and another in the abdomen, both were taken to the hospital, and were later said to be just fine. No names have been released of the victims, because they fear for their lives right now.

            These two men were first described as being black men, but new news from witnesses have released a new statement saying it is two white men now. It’s crazy how people always have a way to blame people of color. A few days later when I saw my co-worker, she said her husband and his friends were being talked to earlier in the week, and questioned, because her husband is a man from Kenya, and he is of color, and so are most of his friends. Police had upped security at the college and were doing more patrols in the area of the shooting.  I later informed my co-worker of the address of where this happened and she soon realized that it was in the house across from hers. She said that explained the red spray paint put out by police on the road. After talking about what happened she was just happy that she was not doing anything outside at the time of the shooting.

            Almost going on a week later, the police have yet to find the men involved in the shooting, they constantly have new news and information for us in the paper, but they are still yet to find them. This is kind of scary to think about because now there are two people that are being searched for for a shooting and they have yet to be found, this means they are out among people somewhere, and who know what they might do next.

            I truly do think that this year’s homecoming celebrations got quite a bit out of control. Between the alcohol, rowdiness, and shooting, these are all not good combinations for college students and I hope this wakes them up and makes them see the reality of the world for what it is.

Big Timber, Montana: A Place of Wonderful Memories

            I never knew I would learn so much in one day. It started out early, about 7 in the morning, I had just finished eating breakfast, and the group of us, my dad, my brother, my grandpa, and I and a few other relatives were getting ready to head out to the ranch. It was a cool, fall morning and the mountains were very visible off through the valley.  The peaks all shiny as the sun shines on their snow covered peaks. Oh how I wish I could go snowboarding was all I was thinking about.  I had no idea what today would hold for work out at the ranch, but I quickly learned what we would be doing the rest of the day, and all I could think was I hope I don’t screw this up.

            When we arrived out at the ranch, the first thing we did was get out of the truck; Leo came up to us and said we would be herding cattle today. I thought to myself oh wow; I’ve never really done anything like this before. Little did I know how involved I would be in this whole process. Leo then talked to Lloyd for a few minutes while we waited around. Lloyd came back and he said we would be going out to the other barn down the road, taking out the hay truck and loading hay into it. We did this so the cattle would have something they wanted, so it would make it easier to move them.

            The next part was the part I had never expected to come. As we started to walk away, Lloyd calls me over; kind of like he needed to say something to me, well low and behold he tells me he is going to have me run behind the cattle on the four-wheeler. I figured, hey this couldn’t be that hard, but then he takes me in to get the ATV and this is when I find out it’s a manual. See the issue was that I knew how to drive an automatic, not a manual, at this moment I was secretly freaking out inside. But I made myself take a deep breath, after all, what the worst thing that could happen, all I really needed to do is have Lloyd give me a little lesson on how things ran, so he took about 10 minutes to show me how everything worked, everything was pretty self explanatory, the only thing that really gave me any difficulty was trying to get it set in reverse, but after a few tries it got better as we went on.  I figured, it didn’t really matter if I couldn’t get it because I was in a field, so really all I had to do was drive myself around, to go the other way.

After we got out to the other barn, I got on the wheeler and backed it out of the trailer we used to haul it down with. The rest of everyone piled into either the hay truck or the other pickup truck. All of us headed through the field and up a very steep hill. I felt my heart just sink as I took a glance back down the hill, realizing how steep it really was. So I continued on up the hill, as we reached the top, I felt as if I was on top of the world, it was crazy to see how much we lined up with the mountains in the distance, and it was noticeably colder and windier, so I knew we were pretty high up.

            Once in the fields, we drove around looking for the cattle. After about 30 minutes of looking, we found them way back down in a valley, resting and eating in the shade. We had to get close enough to them with the hay, so they would want to leave and follow it. As my dad was getting the truck closer to the cattle, Lloyd directed me to drive back there with the four-wheeler and try to get the cattle moving. After about 30-45 minutes of this, we had finally got all the cattle out of the valley and moving onward to the other pasture. I was told I had to keep behind the cattle and to cross back and forth from side to side to keep them all in one general area, and not allow them to spread out. This trip to the other pasture was somewhere between 1 and a half to 2 miles away. A few times along the way, some of the cattle started to mess with the other cattle and they would get into little fight. There was one moment where I thought the two cattle that were fighting were going to run right into the wheeler, but the sound and size of it spooked them just enough to get them moving right along again.

            This whole move took about 2 hours but we got it done, and really had no issues along the way. I couldn’t believe what I had just done, and how well I did it. This was something that was totally new to me and I had just learned moments before doing. I was so proud of myself. And I really wanted to do it again sometime.

            Later that day, we were doing some light work around the ranch, when my brother spotted a coyote out in the lower pasture, where some cattle were. Lloyd and my Dad wanted to go shot this coyote and if that didn’t work, at least scare it off. So I was then told to go get the wheeler and run along the far edge of the pasture and slowly creep my way over to the other side where the ditch was that it was hiding out in. He then told my dad to go set up down in the ditch about 200 to 300 feet from where the coyote was.

            As I crept up on the coyote, all I was worried about was that it would go the opposite way of where I was trying to make it go. I was just hoping I wouldn’t mess up. Then all of a sudden it took off, and the next thing I heard was a gun shot, but my dad missed, and I looked and saw the coyote running up the hill across the valley, then I heard another gun shot, but the coyote didn’t stop running yet. As it was approaching the top of the hill, I heard one last shot go off and next thing I knew, the coyote was down. We did it. I was so happy with how things went, the only way it could have been better, was if the first shot would have worked, that way we could have gotten rid of the dead body of the coyote, but it was too far up the hill in a part that would be difficult to get to so, we decided we would leave it there for the other animals to eat on.

            After a long day, I never knew how good it could feel to do all this work and learn so many knew things in one day. It’s a good experience seeing how people make a living in different parts of the United States, it makes you see how hard people have to work to do what they do. I also think that this experience was a good way to see how the world around us and everything in it play a role with everything else. It was a great way to experience life and what it takes to survive or make a living in the natural world around us. It is a way to see life and death, and hard work and respect all in one place at one time. Every day since that entire week I was in Montana, I have wanted to go back so bad and help out at the ranch again and spend time in the beautiful scenery. Big Timber, Montana is one of the most peaceful and relaxing places I have ever been and it is the place of many, many wonderful memories I have made.

So Young...

Finally there are charges made for the deaths of three Lewiston Altura teens. I remember being in Lewiston the day it happened. I was there for a track and field meet that was scheduled for after school. About 20 minutes before the meet was to begin, a man made an announcement from the crow’s nest, informing all Lewiston athletes to meet by the bleachers. We had heard talk earlier that something had happened but no one really knew much about anything. After the students went to this meeting, to our surprise many of them came back crying their eyes out, no one really knew what to think, and because we didn’t know them well, no one really asked any questions. The Lewiston students were informed that they could leave if they needed to. So by this point all of us were very confused as to what was going on. A group of us went and talked to one of our coaches, and this was when we were informed that a few of the Lewiston student’s classmates were just found in a crash and they already knew that some didn’t make it. When I found this out I had no idea what to think or even how to respond. I felt my heart sink because I felt so bad for these students. It made me start to think about how I would react in a situation such as this.

I remember hearing the names of the girls involved in the crash, and reading the posts on facebook about how greatly they will be missed. I was just happy it wasn’t anyone I knew personally from Lewiston, because I live very close to there and know a few students that go to school there. But, I remember thinking about what happened a lot for the next few weeks. I would have no idea how to react in such a situation.

Then after some time the rumors started to fly about what happened, and all this time I haven’t really known the truth as to what all did take place, until today, when I read the headline on the front page of the paper. After investigation, police stated that the girls were racing, which I had heard some rumors along the way about something like this but now they even know the other person involved. 

The other person involved was a boy from Lewiston Altura High School, he is 17 and is being charged with 3 counts of criminal vehicular homicide and one count of criminal vehicular operations. Wow, this is something that will be on his record forever and the worst part is he hasn’t even barely started life, he is so young. And on top of it they want to have his charges filed on him as an adult. I thought it was interesting that the step-mother of the girl that had been driving the vehicle and had died, said she felt that the charges were too harsh. She also stated that the poor boy has been through enough and that it doesn’t matter anymore because nothing will bring those girls back. I think this is a very true statement. I myself also think that the charges were too hard for this young boy; he is already going to have to live with the thought that he was involved in the death of three of his classmates for the rest of his life. And if you look at it from an outsiders open perspective, it is not just him to blame, these girls were also racing, it is just as much their faults as it is his, so why not put the charges on all the girls and the boy, even though grant it the three girls are dead, but really all it took was for one of them to speak up and tell the girl driving to slow down or stop. I think this is a case where there really is not just one person to blame, but the whole group. This would be a different story say it was involving a drunk driver or something else, but this was a combined thing, and I don’t think this boy should be getting charged so harsh.

I guess after reading the article I was just shocked to read about what happened, but in a way I almost feel better to know now exactly what happened, it just tells us that vehicles are really items that we have a privilege to drive, not a right, and if we don’t drive responsibly, we are sure to pay the price at some point or another.