Sustenance for the stranded

Last update: August 21, 2007 - 11:22 PM

The old saying "till the cows come home" has a new and somewhat desperate meaning in the flooded-out area around Hokah, in southeastern Minnesota's Houston County. During the weekend's heavy rains, many cows weren't able to come home. Many had wisely moved to higher ground during the deluge, then became stranded on islands that formed after the storms. On Tuesday, those cattle needed help. So beef farmer Jerry Welke of Hokah and his friend Mike Schaffer delivered hay by boat to Welke's 36 stranded cattle. By afternoon, they had delivered about 12 boatloads of hay to Welke's cattle, as well as to 22 of his neighbor's cattle. Right after the flood, the men needed to rope two Angus cows, load them in the boat and move them to higher ground. "We wrestled a couple of 300-pounders already," Schaffer said. Another farmer, Chris Lorenz, boated to another "island" twice a day to milk and feed his cows. And down the road at another dairy farm, a milk-truck driver who couldn't get across a flooded creek ran a fire hose to that farmer's milk tank to drain it.

JOY POWELL

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