Hard Winter Tales At Local Café
Every rural café from northern Idaho to southern Arizona, California to the eastern slope of the Rockies, you’ll find a back booth, special table, or counter reserved for the Hard Winter Bunch.
I stopped by the Eat Here & Die café the other day. After I slipped across the red Naugahyde seat, I listened to one such Hard Winter group. That’s when I discovered the past winter wasn’t so bad after all. Never mind the temps didn’t rate above freezing in over six weeks. Or that the snow drifted five feet deep in places. No need to worry about the heavy ice on trees breaking branches the size of a horse’s neck. Nope, the Hard Winter Bunch announced this as nothing compared to the year ’56 or ’48 or ’33.
“Why, back then we had to tunnel out of the house to get to the privy. The snow crusted up so much the cattle hiked over the top of fences and got lost in the canyons.”
“Oh, yeah? I remember we couldn’t start school until April. And the coyotes killed what few cows didn’t freeze to death.”
“Now, I’m not sure which winter the pipes busted, but the cistern emptied until Spring. Folks had to boil snow. And the elk kept breaking
through the lake. Then it froze up again. Carcasses washed up on the shore for the next two years.”
Hard Times Prediction
Actually, I have no idea if all that happened. But if you sit in one of those cafés long enough, you’ll spot the Hard Winter Bunch.
There seems to be something in each one of us ranchers, farmers, and cowboys that tends to present our tough times as worse than everyone else’s. But no matter how awful our bad times, I can guarantee increased hardships coming.
Jesus told of a future tribulation that would one day hit this earth. He said, “Pray this will not take place in winter, because those will be days of distress unequaled from the beginning when God created the world until now–and never to be equaled again” (Mark 13:18).
That’s where we’re headed. The whole world will experience testing for the faithful and judgment for those who reject Christ. Knowing that it’s coming should make us sit up and listen to what God tries to tell us today. That prediction comes straight from the Lord, not from the Hard Winter Bunch drinking coffee at the local café.
Stephen Bly
Circa 1995
Blog article comments welcome!
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Listen to “The Hard Winter Bunch” AUDIO PODCAST by award-winning western author Stephen Bly. Sponsored by BlyBooks.com Legacy Series. Please SUBSCRIBE, RATE, REVIEW this Podcast. FULL PODCAST here: PODCAST
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Hard Winter At Broken Arrow Crossing
Check out this classic Stephen Bly western novel — Hard Winter At Broken Arrow Crossing, Book 1, Stuart Brannon Series
Christmas 1876. For a man who didn’t need another disaster, the hard winter at Broken Arrow Crossing couldn’t have come at a worse time. Stuart Brannon lost his wife, baby son and his cattle. He abandoned his Arizona ranch sick with grief a year later … another Christmas. That’s when the vicious Colorado blizzard struck.
Half-frozen, Brannon stumbles into an isolated stage station at the Crossing where he finds a wounded prospector, an abused and pregnant Indian girl, and naïve gold seekers. Drawn into their desperate plights, Brannon plunges into the dangerous mission to rescue a boy from Indians and becomes the target of an outlaw band.
CHECK IT OUT HERE: HARD WINTER AT BROKEN ARROW CROSSING
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You might also enjoy this “Through the Valley Jornada del Muerto” AUDIO PODCAST by Stephen Bly
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