To warm the up-stairs room (through
which the pipe is carried), the water in buckets standing
alongside gets frozen.
Then the blizzards, which are storms of sleet and snow driven with
a fierce wind, and so thick that it is quite impossible to get out
of doors, or see at all, would be too trying.
Even to get across the yard to the further stable the men have to
have a rope stretched as guide so as not to lose their way; and
these storms sometimes, as they did this last year, continue for
three weeks consecutively.
The snow on the prairie is never very deep, but it drifts a good
deal, and was to the depth of twelve feet on the west side of the
house.
No work can be done much in the winter on account of the cold and
snow, so that from the middle of April, when the snow begins to
go, until the beginning of October everything has to be rushed
through and as many hands put on as they can possibly get, who are
all discharged at the end of the summer and only two or three kept
to look after the animals. After threshing, these men have little
or nothing to do:
