Kilgore, Neb. - Wildfires across Nebraska's Sandhills are leaving many ranchers scrambling to find ways to feed their cattle. At the same time, support is coming from those who understand the loss firsthand.
Rick and Triston Stewart of Chadron are among those stepping in to help. The father and son recently delivered two loads — about 60 bales of hay — to an Amish family south of Kilgore whose home me and feed supply were devastated by the Anderson Bridge Fire.
The Stewarts, it turns out, were driven in no small part by their own experience of loss – from an “opposite” weather phenomenon of sorts – a massive blizzard which struck their part of the country a dozen years ago:
“In the October blizzard of 2013 we lost a lot of cattle,” Rick Stewart said.
The Stewarts lost about 10 percent of their herd during that storm. In the aftermath, donations from others helped them recover — something Rick Stewart said he never forgot.
“Some people donated, and I’ve always wanted to pay that back,” he said.