Help and thanks giving on the Hi-Line

About 30 north-central Montana ranchers and farmers gathered north of Kremlin Monday and, with the aid of their seven semitractor-trailers, seven pickups with trailers and eight tractors, got a month's worth of work done in one day to help a family in need.

Mike Swinney of Gildford said he knew friends Shawn and Jessie Wall, fellow farm and ranch operators, had both been battling illness all November and weren't able to get their crop of 1,000 hay bales in from the field. Saturday, Swinney started making calls to hopefully get a work crew together to fix the situation.

"Saturday night we started making phone calls. I called a few people and then that guy called a few people and then that guy called a few people," Swinney said, adding "I just made some calls, then people started calling me and it just took off."

By 9 a.m. Monday morning the work crew was assembled and on site at the Wall's, and by 3:30 p.m. the last load of hay came into the yard, Swinney said.

"It was a community effort," he said, with people coming in from Hingham to Havre and from north of Havre to the Bear Paw Mountains. Torgerson's, he added, paid for Subway lunch for everyone but, trying to beat sunset and the weather, everyone kept working while they ate.

Wall, still very sick, said he was grateful for the help.

"They helped us out tremendously; it was a blessing," Wall said. "It's been a rough month."

At the first part of November the Walls got COVID-19, he said, and his wife, who is also a personal trainer, was in the ICU at the hospital for eight days and just got home Tuesday. Wall said he didn't have to go to the hospital, but he "just ain't worth much."

He said that, with the relatively mild weather, his cows have been doing all right, and his dad has been helping around the place and with the couple's children, a first-grader and a fifth-grader.

"It's sure been a miserable stretch," Wall said. "Jessie has a long road ahead. She had a close call, so just the fact that she's home is huge."

Wall said the his plan for November had been to bring in the hay, which is a precious commodity this year due to the extreme drought.

"It was a blessing. I'll never be able to thank them enough," wall said. "I wouldn't want to live any place else. We've been blessed with prayers and food, too."

Swinney said this was the first time he spearheaded something this big, but it didn't surprise him that so many people showed up with their equipment to help.

"I appreciate the help. Everybody just threw in and got it done," he said. "... To be honest with you it was simply by the grace of God how it worked out the way everybody said yes. It was on their hearts, too, to do it."