Bad timing
In 10 minutes, Geisler said, water filled his basement and crept into his home. During the worst of the flood, he helplessly listened as his recently born calves cried in distress.
"(They were) bawling all night. Just about made us heartbroken, but they survived. I thought they'd be gone," Geisler remembered. "(I) couldn't even get to my calves. It was five foot (1.5 meters) deep out there. I couldn't even feed them. Two calves are completely gone. They floated away and two cows died."
Timing is bad since it is calving season. Geisler hopes the rest of his cattle recover from the stress of standing in icy water for long periods of time. As for his land, after it dries up, he will have to clear some areas of sand deposits before he can start planting late in the growing season this spring. He estimates the floods did $100,000 in damages to the fences around his farm.
"We lived on this place for 32 years since I've been married to my wife, Frances. … My mother's been at her place all of her life. She's 90 years old, and she's never seen anything like this, either."
Extreme weather
Geisler said in the last three years, the weather has been more wet and "extreme" and the storms are "getting intense."
"We haven't had a good week of weather since the first week of August of last year. It's been raining every one or two days every week since then," he said.
He said over the course of 40 years, farmers may have made the problem worse by switching to row crops like corn instead of grass, alfalfa and small grains such as wheat to feed cattle.