Farmers often have their own unique way keeping track of major events on their farms, "the year the barn burned, the drought year, the year we lost the newly planted corn when we got the eight inches of rain." Patty Reedy, owner of the Rainbow Fleece Farm in the Town of New Glarus, has her own unique way of explaining the year she purchased her farm. "The day I moved in was March 4th of the year (1978) of the really big snow!"

And a big snow it was. In a recent interview marking her fortieth anniversary, she relates, "the snow was so deep that year the township had to use the big wing pl...