“It (farming) took precedence over everything,” he said. “It was so late (in the growing season) I had to keep going with it.”

Hinkle said he ended up re-planting corn and soybeans on some ground up to four times due to the flooding and rains. He recalled one field he’d planted three times. He had just parked his tractor in a nearby tool shed after the third re-planting and when he came back out two inches of rainwater covered the field.

“I came home that night and I was so frustrated I couldn’t see,” he said. “I told her (Dottie) ‘I’m done.’ I said, ‘I ain’t beating a dead horse anymore.’”

“I lost 1,800 acres to start with. I replanted that 1,800 and lost 900 of that. I replanted that 900 and lost part of it. Replanted again and lost it.”

In addition to having to re-plant his crops, Hinkle had to deal with the remnants of floodwater.

“The first flood left a big, big mess,” he said, referring to flooding a few weeks before June 9. “We got it halfway cleaned up and just about the time we got it cleaned up, here came the major one.”

The second flood — the big one on June 9 — piled debris on fields. Bobby Dale said he had to use a forklift on a tractor to move it.

“I don’t know how many wagonloads of trash and stuff we had to pick up,” he said. “I started to think I’d never get done last year.”

Finding a place to live

In the meantime, the Hinkles had decided to build a new house. They bought a camper to live in until the house is completed sometime in March. One of their daughter’s neighbors, Connie Williams, let them put the camper on a patch of land on Virginia Lane outside Plainville.

“The camper’s worked out pretty well,” Bobby Dale said, looking around the interior of the camper. “It was already furnished, all we had to do was get a coffee pot, food and some pots and pans.”

Dottie said the camper was a good option for temporary housing.

“We knew we were going to build another home,” she said. “We didn’t want to get an apartment and have to buy stuff for it.”

“We didn’t know how long we would be in here,” Bobby continued. “So I couldn’t buy a little one (camper)...we didn’t know how the crops were going to turn out...we were just...”