With a depressing aftermath.
Early yesterday afternoon, after nearly six hours of driving and looking for cooperative birds with little success, I ate lunch and began fading fast so I went down for a nap. It was sunny and calm when I hit the sack. Perhaps 30 minutes later, at a little after 1 PM, I was awakened by individual explosive sounds coming from my roof. For the first minute or so there were maybe five seconds between each sound. Then all hell broke loose.
It was one of the worst hailstorms I’d ever experienced in Utah – not so much because of the amount of hail but because of its speed as it was coming down. There was no wind to speak of but each individual hailstone, about the diameter of a nickel, was coming down so fast it was like it had been fired from a gun.
My pickup was parked in my driveway so I opened the garage door. The sound of the hail hitting my hood and windshield was deafening. I was sure my pickup would be damaged but thankfully I don’t believe it was.
This is what my patio and deck looked like during a brief lull in the storm before things got nasty again. The hailstorm lasted for about 15 minutes and when it was over my world had changed.
Before the storm the rhubarb in my garden was robust and thriving.
This is what it looked like later in the afternoon after I’d summoned up the courage to go out and inspect my garden for damage.
This year my vegetable gardening activities have been limited by my recovery from back surgery but I’d put a lot of effort into the few things I did plant so it was disheartening to see the effects of the hail. My tomatoes and amaranth were battered badly but I have hopes that they’ll be able to make some sort of comeback. The thought of a summer and early fall without BLT’s using garden tomatoes is depressing. My zucchini may or may not survive. Thankfully I planted my lemon cucumbers late so they’re still quite small and some of them escaped damage completely.
During the storm, both in the back and in front of my house, every large tree looked like it was raining leaves. This is the debris field in my back yard beneath two of my catalpa trees.
The hail and its damage were extremely localized. Immediately after the storm I made a short inspection tour in my pickup. There was a leafy green debris field beneath all the trees lining the streets in my neighborhood but a quarter mile away to the northeast there was no damage at all to any of the trees or to anything else that I could see.
There’s a fox squirrel in my neighborhood that I call Bandito because ‘he’ has learned to climb the pole one of my bird feeders is hanging from and steal enormous amounts of bird seed. I buy high quality seed and it’s expensive so Bandito isn’t one of my favorite neighborhood characters.
Near the beginning of the storm (this photo was taken a little later) I spotted Bandito running for his life from right to left across the top of my back fence as those icy bullets were slamming into him. He was obviously running for refuge in the snowball bush hanging over my fence.
I’ll admit it. I was rooting for the hail.
Ron
Well, dang. But I do believe that your tomatoes and amaranth and probably the rhubarb will recover – they’ll just be later than usual. All three are such hardy plants with sturdy roots… even if the leaves were all but gone, they would send out new growth from the base. Pruned by Nature, so to speak. That’s been my experience, but i look forward to hearing how it all progresses for you, Ron. So glad your pick-up wasn’t damaged. When we still lived in Colorado my car was totaled while parked in the King Soopers parking lot as I was inside shopping. The noise was frighteningly intense. I ran to the wall because I was afraid the roof would cave in. I do love Nature, though.
Thanks, Nina. I hope you’re right about my garden. I think you might be.
Holy smoke!
Yeppers.
You were lucky (in an unlucky sort of way). A few years ago we had a massive hailstorm. Cars caught in it were damaged (and many written off). You still see some of them, and they look as if someone had attacked them with a hammer. Houses were damaged (windows, solar panels and roof tiles smashed). Gardens destroyed. It too was very localised but millions of dollars of damage was done.
Wow, I’ve been in some bad hailstorms but never one that bad.
No hail in Sugarhouse just rain and the first substantial amount out of all the storms the last two weeks. Sorry about your garden, I hope at least some recovers. Best wishes.
Thanks, Betty. At this point I’m thinking that at least some of it will recover. Hope that includes tomatoes.
Ron, sorry about your hail storm. Have had lots of down pours of rain but not sure about the hail. Dang always wipe out gardens and crops or hay. Never lived on a farm so sure it would be heartbreaking for many. The old metal slinky are hard to find, most are now plastic Another good idea is cover the feeder poles with Vaseline. That helps the squirrels down. I do have dog that chases them and now and then a neighbor cat. I know the cats and birds don’t always mix!
Trudy, the slinky I’m hoping to get is referred to as “retro” so I’m thinking it’ll be metal like the originals. I just got back from hated Walmart in an attempt to purchase one but they were closed because their power is out.
I both sighed and laughed — your bandito tale brought a silver lining. I hope most of your plants recover ok
Kent, the only thing I smiled about for the rest of the day after the hail was the memory of that little SOB running for his life across the fence.
Some of my garden is already looking better than it did last evening.
Ron, I’m so sorry about your garden. I imagine what you sacrificed, back-wise, to plant and care for it. I’m still hopeful that everything, including the rhubarb, will bounce back and that you have many BLTs and cobblers in your future!
And I’m sorry, but I feel bad for Bandito. 🐿 Little guy must have been terrified. I’d send you my class set of Slinkys, but I managed to find a home for them and some of my other physics stuff with a teacher neighbor.
Marty, I’m thinking I’ll have a slinky in my hot little hands in about a half hour.
What a rude awakening. Must have got your heart pumping. Good to hear there is no structural damage except for the rhubarb.
I have Squirrel Buster feeders. Not cheap, and doesn’t prevent the squirrels from climbing on them but the squirrels can’t get to the feeder ports. Eventually they quit trying. Hope the tomatoes are ok.
Lyle, I just checked the tomatoes again. They already look slightly better than they did yesterday so I’m encouraged.
Wow it really is a mess. We just got a slight bit of rain. I think Haley had more like you, she is by Old Farm. I drove through the storm to pick up Eric at 1 and was in the storm for about 30 minutes.I agree the hail was coming down hard, so were the big drops of rain. There was a lot of moisture in that storm.
I have a squirrel cone on the shepherds pole, up about 2 feet off the ground to discourage both eastern fox squirrels and raccoons off some of my bird feeders. I do have a feeder for the squirrel and two platform feeders they can access. I too use high quality shell less feed, it is expensive to feed all the squirrels. I went out 2 days ago and there were 9! eastern and 1 American red. I might have to try a slinky on one of my other poles with suet. I also found I had to put the poles at least 8 feet from any structure, tree or bush. The eastern fox squirrels can jump at least 6 feet and land on the feeder, swinging and hanging for dear life.
April, a few minutes ago I checked my rain gauge and it show’s 1″ of rain. I’m surprised!
I just researched slinkys (to keep Bandito off of my feeder pole) and my Murray Walmart is supposed to have them in stock. I’m thinking that slinkys would be more entertaining (for me) than squirrel cones so I’m off to get one in a few minutes.
That DOES sound like cheap entertainment! 🙂 😉
Oh my hail!! What a mess!! 😭😭 sad how much was destroyed!
It sure is, Kimmy.
Wow! There was no hail up here, and in fact there were maybe 10 drops of rain. I was hoping for a drenching, and even reset the sprinklers to wait until tomorrow. Sorry about the rhubarb. I know people like it, even if I don’t!
Sue, from what I’ve heard I don’t think the hail was very widespread in the valley. I just got ‘lucky’ I guess…
DAMN! Been there, done that….. 🙁 We missed hail in our latest round of storms tho Lewistown area and others weren’t so lucky. Hope the squirrel got thumped good….. 😉 We are SO fortunate these days to not have to rely on crops to just live – not much, if any, crop insurance back then…… Joe spent some time under a tractor one year when one of those came through. Last bad one we had here was 2″ hail – trees took most of the hit rather than the house – WHEW! I had to pull off the road down around Miles City once as it was like trying to drive on ball bearings……Mother Nature bats last………
“Hope the squirrel got thumped good”
So do I, Judy – big time.
We had the option to buy hail insurance back then but it was very expensive so most years we didn’t have much insurance and some years we didn’t have any. I can’t remember if we had any that year.
Mother Nature ALWAYS bats last
That is the kind of hail storm that requires much cleanup after it is finished. We had one just like it and worse about two weeks ago. It missed our immediate area, but really hit hard about 4 miles away. The folks that lived in that area were positing amazing photos and videos on NextDoor. Laughing at Bandito – like a cat he probably has nine lives too. Like your use of the word capricious – not one I often see. Hope the weather clears up for you so you can continue your birding.
Everett, as you imply I’ve got some cleanup to do before I can (should) go birding again. And our forecast looks like hail might be possible any day for at least the next week. I’m afraid it’s going to be a rough ride.
What a storm! The cleanup will take awhile i imagine.
When I lived in Illinois a long time ago, hail the size of golf-tennis balls damaged farm building roofs, vehicle hoods, crops and left huge swollen wounds on the horses that didn’t make it to shelter in time.
BTW I’ve had 100% success confounding squirrels who used to climb up my shepherd’s crook to gorge themselves on the high-quality seed I provide: a metal slinky wound around the pole. It’s very entertaining to watch the new youngsters leap up a couple of times and bounce down, then sit in the grass looking up longingly at the tube feeder full of their favorite easy-pickings.
Elise, I’ve been wondering about getting a slinky but wasn’t sure they still make them.
Amazon and Target(in theory) still have them…….
Ron, sorry for your loss. You had it much worse than we did. The hail diameter here in Sugarhouse was less than 1/2 inch and I was able to throw tarps over the garden boxes as soon as it started. They still stung when they hit, however. If we get a decent tomato crop I will surely bring you some.
Thanks for the offer, Brett. There was no way I was going out in the hail to try to save anything. The hailstones were too big and coming down too hard and too fast.
It brought memories back of a terrible hailstorm on the Montana Farm when I was 9 or 10 years old. My dad, an uncle and a cousin and I took refuge from the hail in a small camping trailer. The sound of the hail was deafening on the metal roof – we had to holler when we tried to talk to each other. After about a half hour of devastating hail my dad and uncle knew that our crops (barley and wheat) were wiped out so they talked me into retrieving a bottle of whiskey from a pickup parked a couple of hundred feet away. I held a mechanic’s creeper over my head for protection and got the whiskey for them (that was an adventure!). They both poured a stiff drink of straight whiskey and quickly downed them.
I also remember that when we finally made it into the house, my aunt was crying in the kitchen over the lost crops. That was a hard year for both families.
My Dad (in Colorado) used to say that a sure fire way to bring on hail was to plant his tomatos in the spring.
That’ll usually do it.
I’m sad to see all that damage in your yard. Had your catalpa trees
blossomed yet ? I hope that at least the rhubarb stalks will ripen properly
even though the leaves were so badly damaged. There’s nothing in the world
as delicious as garden tomatoes, in my book.–Here’s hoping for yours–had
they blossomed yet ?
Kris, both the catulpa and tomatoes had barely begun to blossom. You can see one cluster of catalpa flowers on the grass at the bottom left of photo #4.