7.8.20 Hail

There are few sounds so ominous as hail in the summer. A few weeks ago we were enjoying an unxpected visit with Greg's cousins and Mark said you know we haven't had any hail yet this year. Who knew in a short half hour his prophetic statement would be so devastatingly fulfilled. Literally the skys started to cackle and rumble about ten minutes after his suggestion. The electric show was followed by this. Pouring rain and pounding hail! That circled our farm three times. 

 

The nearly perfect corn crop was still standing but shredded from solid leaves to strands. Interestingly even on our small block the damage was different from one side to the next of the fields. 

The garden was badly hit. I'm thankful we don't grow beets on the bench. All the green on the ground are the pieces of leaves from the beet tops. The beets were almost reduced to just the red stems. 

These sickly things are red potatoes. WE have been harvesting them all week, thankfully they have grown some really nice potatoes but will not continue to produce like they would have. Again the leaves punched out on the ground.

Pumpkin plant. Amazingly it has sent up new shoots from the center and continues on it's life cycle.

Oh the safety of the bucket. Plant untouched, the peppers outside the bucket beat up.

Beets a week later.

It was sickening to hear the storm just keep coming back. The first hit wasn't too bad, but the second and then the thrid strike ugh! We were thankful to have anything left on the stems. Neighbors about 20 miles from here got all the leaves knocked off their plants. You never know what each day will bring and what the next challenge will be.
Thankfully as my dad and father in-law promised the corn has put out new growth and is looking better two weeks following. Life is good, the sun kept shinning, and for whatever reason the weather was not suffering hot so the plants could slowly re-gain their strength and stamina and move on. I hope to be like that take the storms as they come and emerge still growing and not shriveled up dead. Like the corn there's still more inside that can balance the damage done.