Before and After

It’s always a little scary when the sky turns the color in the picture below.  I learned in a storm spotter class this spring that the change in color is the sun shining through the hail causing a prism-effect.  So if a storm is producing large hail the clouds might turn blue or green.  And if the storm is producing large enough hail to turn the clouds a different color it could also produce a tornado.  So anyhow, it’s always a little scary when the sky turns this color.  Especially since Jason had the boys out checking cows with him on the Honda.  They made it to the shop just as the hail started falling. 

I didn’t get any pictures of the “during”, but this is the damage to our garden after. 

Potatoes.

Corn.

Onions.

How tall the onions were before the storm.

Pretty sorry looking garden now.  I was so amazed at how the potatoes and onions were doing and now I just hope some of them recover. 

This picture is to show how horseweeds have adapted to this country where potatoes have not.  This was after the hail storm (and before we weeded the garden).  The potatoes (in the middle) look terrible and the horseweeds (on the left) look like they’ve hardly been touched. 

The funny thing is that the hail and wind don’t frustrate me too bad.  There’s nothing we can do about it.  It will keep coming and we can only hope something will survive.  The thing that bothers me most are these:

The grasshoppers are a bit later this year than they were last year, but their motto seems to be “better late than never.”  I hadn’t noticed many before our storm this week, but the day after I could see these tiny things everywhere.  Some of the bushes they ate last year didn’t survive.  So we bought supposedly the best insect spray (or at least the most expensive) and put this snow fence up in hopes of protecting our garden.  I miss our guineas so badly!  We didn’t have any grasshoppers in our yard at the McGinley although they were in the pastures around the house.  I’ve been trying to get some more guineas, but no luck yet.   

So between the severe weather and the grasshopper plague, all my efforts to plant a garden this year may be pointless and very frustrating.