Aw... Hail

*Sigh* Yesterday... yesterday was... one of those days that is hard to describe.  I woke up yesterday and immediately after breakfast started weeding.  Five hours later I was through the entire Patch!!! Little did I know that five hours later... the Garden Patch would be gone, and so would the majority of 400 acres of barley and 160 acres of canola.   Today though, I'm making plans to reseed!  Reseed you say? Reseed indeed says I. Yesterday we had a hail storm rip through the area, leaving behind around 2 3/4" rain and one inch of hail in one hour.  Usually a hail storm lasts 5 or so minutes, this one lasted 35.  There was so much precipitation flying out of the sky that the downspouts couldn't keep up, and the thunder was so ferocious that I watched it shake the screen door in it's track.

If all goes like the past two years though, we will have a beautiful Indian summer well into the fall season, so the crops will have time to mature! My Garden Patch was quite hard hit, with the softer vegetables like squash, corn, spinach, swiss chard, lettuce, and carrots being lambasted. Strangely the beans, beets, and potatoes came through nearly unscathed... they were at the far end of the patch, and with the way hail works... that could be why they survived!

It's easier to tell the storm story in pictures, so here goes.

This was when I started heading for high ground. (And my camera... hahaha!)

and 15 minutes later... I was standing on the deck under the roof and WOW what a noise!!! You can see the hail accumulating on the roof of my brothers house. 

I'm not sure if this picture needs any description so I'll just point out the specimen 'tree' in the background.  It's a lovely red elder that a bird planted for us :-) Just in time too, because there used to be a mayday in that spot but we had to remove it. 

This is the pile of hail on the leeward side of the house! It made me very thankful that there was a roof between myself and it's fury. 

This picture was taken yesterday after the hailstorm, but it's funny, kind of, that there's still ice in front of the greenhouses tonight... more than 24 hours after the fact and after a bright sunny day! Luckily the greenhouses didn't sustain any damage so the peppers and tomatoes are still growing gangbusters! 

This was taken after it had been raining steady for about 20 minutes, so the true majesty of the snow white ground is slightly diminished.  The little river was running about three inches deep. At the end of those black Big O hoses, I want to build a wetland to catch any runnoff... looks like a decent spot eh? 

Annnnd here we have the view of the Garden Patch from the road... By the time we drove by it, most of the hail on the black ground had melted creating a lake where the swiss chard and spinach once resided.  The water has never pooled in that spot during the growing season.  Occasionally during a very heavy spring runoff, water may accumulate there, but never after a rain.  Yesterday was just exceptional that way! 

  I'll leave off tonight with one last picture.  This is overlooking our Coalition 2-row barley crop.  The white band on the horizon is hail.  So it definitely hit harder a mile away... some of our canola was under all that ice! 

Hail is a part of life in Alberta.  The main thing is, that no one was caught out in it, the cattle are all fine, and for the Garden Patch at least it isn't too late to reseed. The field crops on the other hand, need a bit more examination...  Dealing with the weather is certainly a challenge but it is a challenge all farmers must face.  We weren't hurt as bad as others in previous hailstorms, our house is still standing and all of our livestock is ok.  We suffered damage to our crops yes, but, most importantly, we are all still here to carry on and give it another try! We'll just be a bit later doing the first delivery this year than planned... 

I'll post some pictures of the Garden Patch as soon as I get some! I hope that this finds everyone safe and secure and far away from disastrous hail storms! Take Care everyone,

~Sarah 

Rain!

It finally rained! We received 3/10ths of an inch last night, along with plenty of thunder.  The wise weather forecasters are calling for hail this afternoon, and I really hope they miss that forecast!  It hailed a bit a few days ago when I was out in the greenhouses and I had to make a decision.  Do I run for the house, or do I wait it out here?  *ponder ponder* I looked up at the 4mm rigid poly covering of the greenhouses and thought 'Well, if it starts hailing heavily, I think I'd rather be under a tin roof' so, I made a run for it. And it stopped hailing. Go figure eh?  My farmers gut is telling me that this summer may be shaping up to be a rather wicked one weather wise.  We shall see...

Today, the 5th of June is our 7th consecutive frost free day!  What a struggle it's been this year to get things out of the ground and growing.  Case in point, check out this red norland potato!      

These potatoes are much tougher than you think.  I could have sworn they were toast after the last frost, because the leaves were all limp and black, but they've grown through it.  I used my own seed for the Irish Cobblers and that may have been a mistake, since the emergence has been very poor.  However, the plants that are growing have great vigor and are ready to get down to the business of growing spuds.

This is an 8 ball zuchinni.  It seems like it'll be so long before they start to fruit, but I know that as soon as the fruit starts to come on the different varieties of zuchinni's I'll be praying for winter to come.  The only thing cuter than a seedling zuchinni is a seedling hemp nettle.  Hemp nettle is one of the most prevalent weeds in the Garden Patch, with it's pair of oval shaped cotyledons and pair of furry little true leaves, it's so cute! But it's a menace.   Kind of like a gopher or a squirrel. 

Looking at the above picture of the Garden Patch, it looks so small and insignificant.  But then I remind myself - that's only half :-)  For those who are curious about the greenery growing to the left of the picture, that is Thompson barley.  It's coming into the 3rd leaf right now and just about ready to be sprayed.  I have an agreement with the farm that the sprayer won't come any closer than 50 feet from the Garden Patch, so you don't have to worry about any chemical residue.  To control the weeds we will be silaging the barley next to the Garden Patch and feeding it to the cattle in the winter.  

I've given the name the Garden patch, to this area because we have three other gardens in the yard.  It was confusing when I said I was going out to the garden, because the garden is the house garden.  I couldn't even call it the south garden, because that's the other garden to the south of the garage.  So this one, south of the south garden, is the Garden Patch. Convoluted? Yes.  Chaos? Not anymore! 

Have you ever seen the movie Tremors?  The first moment I saw this eggplant flower bud my first thought was Graboide!!!  Then I got excited over the fact that there was a bud on my eggplant, which means that eggplants are on their way! *Excited!!!* 

This is Nick.  Keeping the area around the greenhouses ( he's not allowed into the greenhouses) mouse free.   He quite enjoys his job, since there aren't any mice, and he gets to laze around and sleep in the shade all day.  I have to admit, it's rather distracting when you hear snoring and you look out the door to see the dog curled up with the cat, snoooooring away.  Wouldn't life be grand if we could take naps like that? 

I'll leave you with a picture of Dicentra spectabilis commonly known as Bleeding Heart.  They're so pretty, but it makes you wonder - what caused their heart to break?