All Hail!

[bil]

Yesterday there was a massive hailstorm. and I ended up trapped in the greenhouse for half an hour. I had just popped in there to repot something when a few drops of rain fell. No probs, I just shut the doors etc and settled down to repot. The rain was getting heavier, but who cares? I was in the dry. I climbed up the step ladder to hang the pot and that's when the lightning struck something very, very close. I nearly soiled myself as the thunder came a spilt second after the flash that left my retinas overloaded and smoking. I had been lookig straight up as the flash came, which isn't the best thing to do unless you are into white sticks.

As I fought for control of the relevant sphincters, I finished hanging the plant, and then the hail came down. Nothing huge, just 1/4 inch or so but the noise on the roof was so bad I had to stick my fingers in my ears.
Meanwhile, the hail was blocking the outside drain, so pretty soon there was 6 inches of water backing up to the North side and starting to come in under the door. I cracked the drain in the floor that leads to the cesspit so at least I didn't end up standing in a couple of inches of water.
After half an hour of this the rain was finally down enough for me to escape via the south door and get into the house where the dogs were going frantic.
I shudder to think what the rain will have done to the already washed out road, so once it is dry enough I will go down and see.
I bet it has done the garden plants no good. Just have to hope that it hasn't killed anything important.
Sole good point, I won't have to water the garden this week.
So today I'm back in there to see how everything is faring. Yesterday's storm was so bad that the water was forcing inself over and under the roof panels and coming thru the roof. What I hadn't noticed was, some of the ice cold water had dripped onto the succulent I keep in there, and today the centre of the plant has just gone to pulp.
It's infuriating, bevause it is a delightful little plant with unusual pink flowers on long stems, almost orchid like, and I had just about worked out what it likes after having it alive and barely growing for about 5 years.

So, as only a deranged plant person would, I spent a good hour on it carefully drying out the water still trapped between the 'leaves' and removing all the dying pulpy leaves before they spread rot. Plus it had shed a whole lot of good leaves which had to be removed and put out to dry. I'll use them as starters in another bowl so I have a backup colony in future.

This had also been the year that I finally worked out why the damn thing ever set a single seed. I had carefully harvested them as there were plenty this year and put them into another pot, meaning to overwinter them with the orchids in the woodshed, and when I came back I caught some of the local birdlife red handed. Apparantly they are mad for those seeds and that's why they never germinate. They all get eaten.

So I harvested the last three seed heads, and put wire over the pots, and I do have about 40 seedlings, but they are so slow in developing. They put out the first two seed leaves OK, but since they did that early on, only two have developed a third leaf. Still, at least I have backup.

The best bit is that only the original centre plant seems to have been blitzed. Surrounding it are a dozen nice small plants that are from the bits I pruned off and replanted in the Autumn.

[MattWoelfsen]

Funny story! Totally entertained. Thank you Bil. Here in the US we hade quite a few storm related stories whose outcome was considerably worse.

[rbarata]

Altough some damages, I see this episode as a blessing... a resistance test to your new greenhouse and find potencial problems that you can solve now.
Overall, from your description, no major damage and the test was passed.

[dbarron]

Yes, your title 'hail' made me click and hope that some one wasn't decimated by hail. You got off quite light.

[No-Pro-mwa]

It was an entertaining story even though it wasn't the best because of the damage. Will it make you feel better if I told you I woke up to a snow storm. It's snowing and blowing and I can't make out the neighbors. I thought it was suppose to be nice this weekend. Well it was yesterday, I got out my hoses and was watering the very dry lawn.

Welcome to Wyoming, if you don't like the weather wait 5 minutes.

Any way I'm glad you and the dogs, and sounds like the orchids fared well.

[bil]

Originally Posted by MattWoelfsen

Funny story! Totally entertained. Thank you Bil. Here in the US we hade quite a few storm related stories whose outcome was considerably worse.

Thank you. Hell, yes, we get to see the result of your storms, and it is quite humbling. I remember seeing a clip of a hurricane/twister and they guy said "You aren't properly appreciating this. Let's zoom in." As he did, you could see leaves in the wind bobbing around the spout, and as he got tighter in, you suddenly realised they were cars.

That did make me stop and think.

---------- Post added at 10:03 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:59 AM ----------

Originally Posted by dbarron

Yes, your title 'hail' made me click and hope that some one wasn't decimated by hail. You got off quite light.

Goodness yes. One time in the UK we were hit with hailstones the size of pigeon's eggs and they smashed thru the plastic corrugated sheets I put up over the pigeon aviaries.
There's a pic I saw of a tiled house in S Africa, cement tiles, and every one had been smashed into splinters by the hail. It must have been pretty terrifying to be caught in that even with a roof over your head.

---------- Post added at 10:04 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:03 AM ----------

Originally Posted by rbarata

Altough some damages, I see this episode as a blessing... a resistance test to your new greenhouse and find potencial problems that you can solve now.
Overall, from your description, no major damage and the test was passed.

Well, yes. Very lightly indeed. So far it has survived wind, rain and hail with nothing more than a few leaks.

---------- Post added at 10:06 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:04 AM ----------

Originally Posted by No-Pro-mwa

It was an entertaining story even though it wasn't the best because of the damage. Will it make you feel better if I told you I woke up to a snow storm. It's snowing and blowing and I can't make out the neighbors. I thought it was suppose to be nice this weekend. Well it was yesterday, I got out my hoses and was watering the very dry lawn.

Welcome to Wyoming, if you don't like the weather wait 5 minutes.

Any way I'm glad you and the dogs, and sounds like the orchids fared well.

OK, that is pretty perverse. Why is it like that?

[dbarron]

Pigeon's eggs? I've actually seen conglomerate hail stones fall that are between softball and basketball size. Stones of true death...but those are very very very rare (once in a lifetime so far). It happened one June day, when we had violent storms, several hours after it cleared, these fell out of the clear blue skies, I was thinking meteors till two hit in the yard in front of me, and I saw it was ice.
And yes, I've seen houses decimated by hail alone, and every leaf (and most smaller branches) simply ground up into bits. A three foot flowering azalea reduced to a couple of bare stubs sticking out of the ice field.

Weather is a capricious thing here. July and August are the hottest months, and a few years back, we saw 100F on March 1st. And a few years before that, we hit 33F (one above freezing mark) on July 4th. And, I'm not in the mountains nor the far north. I'm in the Upper South, which is a subtropical climate

[bil]

Originally Posted by dbarron

Pigeon's eggs? I've actually seen conglomerate hail stones fall that are between softball and basketball size. Stones of true death...but those are very very very rare (once in a lifetime so far). It happened one June day, when we had violent storms, several hours after it cleared, these fell out of the clear blue skies, I was thinking meteors till two hit in the yard in front of me, and I saw it was ice.
And yes, I've seen houses decimated by hail alone, and every leaf (and most smaller branches) simply ground up into bits. A three foot flowering azalea reduced to a couple of bare stubs sticking out of the ice field.

Weather is a capricious thing here. July and August are the hottest months, and a few years back, we saw 100F on March 1st. And a few years before that, we hit 33F (one above freezing mark) on July 4th. And, I'm not in the mountains nor the far north. I'm in the Upper South, which is a subtropical climate

Thank the gods we don't get that here. The main house would be ok, we have a flat concrete roof, but the bedroom, garage, greenhouse etc would be history under that sort of assault.

[No-Pro-mwa]

Yes when I was a kid I remember we had a storm that had, not all the stones but some where the size of Baseballs. It even killed some of our lambs.

bil, it is just a saying in Wyoming because that is how our weather is. Like I said I couldn't even see my neighbors and now the wind and snow has stopped and the sun is shining. It's crazy, but spring storms can sometimes turn very deadly for livestock. If we get allot of wind and snow it can drift over the top of sheep. I have more than once had to dig them out. It's not fun. You can never find them all until the snow melts.

[dbarron]

Originally Posted by No-Pro-mwa

If we get allot of wind and snow it can drift over the top of sheep. I have more than once had to dig them out. It's not fun. You can never find them all until the snow melts.

Well, I've never had to live through that...being in the south, though I do remember one weird April day, when we received three foot of snow and the cat jumped off the porch to totally disappear into the snow that was now level with the porch. Needless to say, I didn't have to go find her.