Almost a Tornado

Yesterday I was praying for rain because I had used up all the water in the rain barrels, and we almost had a tornado! I had been checking the weather online in hopes of rain when I saw that a tornado was coming our way. I told the girls to put some lawn chairs down in the storm shelter.  Then I reversed myself and said, never mind, because it looked like the tornado was going to pass by to the North. 

There was thunder, dark, dark clouds, threatening drops of rain, and it was very windy, and right about that time the neighbor's dog and three puppies escaped from their yard and began running around the intersection. Our neighbors weren't home so Claire and I tried to get them back in their yard. Garry arrived home to find a puppy round up in progress. There Claire and I were running all over the neighborhood after puppies, when it was obviously about to pour down raining, and nobody was keeping an eye on the tornado.  Garry now looked online. The tornado was  headed straight for us again and we had a severe hail warning of 100% to boot!

The sirens kept sounding. People were going out into the street to look around.  We kept trying in get the friendly but uncooperative puppies back in our neighbors yard. With Garry's help we finally  caught them all and simply dropped them over the short chain-link fence (the gate was pad locked.) Now we all began running around to get the chairs that I had nixed earlier, get flash lights, and water (Claire even got cheerios.) During all this Anna had been trying to get dinner cooked and had totally ignored the sirens. She was surprised when we burst into the house and told her to forget dinner and get in the storm shelter. 

Of course, as usual we waited until it was really raining before we made the dash to the storm shelter, so we all got soaked. We squeamishly tiptoed down the cobwebby stairs and huddled in the center flashing our lights around. Even the innocent lawn chairs that had been out in the clean air a moment ago were avoided until we all were convinced that nothing disgusting lurked in our shelter. 

Was there anything lurking down here? Were there bugs or snakes or monsters? Were creepy black alien arms going to poke their way through the wood screened window, a la "Signs"?  (I decide not to mention that particular thought to the dear children.)  

Do you get the idea that I need to go down here more often and outfit this place properly?

We were pleasantly surprise to see by flashlight a clean, dry, bug, snake, rat, and monster free safe place to be! I mean it was white washed clean down there and almost empty, except for the chairs and the people now sitting in the chairs. We had water, cheerios, a cell phone, flash lights and chairs, now we had to wait for the possible tornado or hail. 

We prayed for no tornado, no hail (remember my garden), but we did want lots of rain please. We prayed for the neighbor's puppies, our house, or cats in the house, and for all our neighbors to be safe. That accomplished, I began thinking how ironic it would be if our house blew down before the insurance inspector could get here to inspect the roof for damage from the last hail storm in May. Hey, what a rip-off it would be to exchange a new roof, for no roof!

We also discovered that a concrete underground storm shelter is a great place to sing! We sang all the hymns and scripture songs we could remember until Garry pronounced it safe to go back to the house. The girls didn't want to leave, but I was starving.

What an anticlimax to have had no tornado! The tornado had gone off to the North after all, and dissipated without touching down anywhere. We sat in the storm shelter for two inches of rain and no hail - it was good choir practice though.

Pill Bugs - Gone! Hail Update

Pill bug Cemetery

I checked the garden for pill bugs this morning when I went out to get some spinach for my smoothie. The pill bugs that had been huddling under the lettuce and the spinach are gone. I looked under the soaker hose and those were gone too. What I did is an old organic trick that I have used many times before. Take a small plastic drink glass, or any small container, sink it into the ground with the rim level with the soil, and fill it with water. Pill bugs, snails, slugs, and cutworms are attracted to the water, fall in, and drown! I have had cups literally fill up with dead pill bugs in the past. What I used this time was a few empty cat food tins. Hey, recycling!

I first set these out a few days ago, but the garden was so wet from all the rain we were having that it did little good in attracting the bugs. Friday however was a very hot day, I think it got to 90, and that was all that was needed to attract these bugs to the water. This also works well to drown gnats and aphids. If you have a bad aphid problem set out yellow plastic tubs, like butter tubs, filled with water. Aphids are attracted to the color yellow. This will get the flying form and for those stuck on your plant your best bet for organic control is to just squash them with your fingers. Wear garden gloves if you are squeamish like me ; )

The one draw back to the bug drowning thing is that it can smell really bad after a while, so just empty the cups frequently. One thing that works well is to use a double cup (one cup inside the other) so that you dont disturb the soil each time you have to empty the top cup.

As far as the hail update goes, the garden seems to be completely recovered. The spinach and lettuce may be a little tattered looking, but I usually harvest the leaves from the outside of each plant, and new leaves are still emerging in the centers that look great, so soon all evidence of the hail damage will be gone.

Tree Seedlings and Wood Chips

Today I tackled a long put off chore - digging up tree seedlings. Should have pulled them when they were little, of course, but it's not too bad if you use a sharp spade right at the base of the seedling. A sharp kick cuts them off below the soil line. All our trees are prolific seeders - pecans, oaks, hackberries and chinese pistachios. Hackberries are the worst about sprouting everywhere, but the birds like them so I do too. Come to think of it, that's why they sprout everywhere!

Its very humid, 80 degrees and not a breath of a breeze today! Everyone has to move two wheelbarrow loads of woodchips today. So far I am the only one to have done it. The woodchips are a blessing, but it's a lot of work moving them by hand out of the alley. I wish we had a front end loader, but that would be a funny thing to have parked in the driveway the rest of the year!

The garden seems OK after the hail storm. Even the lettuce isn't completely ruined. The pill bugs are still prolific, but they have not devoured the lettuce like I thought they would. My usual method to deal with pill bugs is to sink small plastic drinking cups down in the soil with the tops just at soil level. I fill them with water and the bugs fall in and drown. This usually works really well, but it is so wet and humid out side right now that the bugs are ignoring the water. It will work better as it gets dryer.

HAIL

Saturday afternoon we had the worst hail storm I  have ever been in. It was as if someone was dumping buckets of quarter sized hail down on top of our house mixed with pouring rain. All that white you see floating on the water is hail. I told the girls to stay away from the windows, but I stood at the back door and took these pictures. The noise and fury was deafening, and I wish I had gotten some video. 

The water is several inches thick swirling past the back step and full of hail. We got over 2 inches of rain in a few minutes. The rain gauge filled up at that point and I have no idea how much rain we got that day, as it rained two more times pouring down - probably 4 inches of rain in one day.

This is how thick the hail was in the yard. Its about quarter sized and full of shredded leaves.

Shredded pomegranate flowers and leaves.

More shredded leaves.

The garden was flooded, and the spinach and lettuce plants were completely smashed. I think the spinach might recover, maybe I should just cut what's left and freeze it even though it is completely full of grass and dirt and will be hard to clean, but the lettuce is already full of handfuls of pill bugs ( I hate pill bugs! Uggg, can you picture handfuls and handfuls of them huddling under the smashed lettuce? I swear they are giant!) The carrots look OK. The onions have a lot of torn leaves, but will probably recover. Ditto for the broccoli. The tomatoes have torn off leaves, and the few fruits that have already set have holes smashed in them, but the plants I think will be OK. All my beans, squash, and cucumbers had sprouted just the day before, but so far they look OK! A few baby peaches were knocked off the peach tree - well I have to thin them eventually! The tree bark looks a little worse for wear, so I hope the tree will be OK.

I am thankful that it wasn't any worse and that things will recover. Fully opened Irises were shredded, but new ones have already bloomed today from unhurt buds!

Hey, the rain-barrels are full!    ; )