What a beautiful day. It was a bit warm, the sun was shining, the dew point was lower than it had been so although the temp was in the lower 90’s, it didn’t feel like I was melting. The sun was hot, but it is the July sun, when the sun is at its peak, so its to be expected.
The temps had been in the high 90’s with a high dew point for days. It makes one feel like they could just melt.
Since the weather had changed to a lower dew point it felt like we had a break for a couple of days although the temp was still in the 90’s. I was enjoying being able to function outside without the feeling of melting. There has also been a lack of rain, which is unusual for our area as we normally get over 40 inches of rainfall annually.
The climate change is obvious to me as the seasons are changing. It is evident from year to year. I can get plants in the ground earlier and harvest later than 30 years ago when I worked full time at a southern NH vegetable farm. Although I like the longer season, it is very concerning to me.
On this particular day, I was harvesting raspberry leaves, recorded my first instructional video of harvesting herbs and as well as a video on infusing herbal oils in the garden. I was able to video and follow a swallowtail butterfly around the daylilies for a bit.
I was so excited that the forecast called for rain later in the day. It meant I didn’t have to water. Remember the weather has been hot, with little rain.
As the day progressed, things were going well. I was still outside when I started to see the dark clouds rolling in. I thought, “Great, I will finish up and let the rains water the gardens.”
As our family members were sitting outside, catching up on our days, we started to hear the thunder. On my, there’s that T-storm. That will be a good rain, I think. Then the lightning. Time to head inside. Then we hear the roar. We look at each other and someone says,” That is not wind”. They were correct. It was the roar of the rain and hail hitting the ground. We just made it inside and looked back to see that there was wind, ripping wind, that pulls the leaves right off the trees. It hit like a wall of wind. The sound was not only rain, but 1” size hail bouncing in the yard as it lands.
I start to have dread. That hail could kill my plants. As we stand looking out the window for 10 minutes, watching the hail bounce around the yard, the tree leaves go flying by the windows, I think about the power of this earth. Mother Earth.
Although we don’t think about it, we are totally dependent and at the mercy of Mother Earth. We need to take good care of Mother Earth so that it can take care of us.
Although this was not the relief of liquid rain I was thinking earlier in the day, it was water. I think there was more hail than actual rain as we didn’t have any puddles of standing water, only piles of icy hail that made it slippery to walk in the yard. To look for the positive, the hail will melt and the water will slowly be absorbed into the ground.
I lost some of my long awaited flowers. The daylilies that were beautiful earlier in the day were strewn all over the ground. The nasturtiums look like someone took the clippers to them and cut them all off, leaves and all, just stems remaining. The pansy’s were beat into the ground as well as much of the other taller plants.
Looking for the positive, we did get precipitation, even though it was in a different form than expected. The family was all together and safe. The plants will grow again. Mother Nature takes care of it.
