But just as we were pulling into our meet up/parting ways spot we noticed an ominous looking cloud off to the west. And just as I was about to hop on my bike to pedal home I got a flat tire. Oy!
Well, the two of us whipped that sucker off, changed it in record time, and I booked it home just as quickly as my little leggies would carry me.
It's a good thing I'm getting faster, because about 10 minutes after I got home, this happened:
Yup,,, that's hail. The stuff was coming down at an incredible rate almost horizontally. I had almost finished putting the hardware cloth on the "hail house" so I eagerly ran to the window to see how it had performed.
Let's just say the results were... um... less than what I was hoping for!
OY! I think it was just coming in at such an angle that the hail all went under the covered portion. Hmmm... clearly some design tweaks are in order!
Thankfully the ground has been so muddy that I hadn't really planted anything yet - the only plants under there were a few volunteer potatoes that I evidently didn't get fully harvested last year.
I did, however, have some spinach in another unprotected plot on the other side of the yard. I was soooo excited about it too, because usually we get such hot weather in the spring that it bolts long before it ever gets big enough to eat. I was looking forward to harvesting some this week. Guess not...
Sigh.
Anyhow, I've been meaning to build a cold frame for the greens for years so I can more easily winter them over, and I saved a panel from my old sliding glass door to use as a cover. I'm sorta thinking I'll step up my efforts, because I also have the screen from the old door that I can use to protect the greens from hail in the springtime. I think there's some saying about that... when life gives you hail, build a cold frame, or something like that!
At any rate, my groovy solution to my bike water bottle problem also hit a snag when I took the thing out on the road.
It was making a terrible clatter and we discovered that the vertical water bottle was actually banging against the frame of the bicycle. I thought this was just noisy and annoying, but CatMan told me that carbon fiber bikes can actually suffer serious damage from that sort of thing, so the vertical bottle had to be removed.
I may have to give up my beloved Klean Kanteen bottles and switch to a specially sized plastic one if I'm gonna make it work. I hate to do it, but I've been reading reviews about "Purist" water bottles that are coated with food grade silicone on the inside so they can't leach anything from the plastic. That may end up being my compromise.
Harumph!
I guess the lesson here is that life is always a work in progress...
Sorry the hail cover didn't work. I had such high hopes for it. However, it shouldn't be too hard to put something on the ends with your can do spirit, should it? :)
ReplyDeleteI have to think through the best way to do it, but I'm sure it's possible. I also think that I need to extend the stuff further down the side that's in front in the picture - that was the direction the hail was coming from.
DeleteIt might also be that this was pretty small hail - there was just a LOT of it, so some of it may have fallen through the mesh. Although, if that's the case, I'm pretty sure the mesh slowed it down a bit. We shall see...
That's a lot of hail for late May, isn't it? In Utah, we did have a few hail storms late in spring, but never amounted to much on the ground.
ReplyDeleteMaybe your spinach will develop a few more leaves. :-)
You're right. That was a LOT of hail for a spring storm. Normally hail storms don't hit us hard until mid summer. But with the craziness of the weather gods recently, I'm starting to wonder if "normal" has just been tossed out the window! :-)
DeleteOmg! What would happen if someone were outside and unprotected during a hail storm like that, would they have been whipped bloody or something?!
ReplyDeleteI have a hard time accepting that life is a work in progress. I just want everything "fixed" or the way I want it, and then I can start living my life. ;)
Maria
Ha! Well, that was really only a moderate hailstorm - I've experienced much, much worse. In fact, one of the reasons I wanted to build some sort of semi-permanent hail protection is that a few years back when we had a really bad hail storm I went running out to cover the tomatoes and nearly got knocked out by golf ball sized hail.
DeleteAnd once when I was a kid my friend and I got trapped under a bush walking home from school with baseball sized hail pelting us. Thankfully a woman saw us and ushered us inside so we didn't get hurt.
I also spent a summer in high school working for an insurance agency - it was a summer of bad storms with softball sized hail, and my job was to take hail claims over the phone all day. So I basically spent all day listening to the horrible things that hail had done to people and their property. There were a lot of amazing stories, but the one that really sticks with me was the family who told me how the hail had smashed through their picture window and then ground the glass into the sofa and carpet.
Anyhow... sorry for the horror stories, but yes, hail can be really dangerous.
And I totally want everything to be "fixed" too - but I know it doesn't work that way! :-)
Oh my goodness that's more hail than I've ever seen personally. I'm sorry all your hard work, and money, didn't protect that spot from the hail but at least you didn't have anything planted and lost. We found the original windows from the house under the small porch. What a find because I too wanted to build cold frames and now I have all the windows I'll need.
ReplyDeleteI tried to read a bit while I had the puppy but when I went to comment she kept hitting the keys and it all came out gobbled. So now I have over 200 emails to sort through. I saw your problems with the plumbing. You've sure had your share of bad luck with plumbing lately. I hope things are finally dry and working right now.
Animals make life so interesting, don't they? It would appear that the plumbing gods were satisfied with the flesh sacrifice - my knuckle still isn't completely healed, but it will get there. I was doing a load of laundry today and noticed a funny glugging noise. I ran downstairs fearing that I'd see water overflowing from the sink or the floor drain, but instead what I saw was water draining almost as fast as it came out of the machine - which it has NEVER done before in the 20 years that I've lived here. So I am hopeful that I have actually made things better for once! Yippie!!!
DeleteAnyhow, I'm not giving up on the hail house yet - in for a penny, in for a pound - I'm gonna make that sucker work if I have to screen the entire thing in! :-)
Yep life is a work in progress, I was glad to read you got home before the hail hit. I used to dash outside in bad storms that came up in the middle of the night to get the washing off the clothesline. I couldn't bear the thought of my washing being blown all around the neighbourhood. So I can understand you running out to protect your tomatoes.
ReplyDeleteOh... you are braver than I am! I won't even let the laundry stay out after dark - not sure why but I have a "thing" about it. If it's not dry yet, I just drape it all over the furniture inside!
DeleteThat looks like snow. I've never seen that much hail! Even the worst hail storm we've ever had didn't leave that much. So sorry about your plants. I think everyone is behind in getting things planted this year.
ReplyDeleteI finally did get the garden planted a few days ago - with a bit of extra hail protection just in case! I figure it's all a grand experiment anyhow!
DeleteNot sure it would work with your set-up, but I slip an old, thin sock (the no-show or ankle height type) over my Kleen Kanteen so it doesn't rattle in the water bottle holder.
ReplyDeleteThat's actually a great idea in general. Unfortunately, the problem here was really the weight of the thing crashing into the frame on every bump, which, according to CatMan, can create micro-fractures in the carbon fiber frame, which can lead to bad news.
DeleteBTW - I actually bought the cages specifically designed for the Klean Kanteens (the 27 oz size) and they fit the bottles perfectly with no rattling (as long as you don't have them touching each other or the frame like I did.) The only problem is that once you go that route you can't use a standard water bottle because it won't fit.