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Within the confines of this blog, you will find bits and pieces of the life and times of myself, my family and friend dear and near., far and wide, few and far between. You will find bits and pieces of my world, tho small to some, but huge to me. You will find everything from 'soup to nuts',; recipes, hobbies,crafts, gardenings,loves of my life, GrandLoves-a-Plenty, and even my pets... Sooo, if you can handle family life, enjoy the tour of my 'Stuffings'.

Thursday, September 4, 2014

We Haven't Given Up ~ Yet

What can I say?  We have sure had our run of rains and now, once again, ~~~~HAIL !
 Our son calls from work this morning at 9a.m. warning us to put the vehicles under cover, there's a storm due to hit with large hail within a minute or two.  Not one minute later, the sky turns black, the air is calm and WOW, the winds and hail hit us Again !!!
We were the lucky ones.  We still have power, of which folks across town and to the west, including at the farm where my mother lives, my brothers, all 3, and a few sisters, had trees go down, but no hail.  Just east of my TX. sister that just moved north in June, there was a tornado that touched down but no one was injured.
 Considering all the ' what if's ' we tend to think about when weather turns mean, I'm glad to only have piles of hail on my doorsteps and a loss of my gardens, this time, looking more gloomy than a month ago when we were hit by our first hail storm.
 My carrot tops lay flat on the ground, but the carrots under the ground should still be very productive.
 We lost our red chard.  Every stem lays in the mud, some of the leaves stripped right off the stem.
 The cabbage heads split as they were pelted with hail stones.
The leaves have so many holes, and they just lost their 
' pretty appeal.'
 Tomorrow we will be making sour kraut and if we're lucky, 
a pan of cabbage rolls for dinner.
 Click any photo for a closer look at the damage.
The kale is stripped also with just the center ribs standing.  
The majority of the leaves lay deep in the mud and water.
 I almost cried to see the green peppers I'd left to ripen
til they turned red and sweeter.  I will salvage the little bits 
that are left for soups and homemade pizza.
 Even my flowers, the zinnias and cosmos, took a beating.
 You can also bet that I'll dig the heirloom tomatoes
out of the mud, wash them thoroughly and still enjoy them.
We already have lost so many tomatoes from the first hail storm, the centers rotting as they'd try to ripen.  Like I'd said last time,  I WILL be buying tomatoes...again!

 We will attempt to stand the corn back up, tho doubtful.
The ground is so saturated and their roots are so loose.
I think we'd best pick what we can and call the rest of it 
another loss.  But, how we love sweet corn cooked within 
ten minutes of being picked.
 What we both agree with, is that there will be no pumpkins to sell this year.  It's a shame but we cannot sell hail damaged goods. 
Besides, what the hail did not get, ---
 the deer did.  There are at least a half a dozen of the little darlings eating every bite full they can get.  Do they know something we don't?  Is this going to be another bitter and long winter?
Usually the deer don't start chewing on the produce until it's ripe.
 This last photo shows 3 of the vises of this years pumpkin growing.
One, the black foliage is loss of growth from the first hail storm. 
Second, tho nearly ripe, this sweet pie pumpkin is also a ' deer ' favorite.  Dang it. and
Third, there is hail damage now to this 2nd growth of foliage which will now die back and not allow cover for the pumpkins.  Any leaves covering the pumpkins 'does help' keep the deer away.
They do not like the stickers on the leaves.  No leaves, thus
easy pickin' and lip-smackin' snacks for the deer.
Though it doesn't look hopeful for us to have anything marketable for our pumpkin/gourd/flower/Indian corn wagon this season,
we haven't quite given up ~ YET !
So it's goes with this year's gardening in our part of the world.
We won't be eating a lot of this year's produce.  It's times like this that I'm grateful I'd made that extra jar of canned tomatoes 'last year' or frozen an extra bag or two of chard and green beans.
We are always blessed for our efforts, one way or another.

Stay Safe and Thankful

9 comments:

Shug said...

Oh NO......so much hard work and now...the biggest part of it is ruined. A hail storm can do so much damage in just a matter of minutes. So sorry for this damage. Hope you all are OK and there is no damage to your home...
May Blessings Be yours..
shug

Kellie said...

Drat! Oh I'm so sorry! Yes, it is only the garden but so much of your hard work went into it and YES we are so thankful that it wasn't worse and no one was hurt. still. I know how it is. If you were closer I'd gladly share some of my nicely split tomatoes. 5.5" here today, a little hail and lot's of wind.

Paula said...

So sorry for your loss of all that good food but thankful no one was hurt. We are so dry here it would cost a fortune to water a garden.

jack69 said...

YOu know? You can make even a sad entry look bright.
The Green peppers and the Pumpkins hit me the hardest, I guess because it is SO obvious.

But I see the Heirloom Tomatoes. I don't remember seeing them. Up on the Potomac the road side guy was selling what he called a Chocolate Tomato, it favors the Heirloom.
Anyway YOu and Brother Bill were definitely the REAL survivors, before anyone decided to make TV series....
Love from North Carolina

E.C. said...

Bless your heart. Your gardens was growing so beautiful. The winter was so long and rough and your garden season is short anyway, I can only imagine the heartbreak and disappointment with this last attack of Mother Nature.
You have a good attitude and your posts echoes hope among the sorrow.
Sending you positive thoughts. :)

Chatty Crone said...

Gosh Jack said what I was going to say - it looks sad to you and when you describe it - it is sad.

BUT IT IS SO PRETTY TOO.

I could only dream of having a garden like that.

I am sorry because I know you love veggies there!

Anonymous said...

What an awful mess! That must have been some wretched hard storm to dent your produce so badly. Cannot imagine the effort it will take to salvage--good luck.

Bonnie K said...

Gosh, did anyone have a good garden this year? I am so sorry. It seems kind of late for hail. Somehow we dodged that bullet this year. I hope it gets better.

Dee said...

Thank God you were not out in it...