Literally five minutes after he pulled out of my driveway, all hail broke loose. Ten minutes later the storm had passed and the watermelons were in ruins. Heather is going to be heartbroken when she gets home from school.
Sometimes we forget how powerful Mother Nature is. Here are some photos to remind you.
The wind was blowing so hard I couldn't even open the front door. This is the back flowerbed (taken from the safety of the covered patio!). That is hail splashing in the water.
The flowerbed had about 2" water in it.
This shot is along my back fence.
The hail was bouncing around the yard but I couldn't get a good action shot of it. Everything was too blurry.
In the northeast corner of my yard.
Over the back fence I could see hail on the neighbor's roof. It is normally all one shade of gray. The lighter (whiter) areas are all the hail.
Once the storm abated, I could step out front to inspect the damage. This is the front porch that runs the length of the front of the house.
View from the west side of the house toward the carport.
Along the west side of the house.
West side of the house, different view. The hail was 3"-4" deep!
Hail on my roof
This is a round chunk of ice from the pile along the west side of my house. Remember how big they are when I show you the watermelons!
This piece of hail was out on the sidewalk. It was flat on one side and rounded on the other. It must have hit hard enough to change its shape.
As you can see, the hail shredded the watermelon plants.
Luckily, the largest watermelon miraculously survived! Heather will be thrilled.
The other watermelons weren't so lucky.
The plants are shredded. I don't know that they will recover.
All three of these watermelons split open because of the hail.
The sad thing is that my parents and I had just looked at them as he left. NONE of them had the slightest split in them.
Split watermelon #1
If you look closely (by the arrows) you can see where the hail struck the watermelons. The hail must have been coming down mighty hard to split open the fruit!
Split watermelon #2
Split watermelon #3
The good thing is that the three split watermelons appear to be pretty ripe inside. I picked them all and brought them into the house to prevent bugs or anything else from getting into the fruit. When the girls get home tonight we'll cut the watermelons up and taste them. Hmmmm. What can I make for dinner that goes with watermelon?
By the way, during the storm I could hear Awesome screaming but I couldn't find him. I walked through the house several times but the noise from the storm was too loud. I'm sure he was terrified.
We have a ceiling vent/fan in the hall bathroom, where we keep the litter box. During my cat search, I realized hail was coming in through the air vent! It was bouncing all over the bathroom. Crazy stuff! I hope Awesome wasn't in there when the hail started coming in.
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