Storm and Seeds

A second round of horrendous storms passed through here today. We had quarter size hail on Friday (I need to get my roof examined for damage) and then today the winds were so fierce there are trees down everywhere.

We lost power at school from around 10AM to 1:50PM. We knew the storm was bad, but we didn't have a window to look out at that time. I was shocked at the damage on my way home. Entire trees were toppled, root ball and all. I suppose the drought has taken its toll on them these past several years. Huge beautiful oaks were fallen across the road. The traffic man said that he would "try to tell [us ]all of the roads you couldn't travel on, but it would be easier to tell which roads you COULD travel on."

Our neighbor on one side had a pine fall parallel to her house so close that you can stand at her front windows, reach out and touch the tree. She's amazingly lucky. Our other neighbor lost three trees; one came through our fence, but he was able to retrieve it because the winds had blown our gate wide open. Our gate is a double gate and the wind blew so hard it dragged the anchoring peg still in its hole along the ground. Amazing! Our rocking chairs on the front porch were in the front yard and our table and chairs had flipped over on the deck. It must have been some storm!

The peas are now completely off the trellis. I'm thinking about moving them to the deck and letting them spill over. I wonder if they'd still produce growing down instead of up. Everything else seems fine. The broccoli has a bit of a drunken lean to them, but that's easily remedied. They have the most beautifull little heads starting to form!!

I strung the grid for my large box today by winding it around nails just like I wanted to. It was amazing. I'll never do it another way again. I went ahead and planted my trellising cucumbers and bush cucumbers since our temps are looking fantastic. After I planted, however, I noticed little peachy colored things crawling in and over and under the compost. They're smaller than a pin head and fast little buggers. I don't know what they are, but they have many legs and are about the size of a strawberry seed and more round than oblong. I've never seen anything like them before so I can only assume they came with the compost, and that irritates me a bit. I just wonder if the damage will be done to the seed or will they wait until it begins to grow.

On the bright side, there is a tomato growing from one of my plants hanging from the deck! I took an indeterminate tom and slid it in a hanging pot at a 45 degree angle. It grew towards the sun for a few weeks and is now full of flowers and starting to lean downward. I'll be excited if it works. Suspending the toms would be a great way of keeping them away from the tomato butcher. I can only use tiny salad tomato varieties because of the weight, but a tomato is a tomato!

Temperatures are looking very nice for this next week. I'm hopeful that a string of nice days will really help these poor hail and wind stricken plants recouperate.