Too much excitement

I had just dropped Meghan off at her rehearsal when I got caught in a severe thunderstorm, complete with quarter to golfball size hail. I wasn't expecting that as I had just checked the storm warnings and there weren't any for our area. The wind picked up, the rain and hail were coming down in horizontal sheets, and I was hoping there were not going to be any tree limbs dropping on me as I rushed home to my garage. The tornado warning sirens went off just as I pulled into my garage and the hail and lightning strikes increased just at the moment. What fun! I'll have to sort out the various dents on my van after I get back from my field season. BTW - I'm heading to South Africa on Oct 9 and get back home on Nov 3. I'll be posting a series of travel reports while I'm away, so please stay tuned for a different kind of excitement over the next few weeks.

Here are some images from this evening's fun:





Those are respectable hail stones. Not quite as big as some I experienced in Underberg, South Africa in 2003, but nearly so.









Here's a view of the front yard looking down the street. The mist coming off the street is from the hail stones melting there.








Here's my front walk covered in hail and downed leaves. Our honey locust trees lining our street were nearly stripped bare of their beautiful fall foliage.








Here's another view. I hope we don't get too much rain tonight because our roof is covered in leaves and I expect the rain gutters will overflow and flood our basement. It's still lightning outside, so we can't go clear them as of yet.








Accumulation of hail stones at the back gate.











And in Emma's compost pile (aka as my wood shavings dump).









An example of the night's droppings. The good news is that no tree limbs came down and we weren't hit by a tornado. yippee!