Wild Windy Weather

The long Memorial Day weekend has had an ominous start as some very unstable weather has made its way to our area Thursday night.  We were all just getting ready to go to bed when the storm hit us.  The lightning display was spectacular but the heavy winds were quite damaging.  The power went out, causing Bud to wake up, and the boys ended up sleeping on futon mattresses downstairs where they could be calmed by the weather radio and be cooled by the lower downstairs temperatures.  Fire whistles were going off for much of the night and emergency crews were out clearing roads from downed power lines and trees as soon as the winds died down.  We woke up to find that the top 20 feet of one of our tall pines had snapped and been flipped around as it fell to the ground.  Fortunately, most of the downed trees seemed to fall ten feet away from the homes and not directly on them. 

We were surprised to see the fallen part of the tree oriented this way--it had to either have flipped in mid air or been pushed by the wind as it came off.  

Friday was beautiful and my darling husband and I spent most of the afternoon in the garden.  I planted some beets, greens and cucumbers and dug the bean bed.  Unfortunately, last night around 8pm, another set of thunderstorms came through with heavy rain, and I'm sure that most of the seeds got washed away.  We will simply have to assess and maybe replant later in the week.

While digging the bean bed, I came across some old potatoes that were still in the ground so I dug them up.  I also picked some of last year's fall lettuce that had been insulated by the snow and then started regrowing this spring.  The lettuce was delicious in our first green salad of the year.  The potatoes were more of a disappointment, but considering they were salvaged, we didn't have high expectations.  The new potatoes in the neighboring plot will be ready in a couple months.