Farmer’s face many challenges. Drought, killing early or late unexpected freezes, critters stealing or stomping the crops, floods, and pests and diseases. It seems that something is always trying to kill our crops. Sometimes, all in one season!
But probably one of our biggest fears, and most destructive challenges, comes by way of a pretty pink blob on the radar map, usually in the middle of warm weather.
That pink blob, signifies a four letter word that sends a shiver up the spine of all farmers...
HAIL
Well one early afternoon the first week of June as I was looking at the radar to monitor the rain, one of those pink blobs appeared on the radar screen - and it was heading straight for the farm.
There’s not a thing you can do either.
Once I was able to assess the size of the hail, I reported it to Meteorological Phenomena Identification Near the Ground, or mPING. It started out as pea size but very quickly grew heavy and larger. It ended up as half-inch, jagged ice balls falling from the sky, at a rapid rate, pushed sideways by a strong, blustery wind. This was not good. At. All.
I worried that the old windowpanes on this farmhouse would break. It sure sounded like they would any minute. The cats inside the house must have thought the sky was falling with all of the racket. I'm sure the barn cats were sound asleep somewhere. They're bothered by little.
Badger, our trusty Farm dog, had taken cover in the barn, according to his GPS tracking collar.
The horses, whom I had intentionally kept up front that day to help with the tall grass that the sheep were slacking on eating, were surely under trees or in the barn also. The chickens, well, they're chickens. Eventually, I'm sure they took cover.
It came down heavy and hard and I can only imagine it would have hurt to be out in the open. Especially, a chicken.
Heavy rains followed the hail storm. This along with lightening and thunder was a storm stronger than we'd had in quite some time. No sign of a tornado, thankfully. But this was no joke.
It was finally clear enough for me to venture outside. I pulled on my galoshes and headed out back to check the damage that I knew had surely been done.
Checking everyone along the way, the animals all seemed none the worse for where, thankfully. Looking up at me from their grazing as if nothing had happened. Horses and sheep are so resilient.
The driveway was littered with bits and pieces of the post oaks and small to medium branches were scattered everywhere. I hadn't seen this many branches down since a tornado ripped through here in 2008.
I made my way through the gate towards the road to the gardens only to find it flooded. That’s not uncommon after a heavy rain. But it really hadn't rained all that long, so I was a little surprised.
By the time I made my way around the back of the pond, which sounded like a mini waterfall, I worried that my neighbors homes to the south had flooded, too. I hate to sound like a broken record, but had we received the zoning change, our engineer had been working on a solution to the flooding problem. But that's all water under the bridge now, I guess. Or water in living rooms.
Our 3 foot tall tomatoes - were laying flat.
As I got closer I could see that many had broken over the twine that had been supporting them.
The beautiful summer squash we had been enjoying a bountiful harvest from, looked like someone had beat them with a rake.
The cucumbers seemed to have hidden behind the metal trellis and survived along with the long beans.
The broccoli and cabbage, was on its side.
I hoped by morning some of them would stand back upright. But it looked bad.
I walked down to check on the poly house, our high tunnel. Thankfully, no rips or holes. Pock marks all along the poly roof, but it seemed to be intact.
All I could do was take a few photos, some video for posterity, and go
back inside.
The rows still flooded, more rain coming, it felt like
defeat.
I reported our fate to the world via socials. It had been an isolated pocket of hail, so thankfully, most of my colleagues would be spared.
Over the next several days in between yet MORE rain, I'd trim dead branches, re-string rows of tomato plants, and harvest what I could.
The squash plants were a total loss and pulled out right away so as not to attract pests to a damaged plant. (Summer squash emit a type of chemical that attracts pests, and other cucurbit type plants (melons) as well as tomatoes are also on their menu. My colleague and friend Beverly, of Texas Tested Seeds & Plants, does an excellent job here explaining this.)
The weeds of course grew inches overnight. So dragging the weed whacker out there on top of trimming and re-staking, etc., was in order.
Then, a few days later, we got a whopping SIX inches+ of rain. I say plus, because the rain gauge over-flowed and my digital weather station has been on the fritz. (I need to put a new one on our wish list, but our signal repeaters only work with the one we have. And a new one is not in my limited budget right now.)
We'll hope the melons will re-bloom. The hail knocked off dozens of flowers and some small fruit, but the leaves had only minor damage and plants themselves looked ok. The tomatoes should recover, though our fruit will be late - and some of the tomatoes on the vine now are bruised.
All of that rain needs to drain some more, so the roots can breathe, but I hope to be able to pull a decent summer crop out at some point for my CSA members. And I hope their continued support, loyalty and patience are matched by their ability to risk another season as our fall installment comes due July 1. We're on a skeleton CSA roster these days between me scaling down due to physical limitations, and
the economy being tight, (not everyone can afford to share the risk with
the farmer, because that's what CSA is.) The farmer doesn't get back their
crops or all of those hours of back-breaking work that hail took out in less than 5 minutes. And the members may not get the harvest they hoped for. We live to plant again, and fight another day.
I'm just not as young and strong as I was and most of the work is still done by hand. Yes, the place is still for sale. I'm working towards finding a group with like-minded goals that is mission-aligned to take over one day - so I can retire without the guilt and heartbreak of watching the place bull-dozed over and covered with concrete. Until then, a hard working volunteer has been coming as often as possible and helping coordinate other hands to help keep things growing. A temperamental rear hydraulic system on my John Deere gives me grief as I try to mow or disk, but it's still beats the walk behind tiller I can't start any more, or raking it all out manually like when I started this place back in 2008. It never occurred to me that one day I'd not be capable of doing some of this work. Not before I'd found someone to take over anyway. But I am still doing the best I can, and the food we do get, still tastes as good as ever.
Meanwhile, I have say good-bye to one of my beautiful old oak trees. A victim to the constant heavy rains that softened the soil around the troubled root system, and part of the squirrels' above ground -highway system.
Erosion over the years pushed soil up over parts of the surface roots and weakened things, and this last spring's heavy rains proved too much for the old leaning tree. I used to sit in a tree swing off one of those branches sometimes when I'd take a break. I love all of my trees. It'll be strange to look out there and see it missing. Thankfully, there are many others.
The task of cutting it up started today. I'm grateful for the relationship built over the years with my local tree company. Aaron's has been here for me since 2008 - the last time I had major tree damage from that tornado I mentioned earlier. We've used the mulch they bring to mix with our horse barn stall waste for years. Makes the best compost!
So, Life on the Farm goes on. It always seems to find a way.
Do me a favor, next time you go to a farmer's market, or pick up a CSA share, or even buy produce from the supermarket, please remember that there are real people who grew that food for you. Many of them faced any one in a number of challenges to get it from their farm, to you. It's an honor to work the soil, but by golly, sometimes, it's just really hard.
Eat Your Food - Naturally!
Farmer Marie
