On Sunday a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions struck my garden. James and I went for a lovely drive out in the country side, and while there was a bit of rain and some darkly menacing clouds in the sky, we really didn’t see anything more alarming than the goat below, which stood in the middle of the road and refused to move for love or money.
By the way, excuse the crappy iphone photos in this post, the camera did not travel with me.
Upon venturing back to Calgary we spotted signs that something’s amiss:
And then some more:
And by the time we turned into our street, we drove right into winter. That ever happen to you? You leave and it’s summer, come back to winter? Not in August, you say? Welcome to Calgary.
All the streets were white, there were huge puddles of slush, and stunned kids were wearing parkas.
Except for that wasn’t snow on the ground, it was it’s dangerous cousin - hail. Apparently we missed a hailstorm of epic proportions, hail so thick and powerful that ‘it came down like a brick wall’ according to my mother.
Signs of destruction and carnage were everywhere – tree branches broken, leaves stripped, flowers trampled, plants and cars wrecked. Of course my poor garden did not escape unscathed.
These tomatoes that were bushy and gorgeous:
Are stripped bare:
Raspberry bushes crumpled:
Tomatoes that were lush and gorgeous:
Now broken and sad:
And I’m not even talking about my poor flowers, or trees, or anything else. I guess we’re lucky our car escaped, seeing our neighbors car covered with a hastily thrown on blanket. It was an event of epic destruction and carnage. The neighborhood plants are destroyed, which is fine I guess, since our temperature this morning was only 5 degrees, and it really did feel like winter is in the air. The local paper is reporting that outdoor pools are going broke because this is our third cold summer in a row.
And for me? After I find it in me to pick up the pieces, I quit this game. Way too much time, money and effort went into this gardening adventure for me to have such losses so late in the season. I don’t mind feeding baby cucumbers to local rabbits, as I figure if they’re brave enough to venture into my yard and get yelled at by my cats, they probably need them more than I do. But to lose them to hail seems so senseless, and uniquely Albertan, that it makes me want to pack up and move with a greater zeal than I’ve ever felt. I will grow no more veggies until I have a greenhouse. A hail proof one.
Sunday night Calgary and area got hit with one of our impressive summer storms. The carnage actually began on Saturday, with a death at the Big Valley Jamboree in Camrose and a toddler killed by a piece of debris blown off a construction site Calgary downtown. That storm blew in and out in under two hours leaving a devastated family in its wake. Calgary covers such a huge area that parts of it experience weather phenomena differently. It’s very common for each quadrant to have their own weather systems, and one area is likely to be sunny while another one will get monstrous hail and a third only rain. The storm on Saturday blew through south of Calgary with hardly a mark.
Sunday however, was different. It began suddenly, with the wind picking up around 2 am. I know, because I’m a dedicated night owl and was still bright eyed and bushy tailed. The wind picked up steadily until it was blowing nicely at 65 km/h (40mph) with gusts of 90 km/h (55mph) and it was LOUD. Whipping everything violently in its path it was bending trees sideways and breaking off branches. The skies opened up and a deluge came down. Lightning illuminated everything eerily and thunder crashed overhead like boulders. It was a rare summer thunderstorm and it was powerful and exhilarating.
The next morning we went for a long drive. Downed tree branches littered the sides of the road. Many trees had limbs sheared off, and many just lost their leaves. Stores lost their awnings and communities their signs.
Notice the broken wood and cracked frame
Awning down
The skies were overcast as far as the eye could see, and the grass glowed with that special emerald green it gets under gray skies after a cleansing rain.
Endless gray skies
Darkening up
It was a gorgeous drive winding through some of our picturesque small towns like Black Diamond and the amazing foothills to the Rockies.
Black Diamond
Main street
Foothills
Shuttered park warden cabin
Rain down the valley
Low heavy clouds
Hidden mountains
Soon however the skies darkened ominously, and the rain poured down again. Hard. Accompanied by even harder hail. And that’s when we turned around. It was very large hail.
The first raindrops
Outrunning the rain
Hide cows, massive hail coming
Our yard amazingly got away with pretty little damage, all things considering. Some broken flower stems, and some debris in the yard. The northern neighborhoods weren’t as lucky. They got three inches of hail and many instances of downed trees, broken roofs, downed power lines and broken windows to deal with.
Flowers in disarray
And as I sit here typing this, apparently for the next week we gets daytime HIGHS of 14C (57F) if weather network is to be believed. Feel for us.
Update: To see some photos of the damage head on over to the weather network and scroll to the bottom of the page to see some photos of the damage. Some of the houses look like they were strafed with a sub-machine gun.
