"This newsletter isn’t about goats, but that’s where we will start: the big mama goat, Tristan let out a new-to-us cry today. What was it about, we wondered. She was on her way to the barn, and her bellowing brought her two young ones quickly to her side. I came inside, looked on the computer, and saw the storm coming. It looked like there would be thunder and lightning, but the two of us felt good, as we had just come from being in the woods all morning, cutting up our last tree for winter fuel.
We brought a load to the house, and were getting ready to make veggies we bought from Prospect Gardens at the Farmers’ Market. I went outside to check out the projects that needed to be done in the garden later that day. Then the goat made that unusual sound.
Thirty minutes later, the expected storm came overhead, but it did not rain – it hailed. The hail was a large marble size, and it came down so hard, there was no visibility. For two reasons, the first being there was so much darn hail, and the second reason being that the hail cooled the air, and there was a soupy fog. Oh, there was also wind. It hailed for thirty minutes, and was almost two inches thick. Oh, and there was lightening. Hail pounded the house, and Barb and I tried to talk to each other, but we couldn’t hear each other. Outside there was a unique smell. Just guessing, but maybe it was the smell of lightening fluorescing the hail soaked air.
I remember the great snap pea disaster hail storm of the early eighties, and since then have not seen much hail. There was some this July, but only for a half minute before turning to rain. As that storm moved southeast of us, a gigantic swoosh of wind, sounding like a train, started as it was leaving our hill. As it turned out, that train-wind turned into a tornado in southeastern Susquehanna County.
Back to today. The garden is shredded. I have been wondering how many winter squash we actually had growing – they were hidden by gigantic squash leaves. No more. We have a bunch of squash. The long squash bed used to be green. Now, that green is mulch, and the squash bed is a glorious blend of blues, oranges, a pinky-orange, stripy greens, and some odd colors thrown in. The squash skins were hard enough to withstand the hail. At least that’s what it looks like now. The next few days will tell the tale.
The tomatoes didn’t fare so well, as many are bruised, whether they be green or turning red. So they were just picked, and as we haven’t canned any matoes yet, Barb has been looking in the recipe books to find some recipe to preserve green tomatoes. There still are some on the vine, and once again, the next few days will be telling.
Kale and rhubarb leaves are pitiful looking skeletons, the young carrot plants for late fall harvest are smooshed on the ground, and are grumbling. The Blue Hopi corn (for corn meal), once so stately and twelve feet tall, is drooping, but I bet tomorrow it will recover. It’s good to have husks when it hails.
So we lost some veggies, yet many survived. The goats came out to the field after the storm, only to go back inside before the next storm came through. But that second storm was only lightening, thunder and a brief, heavy rain. Piece of cake. Afterwards, the goats came out again. As I was rescuing tomatoes for our winter pantry, off in the west storm number three approached. Some heavy drops and that was it.
Once again, the goats came out to eat. Their pasture, which just hours before was over a foot tall, was just inches tall, so their big old noses were right at the ground. Looking to the western sky, there was a sorta funnel shaped cloud, moving north to south. By this time, I looked at it and thought, could it be the start of a nasty storm number four? I looked at the goats. They were unusually intent on eating pasture. The two black and brown goats, the two all white goats, and Swifton, the black young buck with a bit of white markings, could have been from a Monet painting. Their coloring, along with the purples of dusk, and the blended greens of a garden that had been hailed on seemed serene. The goats knew that that western cloud wasn’t dangerous. It was over."
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Leif Winter and his wife Barb has been helping Ananda Vrati Master Unit also called Quest Center in Northeastern Pennsylvania with their expertize in Community Gardening and Community Self-Reliance. The article has been published on the CSA Newsletter (CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture)
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