Hailstorm

October 1, 2023

Howdy folks,

Boy, did we have one hell of a storm this week.  It was on Monday.  I always try to get this out every week on Sunday, but a lot of the time that is just wishful thinking.  In fact, for most of the last month or so, I've been running a few weeks behind with getting any of these out.  Between work, construction, moving and company coming, it's just been too many sticks in the fire.  In any event, on the second of October we got absolutely hammered by a thunderstorm that came off of the mesa to the west of us and just dumped on us!  Not only that, it hailed like I've never seen before.  We literally had piles and piles of hail all over the place...built up around drains and anywhere else that it could get caught up and accumulate.  It had been in the upper 70s and lower 80s for the whole week prior to this: somewhat windy, but otherwise normal weather.  There were regular storms for most of the week, but they always seem to miss us.  Not too far to the north, running from Pecos straight east to Las Vegas, there are, at times, almost daily storms, but for us they can be very patchy.  In any event, it was a dreary kind of day with the wind letting you know early on that it might have something up its sleeve.  Finally, just after lunch, it let loose and started pouring.  We had rain coming in over here in the new house in the room where all the plants are.  There are two corrugated, translucent, poly windows that make up the skylight, stacked about two feet apart from each other in the ceiling.  The outer piece on the one side has slid down the roof about six inches or so and because of that rain can get in and then spread out over the lower piece, coming in wherever there are cracks.  It certainly doesn't usually rain this hard, but it is something that I need to figure out how to fix.  More importantly, I'm going to have to figure out how to get that high up on the roof, without scaffolding, so that I can get to it.  We'll see...for now, it's been added to 'the list.'  About an hour later I had to run into Las Vegas to pick up some stuff for Erin and I saw where the storm hit after it was done with us.  For the last five miles or so outside of town, there was inches of hail lying on the interstate...so much so that the passing lane was not even possible to attempt and the regular travel lane was slippery enough to cause traffic to be crawling at a mere 55mph or so.  Keep in mind, the speed limit is 75mph out here and we're usually getting blown away doing that!  On top of that, there were snowplows out, quickly attached to the state trucks to deal with the mess.  By the time I left town an hour later, you'd never even know that it had stormed!

And, speaking of company a little earlier, ours arrived a few days ago on Thursday. Erin's Dad, Ken, and his partner, Astrid, made the 1900 mile trip out from Pennsylvania in record time and even got here a day earlier than expected.  Erin was actually heading to town to get groceries and some ranch supplies and was going to stop by to see her girlfriends and have a drink with them when I emphasized the kind of time that they were making.  After her retort, I just said, "They're almost to Amarillo...they'll be here right after lunch."  She just frowned at me, but then gave up on going to town and just stayed home and got some food around for the hungry travelers.  Sure enough, right around 2pm, they rolled in!  Friday was a day spent on the ranch with everybody getting settled in.  Ken has a printing business back in PA and is able to run it from the road, as he spends a lot of time out doing sales calls.  Some things they still do in-house and fire up their old Heidelberg press to do; others they fire off to their corporate partner who does the rest.  I worked all day and we all met up again for dinner at our house, while Erin spent most of the day visiting with them and going back and forth to the boss's house to get all the cleaning finished up for the week.  Saturday, we all drug ourselves out of bed early and went to the hot springs at Montezuma.  Til we were done, we wound up at our favorite restaurant, the Skillet, for lunch.  Then, it was time to head back home and check on all the animals, not just ours, but they brought their dog, Junior, with them, too.  Sunday was kind of a down day with Erin running into town with her Dad to get some parts for their van that he had assessed they needed after their cross-country dash.  They also hit the grocery store, making up for Erin not going on Thursday, and, then, before heading home they stopped at Smiling Faces for some of their famous Navajo Tacos and brought home enough to share with everybody!

And, now, I have another batch of pictures for everyone to peruse.  First up, two cat pictures: one of Charley(who hasn't come inside in a month or two now); and the other of Chelly, about ready to pop with her third litter of kittens.  Then, a shot of Willow from the chaise lounge up at my new vantage point in the backyard.  Next, a particularly striking shot of the mesa with the garden in the foreground that struck me.  Then, three shots of the horses: first, the whole gang come in to get water; next, Rosie making faces; then, Annie seeing what she can snag along the fence.  Next, a shot of part of the boss's yard that I've been working on, with a sea of Cowpen Daisies in the background and a freshly replanted Autumn Sage and ornamental rose in the foreground...most days I can be seen on my hands and knees pulling weeds here!  Then, a great Southwestern sky, looking up at the moon from our little cemetery, right before dark one night.  And, finally, seven shots of our big hail storm: looking out back from our house mid-storm; piled up along a channel that runs from a downspout by our back door; the same thing, but off of the boss's garage; then, the pile left off of the boss's big butterfly roof; footprints in the hail; how unlike snow it really was...yet still quite icy!; and, finally, a radar screenshot from my phone right as the storm was about to hit us. 

That's it for this week.