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.
