Oh hail no

Last week, we had two major hailstorms that managed to wipe out TWO of my gardens in completely parts of town.  This may be the most boring blog post I've ever written but bear with me.  Weather is one of my less well-documented hobbies.  Apparently Cheyenne is the Hail Capitol of the World, according to people in my office and this article.  A rather dubious distinction especially since we have practically the World's Shortest Growing Season and it snows on Mother's Day.  

 

Snow, not hail. 

The first storm happened on Tuesday evening.  The weather radio had been going off all night warning us about thunderstorms, hail, damaging winds, etc.  Glenn helped me put all of our plants on the deck and I covered everything with lawn chairs and laundry baskets.  Classy.  The storm blew through town and our neighborhood didn't see a single ping of hail.  I breathed a sigh of relief until Aunt Vicky texted me "goodbye garden." 

This picture was taken on the Sunday before the storm - our slightly weedy but still well-cared for community garden plot.  We had more dill than we knew what to do with, broccoli, cabbages, onions, lovely potato plants and a brave little zucchini. 

Aunt Vicky's neighborhood and our community garden took the brunt of Tuesday's storm.  Leaves and branches and defoliated plants told the story.  

The community garden the morning after. 

So blah blah blah boring hail stories.  We also have a plot at our church garden, that was also spared from the first storm.  It's the first year of our church garden and I've had grand plans to share loads of fresh produce with the congregation and discover new and unusual ways to make kale edible.  Then Friday rolled around and the skies were black and I came home at lunch to try to protect the stuff in my yard again and this time I didn't do the whole laundry basket/lawn chairs and barely pulled things up onto the porch before it started hailing.  It hailed and hailed and hailed and our yard looked like it was covered in snow and the church garden was a giant, soggy, icy mess.  So now we'll have to see what bounces back.  We've replanted a few things and fertilized the heck out of everything and fingers crossed that two hailstorms in one week is good enough for a summer. 

Before the weather drama, we celebrated Wyoming Day by dressing up like soldiers and sitting in an Army jeep.  Will would've spent all weekend there if we'd let him. 

I don't think that's regulation uniform there, Driver. 

I've talked a lot about Will's baseball, but Reina is playing t-ball too and she's quite the slugger.  This year, the coach pitches to each kid three times and then they hit it off of the tee.  Reina's managed to hit the pitches and then stands there in surprise for a minute before dashing off to first. 

Her batting stance is a tad casual, but it works! 

I was digging through my phone and found this picture of Glenn and Will on the last day of school.   

Glenn and his clone.  We should've named him Glenn, Jr. 

Reina wants looooong hair and she's (im)patiently growing it out.  Mornings are usually a madcap rush out the door but I did take a few minutes to work on a Frozen braid a few weeks ago.  Reina was happy with my handiwork and I was happy to send her to school with a coif and not a giant ball of blonde craziness. 

Here's hoping for a hail free Fourth of July.