First part of June. Everything is growing, been a wet week, a little over 1.5” for us and a nice gentle rain. Just had a real cool spell; we had 31 degrees down in our valley… will have to wait a few days to see if there was enough frost to kill the soybeans that are 2” tall or was the dirt warm enough and releasing enough heat to keep it OK.
Back in blogworld, still planting corn.
My brother, Ernie came out again. I appreciate Ernie‘s help; he’s not a natural, but it gets done and it sure saves me time. It’s interesting what he remembers and how things have changed. The fields roads he remembers that I haven’t used in 30 years. Kinda fun to hear his memories.
It’s very dry;
The weather channel keeps predicting rain, but the arrival time gets pushed back and chances diminish until now there’s only a 30% chance and yet I’m watching a big red storm cell out the window as I try to finish planting this one field. Finally, when this dark cloud is almost on me, I lock everything up and make a run for home. The fertilizer wagon does not have a cover and it’s sitting outside so it needs to get in the shed before it gets rained on. I get everything under the roof with seconds to spare as it starts to rain. And then rain hard. And then it starts to hail. Five minutes of pea size hail. I put the pick-up truck in the shed because I’m right there and I know the key is in it. I put the gator in the shed because that’s close and the key is in it. My car key is in the house. Priorities you know: truck then gator and then the car.
7/10 of an inch of rain in about 10 minutes. The worst time of year for heavy rains like this, all this freshly worked soil. Could be worse. I can see water standing in the fields already, I can see where it’s run through the fields. Some small, shallow gully’s, but it hasn’t really hurt much. It will soak in quick. Ended up with 1.1 inches of rain total. Looking at weather maps, there was a narrow band of us that got over an inch. Most people only had half an inch.
The next morning I did Computer stuff in the morning, made maps for the co-op for spraying, made a Menards and Fleet Farm run, refilled LP tanks for the BBQ grill, took the maps to the Co-op in Plainview, made a few phone calls, picked up three more bags of corn seed just in case I run out, and check township roads for new rock.
Unloaded the truck, set up straw bales for garden, and spend some time watching the chicks.
We moved them into the bigger pen yesterday.
I spent Friday morning at my moms, delivered Straw Friday afternoon and saw baby goats there. All the neighbors are out in the field and I still think my fields are too wet.
Saturday morning had someone pick up straw, then delivered Straw to Winona and had our first meal out in over a year at a little bar in Wikota MN. Our first meal out should have been better than this…
Finished planting corn, did some fieldwork, and had friends out for pizza on the deck. First time for pizza with friends in over a year.
Talking rain Sunday.
I go to mom’s in the morning again, rain isn’t predicted until 4 o’clock Sunday. I rent 10 acres down the road; I got that dug up and a couple fields at home dug up, so the spring flush of weeds has been dug up at least once in every field.
I’m racing a rainstorm again even though no rain is predicted until 11 o’clock PM. It’s 2:00 PM. Darn weathermen…
Daughter is home alone when I see some big lightning strikes. I head for home. Power is out; fuse on pole blown meaning lightning hit a line fairly close. Rain amounts to 15 drops. Didn’t I just tell daughter that storms don’t usually cause power outages? How rare that really is? Thanks Lightning.
Soybean fertilizer next.
What’s the biggest hail storm you’ve been in?
Trail Baboon 
November 8, 2016
“Oh, Hail no! Hail no!”
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The NOAA says that is unlikely our drought will dissipate this summer since the soil is so dry even with the rain we received in May. Summer rains tend to be more of the gully washer kind. We never get days of rainy weather
They seed the clouds in Eastern Montana to prevent hail storms here. Ranchers think it prohibits rain here and sends it east. My Dil’s brother’s wife is a meteorologist, and used to work in western ND. She said the cloud seeding pilots never flew over Slope county because some ranchers would shoot at the planes.
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I didn’t realize anyone still actually seeded clouds. Interesting.
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Had two hail storms within a week about 5 years ago that were bad enough to wreck a lot of roofs in town. Ours was going on 20 years old, but we had to appeal to our insurance company to be approved even though our neighbors were all getting new roofs. I guess that qualifies as the worst hailstorm I’ve been in, although I think I was out of town for one of those two.
Biggest hail I’ve seen in maybe a bit bigger than golf-ball-sized.
Chris in Owatonna
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I haven’t been in anything memorable enough to have a reference point. When did you write this, Ben? We had hail here recently, so it was probably the same storm.
Was that bar the Witoka Tavern? The burgers etc. used to be so good I would take out-of-town folks there, plus you could eat outside sitting right next to this cornfield. New owners, and the food’s gone downhill I think.
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The storm in the story was April 27th.
Yeah, Witoka Tavern. There was a reception on the banquet room next door and there was only the one bartender / cook working it seemed.
Cheese burger basket was OK. And more fries than we could eat, but the poor cook was overwhelmed and service took a while. Outdoor seating wasn’t open yet that that point, but yeah, there is a cornfield next door.
And we were kinda hoping for some “social distancing” yet at that point, which, no matter how we moved, was hard to come by.
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In the last 30 years here on the farm, we’ve had damaging, marble sized hail maybe 3 times. I remember once it pretty much ruined the oats crop; It was looking really good and almost ripe, then hail shelled it out there in the field and pretty much knocked it all down.
And once we got a new roof out of the deal.
Way back in my teenage years, I went with some theater people to a sand bar somewhere. A storm came up that had at least golf ball size hail. I must of still been in the boat, but I remember watching people trying to get out of the water and running across the sand.
Kelly’s car has been hit with hail a couple times.
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I wonder how big hail used to be before golf was invented.
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“We had hail last night the size of a sheep’s eyeball.”
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I have one son Devin who is a weather freak and used to watch the sky for the black clouds and freak out for four hours before they would arrive
He was probably eight or nine when we were driving over on the west side of the cities and the radio said that dime size hail was coming down a short distance away so I found a exit off the highway and pulled up next to a store figuring out the angle that the rain was coming out I went behind the store where the dumpsters are and pulled my car right up next to the building and the hail came and beat the crap out of everybody’s car in the parking lot but didn’t get mine because I was hugging the building so tight I felt like a genius
My house in Eden Prairie that had a cedar shake roof fell victim to a hail storm and got the whole roof replaced at a cost of about $100,000 shortly before I left there the most hail I remember seeing was marble size is a good description for it that completely covered the grass and looked like a half an inch of snow at all came down very quickly and left very quickly and I’m sure that that was roof damaging and car damaging but I. Wasn’t concerned about that at the time
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I think that hailstorm is the one that got our roof replaced the second time.
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Rise and Shine Baboons,
I am back from Iowa and the “Mom Project” in which she was transferred to a Skilled Nursing facility. All involved, including Mom are worn out.
We have had two, count’em, two roofs replaced for hail damage. But that is not the loudest story to tell. Years ago—probably 25-35 years ago, when our boys were children and the “little girls” were babies we had a series of camping trips, some featuring storms of varying intensity and elements.
When we camped at Hickory Grove Park near where my parents and grandparents farmed in Central Iowa a windy, intense hail storm blew up. The tents and campers started flying and coming down, so we ran for the shower house—which featured a corrugated metal roof.
It. Was.So.Loud. None of us have ever forgotten it. The size of the hailstones was reflected in loud thumps and small snare drum sounds, It seemed we were in there forever, but I don’t remember how long it really was.
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Rain in the machine shed, with the tin roof, is crazy loud; like the corrugated roof you were under.
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Like a storm
of hornets, the
little white planets
layer and relayer
as they whip around
in their high orbits,
getting more and
more dense before
they crash against
our crust. A maelstrom
of ferocious little
fists and punches,
so hard to believe
once it’s past.
– Kay Ryan
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When I was about ten our family got caught in a June hailstorm as we drove from Iowa to Park Rapids, our annual vacation destination. The storm caught us at Saint Cloud. The stones were slightly larger than golf balls. Gas station pumps used to be topped with heavy porcelain crowns, and those were shattered all over town. The stones were large enough to punch holes in the canvas top of our 1947 Cadillac convertible. I was concerned enough to throw my body over that of my sister. A man looking out his window saw his neighbor’s dog take a hit on the head, knocking him out. He went out for the dog and got knocked silly himself. His wife ended up dragging both of them to safety.
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Yikes!
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Several years ago I was sitting in a small plane at the Denver airport expecting to go down the runway to fly to Aspen where I was going to a conference with coworkers. A storm came up quickly with golf ball and sometimes baseball size hail. I have never felt how thin the aluminum skin of an airplane might feel but it held through the pelting and noise. We were also blown around by wind. However all the dents affected ability to get lift so most flights were canceled (for 3 days) until planes could be inspected and be allowed to fly (or be fixed). We ended up renting a van with a driver (whole bunch of us going to a conference) and driving to Aspen. From that point on I only flew to Denver and a group of us drove to Aspen/Snowmass for our conferences.
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