Time To Put Summer Away

The calendar says it is the beginning of the fall season, but up here in northern Minnesota it has been "fall" for several weeks.  Nobody here is ready for winter - not mentally, not physically.   It seems like we just began summer, and poof.......it's gone!  It is only 49 degrees outside now and a frost is expected for tonight.  I am done with canning and now it is time to begin preparations for winter.   We need to clean up the yard, take tomato posts and stakes out of the garden, mow everything short, and till up the gardens for winter.   Today I am also decorating the house for fall, and doing the "summer/winter clothes switch".   Time to put away the short sleeves and get out the sweaters.

We had a VERY bad hailstorm last week that did a lot of damage.  We had quarter to golf ball size hail that came down in heavy sheets of hail for about 5 minutes.  It accumulated on the ground like snow.  In some places the piles of hail took 3 days to melt!  The hail dented our metal roof, put new dents in my old car, took out our porch light, broke two windows in the old trailer house we use for storage, broke some of the plastic dashboard on my riding lawn mower, dented our wooden porch, and destroyed most of our remaining crops in the garden.  We had not harvested all of the tomatoes and winter squash yet, or the beets, or the rows of beans we had saved for seed.  We did harvest the pumpkins and put them in the back of our pickup truck.   But they were all damaged by the hail.  Some of the squash is beyond hope.   The acorn squash seemed to fare just fine, though.  We were not able to sell most of the winter squash at our farmer's market booth because it looks terrible.  I know it is still edible, but it may not keep very well because the damaged rind will become soft quickly.  

The damage to most of our winter squash crop.   Almost every piece was pock-marked by the heavy hail.  

Some of the hail by our back door.

The hail looked like snow in the yard. 

This pile of hail by the house took 3 days to melt.  It was 5 inches deep.

The hops that we grew for my son's brewing hobby were severely damaged by the hail.   The vines were completely stripped off the ropes and were left hanging in shreds.   My greenhouse plastic was dented but only one tear resulted.   I am thankful for that!  The beehives had no damage either, so that was good.   The trees with all the beautiful fall colors were stripped bare, even the green leaves.    We also had several large branches in the road, and some trees go down. 

Before the hail came, I was in the greenhouse watering things.  I stepped outside to put the hose away and heard a strange 'hissing sound'.  I had never heard anything like that before and it seemed to be getting louder and closer.  I didn't quite make it back to the house when the hail began!  And ouch!  Those hailstones really hurt!  My cats were scurrying everywhere looking for shelter, even the little kittens.  Within seconds the hail was so heavy you couldn't see anything out the windows.  Fortunately all the cats made it to shelter!

Next week Harold begins the sugar beet harvest.  Everyone is busy cutting firewood now, too.  Snow flurries are predicted for late next week also.   It was a short summer and an even shorter fall!