Hail No!

Last night, while we were minding our own business, watching hockey, our house was suddenly and violently assaulted. By hail the size of mutant Concord grapes.

Two of the perpetrators, melting under questioning.

It was loud, and somewhat unsettling. My first thought was for the new sprouts of lettuce, peas and broccoli in our garden; Benjamin's were for our roof. Miikka did not take kindly to the invasion, and tried to rout the instigators with growls and barks. It didn't work, so he tried an all-out assault on the backyard (after the worst of the hail was over - didn't want him getting a concussion or something). That didn't work either and he spent the rest of the evening growling out the window or barking around the yard, until we finally corralled him in the kitchen for an early bedtime, with comforting cookie.

The enemy lies spent, taking only a few victims.

When we lived in Texas, we always heard stories of hail the size of golf balls, or bigger, but we never actually experienced any this big.  The year we went back to Austin for Benjamin's graduation ceremony, there was a storm the day before we arrived that produced baseball sized hail, but we only saw it on the news. I have a friend who grew up in the Dallas area, and every time there was a threat of hail in Austin she would run out and throw a blanket over her car, to dull the impact and prevent dents. Now I know why!

Now that is hail.

The other Texas feature of hail that always made us laugh was the way its name sounds when pronounced with a strong Texas accent: rather more like hell than hay-l.  There was an ad on TV from a car detailing shop that always advertised a hail damage discount, but the way the guy said it, the services seemed straight out of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. "We'll fix your hell damage for you." Anyway, despite Miikka's extreme distaste of the hail and its invasion of his yard, we don't seem to have any damage. The garden (what I could see of it in the dark this morning at 5 AM) seemed fine. I don't know about the roof, but then, I always care more about food than I do about housing.