Wacky Weather

We had a freak hail storm this weekend and Ernesto captured some of it on video. The kids were scared, naturally, with all the pouring rain, blowing wind and large stones of ice hitting the house. I was a bit frightened myself, as you can tell by my repeatedly saying, "Oh my God!" I had just gotten my window box planters filled with impatiens, salvia and ivy and they were sitting out on the picnic table in the backyard. Now they were being hammered with ice. Sorry little guys!

Luckily nothing was really damaged, but the bed out front lost a good deal of mulch from the river that ran through it. Oh well.

E and I have never witnessed this sort of thing first hand, so it was really interesting. Did you know that if you cut a hail stone in half you can count the rings of ice inside it to see how many times it bounced up and down inside the thundercloud? Oh, the things you learn from your son's meteorology books!