Monday, August 14, 2017 was the date of the huge, lingering, damaging hail storm that fell on the day Terry went back to work. It was almost like it was a sign from the literal heavens that God was displeased he had to go back. Ha! I kid. It was a crazy storm though. Look at that golf ball size hail!
Yes, that Monday our happy, wonderful, amazing, refreshing, awesome sabbatical came to an end. Five days before it was over when Terry went away alone for the first time I wrote this for the post of the final day of our two week Utah and California trip. To summarize, here is what I posted on Facebook that day with this picture, "Sabbatical is over. Daddy went to work today. We had to watch The Price is Right without him. We are sad! "Back to life. Back to reality." It's been a wonderful summer. It was such a gift. We are grateful for the uninterrupted time together in this time of rest. We rested good and loved each other well. This will be, in memory, one of the most special times in our entire lives for our family. We love you Terry Biers!!" Looking back, perhaps I just needed a break, I'm sure we all did. During sabbatical I felt no pressure to be and do, just ease. Boy I needed that. We're more determined now to find time for a proper vacation, even though they're hard to come by. Summers are historically packed with youth activities so it'll have to be at another time during the year. But that'll work - we'll just have to go south!
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| Watching the Price is Right without daddy for the first time all summer. :( |
When Terry got home that evening we were sitting down to dinner and the skies opened up. At first it was just heavy rain and then pea-sized hail. About the time the hail would usually stop, it just kept coming faster and harder and bigger. The storm lasted for over 20 minutes and probably more. Our neighbor's lawn turned into a river and pond! Look closely at the black plastic fencing on the right side...
Look at that waterfall!!! There's a culvert behind that black fencing and it drains nowhere except our neighbor's back yard! This is all the fault of the dumb new road behind our house. The National Guard added the road a year ago and the culvert drains the entire field behind it. There's no sewer system so the rock pit they dug to catch all the water did not work and all that water had nowhere to go except out to the street past our neighbor's house.
I haven't caught our neighbor to hear if she had water in her basement but you'd think she'd had to have.
The video captures it a bit better.
At least our lawn wasn't a pond, but it still looked like it had snowed.
It's crazy the way the hail was bouncing off the roof and filling the gutters.
Once the storm had finally passed Terry went out for a closer look at that culvert and gravel pit.
House rejected in water.
I grabbed a quarter for a size comparison. A golfball would have been better.
I picked out some of the larger pieces. Look at how spikey they are!
Evie was pretty flabbergasted by the size and shape of the hail. She put four big hailstones in our freezer. :D
Evie girl with a lake behind her.
My poor zinnias were just starting to really take off.
Look at all that hail!
Evie let Luna out for a pee and she was playing in all of it.
Luna thought the hail was great fun. An endless amount of balls to play with!
Front deck piles.
Looking down our street. You can see the water flowing out to the street from the neighbor's back yard.
The other side of her house. She had two rivers draining her yard!
We had both cars parked out front and someone's garbage can got lodged under the Malibu and then most of the aluminum cans inside washed down the road.
Shredded plants.
View from the driveway.
Poor sad beautiful hydrangeas! They were new this year but they'll come back, hopefully stronger than ever.
My Morning Glories were hit the hardest of all. They had just reached the top of the deck! :(
Surprisingly, a month later they have made an impressive comeback!!
They were sheltered on the other side of the railing.
They're even more beautiful from this side now!
It's such a lovely view from our front window now. I may have to cover them with a sheet or something when the first frost comes.
My three flower deck baskets hadn't been doing well this summer and the hail totally finished them off.
Crazy spikes!
But probably worst of all was Samuel and Ezra's broken bedroom window.
Next worse was Terry's broken Malibu window. It's got hail damage to the body too of course. So does the New Yorker, but it's less obvious (if you ask me. If you ask Terry it's another story).
Youch!
Glass everywhere inside.
Thankfully Terry fixed it a couple weekends ago. He got the window for only like $35! It would have been well over $200 to have someone else order a window and install it. Go Terry!
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