Go Greased Lightning!

Living in the North Country, we’re more intimately connected to what the sky delivers than city folks are. A rainy day can spoil our picnic, but it can also make our garden lushly abundant; a rainy month can promote hoof rot and turn the basement into a pond. A hot day can be enjoyed at one of the many nearby lakes and rivers; a hot month can wither a crop and dry up a well.

This summer we have dodged quite a few bullets. The weather forecast has warned of thunderstorms with high winds and possible hail many times, but so far the storms have not materialized or they have passed around us.

Friday morning’s humidity and hot sun gave way to a dark mid-afternoon sky, followed in short order by white flashes to the west and the grumbling roll of thunder. Rain started to fall, carried by wind that quickly increased to a multi-directional frenzy, and soon torrents of sky-water and icy bullets were pelting the windows and bouncing off the patio and picnic table. Through it all I could see the corn and asparagus fronds swaying violently.

We were hit. The simultaneous CRACK/SNAP/BOOM told me so, but the power didn’t go out. Glad I had disconnected the computer and modem, I wondered if the horses were okay. They usually stand outside during a storm, maybe avoiding the deafening pounding of rain on the barn’s metal roof, or maybe just enjoying the shower. They weren’t in sight, although it was hard to see through the downpour.

And then, more suddenly than it had begun, the storm passed and the sun appeared: blue sky to the west; blackness moving away to the east. I picked up the telephone to make a call and realized it had been toasted. (How many times this has happened! Cordless phones and lightning just don’t mix well.)

In the barn, I found both horses peacefully munching hay in their stalls… and the electric fencer blown to smithereens.

The fencer is critical not because it keeps the horses in pasture (which it does), but because it keeps woodchucks and raccoons out of the garden. We have already lost this year’s soybean crop to a hungry chuck because the “coon fence” wasn’t electrified, and I certainly do not want the corn crop to meet a similar fate, so I headed to town to buy a new fencer. Upon returning home, I found that a second storm had blown through and knocked down about half of the corn crop I was attempting to protect.

Yesterday as my husband and I righted corn and constructed baling twine supports for it, we quipped that it’s a good thing we aren’t trying to feed Europe. A favorite old joke came to mind: It’s a good life if only we don’t weaken.



"No shoes, no shirt, no service"



The charred remains




Take that, you coons!




Why gardeners cry




After a couple of hours of lifting, straightening, tamping and stringing

Addendum: Today is beautifully sunny and still. The corn has a good chance of digging its roots deeper and standing tall without prolonged help, and - surprise - you can still buy a phone that has a cord!