Mosaic Monday #34 - Hail!

Thursday began as many another day - a glorious sunrise tinting the sky all manner of pink and blue.  Spousal Unit woke me to ensure I had the opportunity to absorb the majesty.  And then we dozed.


A scant hour later, something else, a little less gentle and little less majestic, interrupted our sleep.  Hail.

It was brief, but it was prolific and loud.  We gave up any attempt to get back to sleep a second time and got on with our day.  With questionable weather, this meant overdue house cleaning (yay!). On one of my trips to the garage, I noticed that the hail lingered well into the afternoon (see it in the valley of the roof?).  I set off for my afternoon run with a few puffy clouds for company.  Precisely 56 minutes later, I returned to the house accompanied by ominous clouds and thunder punctuated by lightning.  And then the heavens opened.

In less than 20 minutes, an inch of liquid precipitation fell, and that does not count the hail.  We watched the spectacle in disbelief, awe and little bit of despair.  Check out this video of the hail accumulating below a valley in the roof.

Toward the end of Nature's tirade, it looked like this.

Would you like a close-up?

And why the "despair", you might ask?  Our landscaping, built with "drought-tolerant plants", was not designed for torrential downpours, so this is what happens.

Gravity puts a stream wherever it makes sense

Dark material - "mill mud" - was carried onto gravel paths,

marring the clean look.  And it's hard to get out of the gravel!

Some plants lost leaves and flowers

And can I tell you how different this is from last June?  This time last year we were watering every three days because we'd had no rain since the beginning of the month.

Of course, this is nothing in comparison to what people have had to deal with in terms of real flooding.  As I scooped up the mill mud and dumped it back in the rightful spot, I imagined homeowners scraping mountains of mud out of their homes, all the while piling useless furniture and soiled belongings on the curb to be taken away.

Yes, my moment of "despair" shall pass.  The next morning, I went kayaking with my dear neighbor friend.  The calm of the lake stood in sharp relief against the clattering and banging of the mighty storm just 14 hours earlier.  A veritable balm for my soul.

Happy Canada Day to my friends north of the border, and Happy Fourth of July to my fellow Americans!

Mosaic Monday

Welcome to Mosaic Monday, a weekly meme where we get together to share our photo mosaics and collages.
Please include at least one photo mosaic/collage in your post.
The link will be open from 1 p.m. Sunday until 11 p.m. Monday (U.S. Mountain time).
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