I haven’t had the heart to write about it, but a hail storm passed over our house on Saturday and virtually destroyed our gardens.  I know they are only plants, and we are lucky that no one was hurt and the house wasn’t more damaged (no broken windows, thank goodness), but still – it was enough to bring tears to our eyes when we walked out into the yard after it was over.  H’s folks were over and we were just sitting down to dinner when it began.  The hail came in three big waves, the second of which dropped golf ball-sized hail.  The entire yard was covered in ice.   The other two waves dropped large green pea sized hail.  The hostas are just shredded.  I know they will look like hell this year, but should be fine next year.  Anyway, I called State Farm and started two claims this morning, one for my car, and one for the roof.  I’ve been trying to find reputable roofing contractors this afternoon to come take a look and tell us whether we have damage requiring repair.

Tonight we have to spend the evening cleaning up the yard.  Our large maples lost at least 1/2 their leaves.  Some of the trees even have bare tops – they’ve been completely stripped of foliage.  It will all be OK in the end, I just wish we didn’t have to deal with this.