Gone in 60 Seconds....Or Less

On Tuesday this week I was in High River harvesting vegetables out of my garden.  The man's mom has a half acre garden plot on her acreage, so this year we shared it.  So on Tuesday I was out there, enjoying the sunshine, picking beans and peas, digging some carrots and some potatoes and picking raspberries.  The weather that day said there was a chance of thundershowers in the afternoon. No big deal, since it is summer now and that happens often in the afternoon.  We picked our produce and chatted and we commented on how wonderful the garden looked this year.  I thought I might even get some corn and pumpkins since we have had a warm summer.  I looked to the north and saw a thunderstorm blowing in.  It took a few hours.  By the time it arrived, my mother in law and I were shelling peas in the shade of the house and drinking ginger ale.  It was a great day!  As we sat there the clouds started to rumble and some lightening was seen.  We thought we would have a good amount of time to shell peas. We were wrong.  The storm came boiling out of the north with a violnet wind.  We grabbed our peas and bowls and ran into the house.  At first the storm was just rain and wind, with some lightening and thunder.  Suddenly we heard a bang on the sky light in the kitchen.  I looked out the front window and there was marble sized hail coming sideways out of the sky.  The rain and hail mix drowned out the sound of thunder and obscured the lightening.  The hail just kept coming, getting heavier and heavier, louder and louder.  The house started to shake and we had to yell at each other to be heard.  Then suddenly, it was all over.  The storm blew over and the sun started to come out.  I looked out the back window and saw my garden. Or what was left of it.  My corn was broken in half, all of my vegetables were pulverized into the mud.  There were no leaves left on the sunflowers.  In other words, my garden was done for the year.  All I have left now is potatoes and carrots, because they are underground.  Sigh. Sometimes gardening on the prairie can be so heart breaking.
In other news, a shop down the road was struck by lightening. Here are some pictures: