Garden Update: Mother Nature -1 Prairie Wife-0

Posted July 15, 2015 by Prairie Wife - 2 comments

Some of you may recall a post a month ago about us planting our very own vegetable garden for the first time. The weather here in Wyoming was cooperating and the plants were flourishing. Even after a week vacation with the kids in Wisconsin to visit Ma and Pa, everything was looking wonderful. The corn was over two feet tall and lettuce was just about to picked for the first time. Our tomatoes and peppers were filled with flowers and carrots, potatoes, peas and onions were all poking up and growing daily. Even our landscaping plants were doing better than ever before! My bushes were almost waist high and I had so much new growth that I was able to plant in four new spots using the “baby plants” from bushes we’ve been growing for years. Here is a picture of our landscaping from about three weeks ago.

Has anyone noticed that the above paragraph is written in the past tense. Our plants were flourishing, the corn was over two feet tall…

I’ve talked about the grit and grace it takes to be a Prairie Wife and on July 1st my grit was put to the test. The Cowboy and I headed out with all of the Cowkids for a family walk down our dirt road. As we were gathering up the kids and I was placing LittleMissH in her sling, I noticed that one of  the clouds above looked very ominous. As we continued to walk it began to build and turn darker with a speed that was awe inspiring. We stopped to chat with some neighbors down the road and a few drops of rain hit our heads. We decided to head in and hang out with them and wait out the storm that was continuing to build at an alarming rate. It says a lot about the Wyoming hospitality that they didn’t bat an eye at our family of 7 crashing their home, though this could be because this past Prairie Wife has a family of 7 as well!

Just when we called the last kid inside this happened…

The noise was so loud that we could barely talk and thankfully we kept all the kids away from the windows, because several were broken with the force of the ping pong size hail. We all stood with our mouths open, watching as Mother Nature released her fury on the Prairie. The storm perhaps lasted 15 minutes. When the clouds blew away and the sun came out we grabbed the Cowkids and headed home. We were anxious for all of our animals and after the broken windows at the neighbors we wanted to know the state of our house. As we ran down our dirt road I was appalled at the rivers of water and hail running everywhere. I was soaking wet halfway up my calves, and my legs and feet (I was wearing sandals) were numb with cold. Just as we rounded the corner to our driveway I misjudged my step and slipped into the ditch. I was up to my hips in frigid water filled with mud and hail. You can imagine a few choice words escaped my mouth as I clutched LittleMissH to my chest and bounded the rest of the way into the house. Our sweet Cowkids had beat us and had a pile of blankets and towels by the door.

After drying off they put on their snow clothes and headed out to play in the hail. The Cowboy checked on the horses and the house. Our roof was totaled and0we had no broken windows. We did have a window well that was filled with water and hail. The Cowboy bailed out water with a 5 gallon bucket and shoveled out the hail and no lasting damage occurred. Once the house was checked we went outside to see the damage. Cowboy J was standing by our garden fence sobbing uncontrollably.

“We worked so hard, and now it’s all gooooone” He moaned. “I wanted to eat carrots from the garden…why mom why?!”

As I held back my own tears from the damage done to my beloved bushes I held him close and gave him a kiss on his head. All I could do was rock him and explain what I knew was true. There simply some things in life that we have no control over. It doesn’t matter how hard we work, how much we love something, how excited and happy we are…sometimes things fall apart. I tried to encourage him to think of how lucky we were that we could simply drive to town and get more vegetables to eat. My heart went out to all those Prairie Wives of the past. How on Earth would they have managed 150 years ago when they were counting on their garden to provided food for their family for the year?

We went through a period of mourning for our plants, our newly stained deck, and our vegetable garden. Just yesterday we went out to look at our garden and take a look at what we saw…

Hope, in the shape of these sweet green plants…through it all the strong will find a way to survive.

Categories: Life As It Happens

Tags: , Garden, grit and grace, hail storm, Prairie Wife Life, strong will survive, weather