2006-04-21 - 10:55 a.m.

WE WERE HIT with our first serious hail storm since we moved to 'bama last night. As we were cleaning bunny boxes a threatening thunder storm was moving in. Just as we were finishing loading hay into the clean boxes, a sheet of rain fell with lots of nearby lightning strikes. Within a few minutes we realized that the rain was largely penny-sized hail. This was one of the few storms that we hadn't moved the vehicles into shelter for; when I raced out to put the truck in our RV hut, I couldn't get the truck up the slight incline from the yard because there was a thick layer of ice. So we covered up the truck's cab and windshield with boards, and I ran the Toyota across the other side of the lawn into an open patch of woods, under a large fir tree for shelter. Both vehicles seem to be OK, I think the hail wasn't quite big enough to do damage. When the storm stopped we saw two phenomena associated with the immediate aftermath of hail storms locally: a thick fog, and an intense smell of pine on the air. Next time we'll put the vehicles in the hut at the first threat of a thunderstorm...

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