Carnage

Most of the time, rain is welcome on the farm. Maybe not during haying season, and maybe not too much during the spring thaw, but drought is always a specter to fear and avoid. But this year, drought hasn’t been the problem. If you weren’t up at the cabin last Thursday, count yourself lucky. If you came up to the cabin but didn’t lose anything, count yourself very lucky. Out here in Moose Lake Country, it looks like Hurricane Sandy barreled through, and some folks won’t get their electricity restored for another week!

It started all dim and foggy that morning, nothing unusual for early September. Mom was listening to NPR when that tell-tale series of beeps and buzzes broke through the news story, and the tin can voice proclaimed the oncoming doom:

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE HAS ISSUED A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING FOR SAWYER COUNTY. HIGH WINDS, HEAVY RAIN, AND PING-PONG-SIDED HAIL IS LIKELY. GET YOURSELF AND YOUR ANIMALS INTO SHELTER IMMEDIATELY.

Mom flipped on the Weather Channel radar and saw not just green or yellow or orange coming, but red surrounding an angry magenta ball hurling our way.

“Girls, get up, hurry! It’s coming!”

We each grabbed the nearest available pants and shirts, threw on the chore boots, and tore out into the fog. There was nothing visual to warn against the storm except for a black line on the western horizon, just visible over the tops of the trees. We each tore in separate ways, driving tractors into sheds, pulling sliding doors closed and latching them tight, picking up random items in the yard and stuffing them into the garage. The air was thick and quiet, ill foreboding of things to come.

I had chicken tractors out in the field, way out in the field. The black line was growing thicker, taller, and I knew there would be no time to pull those chickens into the yard. They were going to have to weather the storm, where they were. So I grabbed the trusty fence post pounder, an armload of well-loved metal T-posts, a mound of baling twine from the barn, and headed out bravely with the golf cart.

The grass was wet and the ground still soft from the Wednesday afternoon rain. The chickens and turkeys were eagerly lined up along the front of their tractor, thinking that breakfast sounded good to them. I pulled them forward to fresh ground, feeding and watering so fast my hands were shaking and a little spilled here and there. Who knew when I would be back?

Kara joined me in the field with the truck as we tied down the plastic tarp sides. I took up the pounder and began the tell-tale clang-clang of ramming steel into earth at outward angles to each corner of the tractors. Kara took fistfuls of baling twine and lashed the PVC supports to the posts, like a serious camping ten staking. By now, the rumble of the thunder was quite distinct, and lightning flashes visible. Surely, pounding metal posts in the middle of a pasture was not the wisest activity at the moment, but it had to be done!

Staking accomplished, I wished the birds the best of luck and flew back to the barnyard. A few drops of rain spat in distaste against the roof of the golf cart, stinging my face. This was an angry storm even on the leading edge.

The ducklings had been pasturing beneath the great maple trees in the yard for shade, and the last minute Mom and I grabbed their shelter (with them walking along inside) and carried the worried quackers away from the already waving limbs and towards the hedge, which would shelter them from northern winds.

“The high tunnel!” Mom hollered, and she flew off that way to close down the sides while I secured a tarp on a turkey hutch. “Let’s get the car in the garage!” It was growing darker and darker out, but the chicken coop lights wouldn’t turn on, and the barnyard lamp wasn’t lit. “I think the power’s out!”

The rain was coming in earnest as I turned up the driveway with the trusty golf cart towards the garage. If I pulled right up to the chest freezer, the car could squeeze in behind. My pants were soaked, my sweatshirt was soaked, my hair was soaked. Kara brought in the car as Mom waited just outside with the old farm truck. Just then a wall of wind and water struck like a fist with a roar, and you couldn’t see hardly anything. It took us pulling on the outside of the door and Mom pushing from the inside to be able to climb into the truck, soaked, panting.

Then the hail started. Bang-bang on the truck and bouncing off the ground. We backed up blindly, turned around, and crawled our way to Farmstead Creamery. The hail pounded and pummeled, the winds whipped and the rain hurled in sheets. We had to make sure that the generator was running or the tilapia fish in the aquaponics greenhouse would die without their airstones bubbling.

Again, wrench the truck door open and dash inside. If I thought I had been wet before, I was much wetter now, and that hail stung hard. Inside, beneath the metal roof of the Creamery, it was a cacophonous din. And then everything outside grew so dark you couldn’t tell what was happening at all…except for the sound.

But the generator was working. We pulled out the pans of gelato from the display and tucked them into the back freezers, which are connected to the generator. No sense in having the Café open today—no power meant no ability to cook. We huddled around a battery-powered light, shakily nibbled on some cereal and muffins, and waited for the storm to subside. Our one corded phone on the property rang often as neighbors and friends as far away as Rochester and Ashland called to see if we were alright. At this point, the fate of the farm was uncertain.

As soon as the sky lightened a little and the hail subsided, Mom and I dashed out to the aquaponics greenhouse, hoping for the best but fearing the worst. Inside, the rain was deafeningly amplified by the plastic roof, which had amazingly withstood the pelting hail. The fish were terrified, the flashing and the booming vibrating against their tanks, and they hid at the bottom without interest in food.

We went about our chores, flinching at the flashes and listening to the winds change from westerly to easterly. Against the side of the greenhouse were shredded bits of leaves stuck like decoupage along the west wall. Another blast of storm rolled through, and we waited amongst the plants and fish before venturing back to the Creamery.

Luckily, the DSL modem was also connected to the generator, so we could watch the radar as the bulk of the angry system skirted just south of the farm. As we gradually emerged from the building, branches and leaves littered everywhere. Neighbors immediately descended with chainsaws to clear the seven trees down on Fullington Road, all crashed from west to east.

The angry clouds were still close to the east as we walked back to the farm to assess the damages. Between Wednesday’s rains and the new five inches in two hours, the creek that runs under the lane was swollen within inches of overtaking the road, roaring out the culvert like a freight train. In the yard, a towering balsam tree (which had loosed one of its tops toward our intern Sam’s window in June) had broken off at 20 feet, smashing part of the garden and potato crates. Had it snapped in the other direction, however, it would have crashed right through the farmhouse.

The garden lay limp, pummeled by the hail. The second crop beans, which had all been in full bloom, lay shattered and flattened. Zucchini stood half-shredded and beaten, though the high tunnel survived unscaved. Where the ducklings has been beneath the maples, huge branches had fallen. The chickens and turkeys in their tractor were soaked but all alive, and those baling twine strings lashing them to the steaks were tight enough to play music on the west side and drooping loose on the east, but they had held. The power remained out for 11 ½ hours, but really, we had to count ourselves lucky.

All week, folks have been cutting their way out of the woods and venturing to Farmstead Creamery for a chance to eat something hot, collect water, check their email, or charge their phone. Often they arrive with sawdust from the chainsaws still clinging to their clothing. Truly, this storm was epic for the area. When folks asked that Saturday at the farmer’s market the usual, “How are you today?,” I couldn’t help but reply, “Happy to still have a farm.”

Five miles to the north, folks got rain but no hail. Five miles to the south, hail came in snowdrifts. The garden is battered, but all the animals survived. Our buildings were ok, and so were our neighbors, though many had suffered downed trees and some damages. As we stood around by our trucks in the lane like war refugees after a bombing, we marveled at the sheer power of nature and our luckiness to all be alive. It’s certainly a storm to remember, and I’m glad that I can still say that I’ll see you down on the farm sometime.