Terrifying Storm

We’ve seen many raging storms on the farm over the years. There was the time during hay baling that the western sky grew entirely blackish greens, as if someone held a huge sharpie of that color and was using it to blot out the sky. There was the time we watched a twister forming in the sky, only to reabsorb into the clouds over the forest. And there was the storm that blew up during butchering chickens that twisted off the 250-year-old sugar maple in the yard as if it were an overgrown broccoli.

This last week, another such terrifying storm rolled through the region. Warnings blared on our smartphones all day, noting that we were within the “enhanced risk” zone. The days had been hot and steamy, ripe for storm-making.

We’re well practiced at battening down the hatches on the farm, picking up crates and bins and stuffing them into porches and sheds, tucking small equipment away into every available nook in sheds and barns. I’d taken down the umbrellas at Farmstead Creamery and tucked away all the movable pieces of the front counter. Kara had staked down the chicken tractors in the pasture with T-posts, and the sheep had been brought inside. Even though we have our preparedness routines, storms can still throw you powerful surprises.

What at first seemed like perhaps an hour’s gap before we’d be hit suddenly evaporated as storm clouds popcorned up on the radar and overtook us. Mom and Steve piled into the van and ran up farm to help Kara, who was madly trying to finish milking the sheep. I held the fort at Farmstead, not because it was likely clients would be visiting in the midst of a storm, but because there are many vital processes I’d need to manage if we lost power.

We do have a generator at Farmstead, which runs a handful of key things, but not everything, and making sure that the pumps and aerators keep running in our aquaponics greenhouse next door can be the difference between life or death for our tilapia fish. Warnings blared again, radar boxes of orange and red showing that not only were we up against severe thunderstorms but also potential tornadoes.

Lights flickered as the winds hit with a fury and mid-afternoon looked more like 10pm. The rain came down sideways to the point where I could not see across the parking lot. The canopy that stands in front of Farmstead, which is well-staked and tied to the building, shook and swayed like a leaf.

Power flickered again as lightening cracked all around, and I began preparations for an outage. I unpacked the gelato scooping case, covering and tucking the pans of frozen dessert into units that would run on the generator. Defrosting the unit, I was able to turn it off before it rode through too many surges. Lightening crackled again, and a ball of white light appeared eerily in the open door of the utility room, along with crackling, sparking sounds.

Up-farm, the rest of the family was in the barn, madly trying to wrap up milking. Lightening hit nearby with a terrible crack (likely a poor tree in the forest), and the wind tore the shade tarp off the back of the barn. The sheep coming out of the parlor after milking were too scared to run back into the barn until Mom ran out into the storm to hold back the flapping tarp and let them in. We all hoped and prayed the poultry in their summer housing would be alright, as there was nothing more that we could do.

Nickel and dime-sized hail began to fall, pinging off the metal roofs. In this, we were tremendously lucky, as these were widely spaced and didn’t last long. My heart goes out to those who faced off with larger hail, as this is often the demise of gardens, greenhouses, and livestock. We held our breath at the sound of hail, as the warnings were predicting as large as baseball potential.

Trees whipped and flailed, young apples were torn from our orchard, winds blew over onions and broccoli plants and grabbed Farmstead signage and trash bins and blew them into the parking lot. I retreated to a restroom to stay away from windows as the farm was pummeled. Usually these things blow through quickly, but this storm built and built and built and the terror went on.

Finally, the severity began to lift, and while the rain still came down, I rushed out to the aquaponics greenhouse. The power had held, the plastic film roof had stayed on, and the only damage I could find was a small hose that had come undone in the swaying of the building in the wind that was peeing water on the plants below—an easy fix.

After milking, Kara had rushed out to the pasture to check the poultry. Fortunately, she had thought to pull the extra tarps we use to give them shade, as these would have likely turned into kites and tore things up. The meat chickens were soaked but all alive, and the hens were also alright. The duck mobile house had been pushed five feet, and one duck had her foot trapped underneath, but she was still alive. She’s currently in recovery and eating and drinking again, so we’re making progress.

The process of fully understanding the damage takes time, as does the cleanup. The broccoli is starting to stand up again, and we’re very grateful it wasn’t worse. A huge branch fell off a white pine, but it missed hitting the chicken coop by a few feet—whew. Hoping that you and your family (and animals) have stayed safe during this stormy summer. See you down on the farm sometime.