Wind and Water and Hail--Oh My!!

Well, that was fun...NOT!!  Shown below is the hail that the Frog picked up off the floor in the living room after it went through the skylight a little after 8 pm on Sunday, March 26.

Hail that came through the skylight

Fortunately it missed hitting him, although only barely.   The shards of plastic from the skylight were everywhere, even in the hall in front of the bathroom.  Looking from below the following morning we could see at least three different holes in the skylight.

Looking at the skylight from below the following morning

Some of the shards from the skylight, collected before trashing them.

Of course, if it had only been those three hits, it would not have been nearly as scary as it was in real time.  The roof was continually pelted for what seemed like forever and it was really loud.

Sound of a freight train.  Before the storm hit we knew there were storms in the area.   The TV reports showed storms to the west with very large hail.  Based on the real-time track on radar, we thought the storm was going to miss us to the north. We opened the front door to take a look and it sounded like a freight train.  We had always heard people describe tornadoes in that way, but had never experienced it ourselves.  In retrospect, we now realize that even though the hail had not yet reached us, the sound we heard was likely hail hitting things.

A barrage of hail.  We went inside, still hoping the storm was going to miss us.  We started hearing the loud thuds on the roof.  Then it got worse, much worse.  The hail came through the skylight, the car alarm on a car across the street went off, my car alarm went off and the hail just kept coming.  Then the rain started with a vengeance.   The rain gauge later indicated 0.69 inches, but that all fell in a matter of minutes.

It seemed like the hail storm lasted forever but later, looking at the surveillance cameras (both of which got hit by hail but survived), it appears it lasted for only about 10 minutes.  Fortunately most of the rain did not come until the latter part of the event.  By that time we were able to move furniture and spread out plastic to prevent significant water damage in the living room.

After the storm had passed there were many hail stones still scattered about.  We did not notice until the next day the many craters they had made in the yard, especially on the north side of the front yard.

Hail on the grass in the front yard after the storm.  This was mostly in the dark and I did not notice the divot on the right until looking at the picture the next day.

Car damage.  We had heard the RAV's car alarm go off multiple times and could see from the house that the windshield was cracked.  After it stopped raining we discovered the rear view mirror had been knocked off, the visors had flipped down, and the interior lights were on (apparently because they are activated by push buttons above the windshield). 

 

We could not see the dents in the body until the next day in the light, but there are many.

Patio roof.  The lathe on the patio roof also took a beating.

Multiple slats were broken into pieces and lying on the patio.

Veggie garden.  It was hardly of concern, compared to the house and car, but I assumed the vegetable garden would be decimated.  I was finally able to see it in detail the following morning.  Overall it was not too bad.  Many leaves, especially the broccoli leaves, had holes.

Holes in the broccoli leaves from the hail

Entire branches had been ripped off some of the broccoli, kale, tomato, and pepper plants.  Some of the smaller plants had been beaten down and/or torn apart, some of the onion tops were shredded, and there were multiple divots of varying size throughout the garden.

However, the most unusual damage was to one of the marigold plants.  Three of the four marigold plants in one square appeared unscathed.  However one of the plants looked as if it had exploded, with petals scattered about.

Marigolds shredded from direct hit by the hail.  The pieces are where I found them and have not been moved. 

Where one of the yellow marigold plants had previously been, there was a perfectly symmetrical crater that was several inches across and nearly 5 inches deep.

Crater in the marigolds

TV Antenna.  The top most part of the TV antenna is now at a 45 degree angle from the bottom part of the shaft.  I suspect it would have totally broken off if not for the support of the crepe myrtle.

The antenna pole is vertical along the left side of most of the chimney, but near the top is bent sharply to the right with the top of the antenna nearly sideways and supported by the crepe myrtle..

Size of the hail.  We don't know for sure the size of the hail stones hitting our house, but even the pieces that made it into the living room were the largest hail I had ever seen.  The Frog picked up one piece from the front porch that to us seemed to be tennis ball size.   There were many craters in the yard that were several inches in diameter.

Hail stone on the front porch

A tennis ball is about 2.5 inches in diameter.  Hail of that size is consistent with what was later reported by the National Weather Service.

In fact, at least one place near us reported hail greater than 4".  I guess spring storms are just part of living in north Texas, but this is one kind of March madness I can do without.

Misc Nature Observations on Our Walks

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I need to get caught up with some of the things we have been doing of late.  The biggest thing left is to mention some of the many interesting things we have seen over the past several months while taking our daily walks.  Rarely did it seem there was enough to blog about, but looking back now over several months we have enjoyed seeing quite a few different things.

Birds.  When we walk we almost always see birds of some type.  It is very unpredictable what we will or will not see.  The birds we see on any day vary drastically in both type and number.

Some of the variation is due to the fact that we are in the middle of the North American Central Flyway, the bird migration route that follows the Great Plains through the center of Canada and the U.S., then extends through Central America and into South America.

Some of the migrating birds are those we see during different times of the year at our backyard feeders, such as the black-eyed juncos.

Biological Flyways, Credit: Michael A Johnson, North Dakota Game and Fish,  https://flyways.us/flyways/info

However, many of the birds on the flyway are waterfowl or various types of raptors that prey on fish. Since most of the locations where we walk are on or very near Lewisville Lake, we are in the midst of a prime location for spotting large numbers of such birds.

It is common to encounter a great blue heron or two, some great egrets, coots (which are not ducks), and perhaps a few ducks (usually mallards, but also at least single sightings of bufflehead and blue-winged teal) almost anyplace near the water.

Solitary Great Blue Heron at Double Tree Ranch Park

Mallards at Unity Park, 3-2-17

However, during Christmas week we were shocked to stumble upon huge numbers of great egrets, cormorants, and ring-billed gulls.  None of the pictures truly shows the large numbers of birds, since they kept flying to the side of the pond away from us as we walked around the pond.

Great egrets at Double Tree Ranch Park, 12-22-16

Egrets, herons, and ducks at Double Tree Ranch Park, 12-22-16

There were so many egrets, they even began to takeover the sidewalk.

Great egrets at Double Tree Ranch Park, 12-22-16

The large numbers of birds were not only at Double Tree Ranch, but also on the lake itself.

Cormorants and ring-billed gulls along the Lewisville Lake Dam as seen from the cricket field at Lake Park, 12-27-16

We thought the egrets might be checking out some of the trees at Double Tree for nesting sites, but within a week or two they were mostly gone.  Many other birds, such as the cormorants, are still around in reasonably large numbers.  We are not sure what to expect as the seasons change.

Cormorants on the Trinity River from the Redbud Trail at LLELA, 3-3-17

The Army Corps of Engineers often lets sizable amounts of water out of Lewisville Lake  Apparently a large number of fish go along for the ride.  This attracts lots of fishermen to the river below the dam, both humans and birds.

The big one that didn't get away--Trinity River below Lewisville Lake dam

We did not get to LLELA early enough in the year to see the pelicans that we saw last January, but we did see large numbers of osprey over the river in February.  They would hover high above the water looking for fish.  Unfortunately the osprey now seem to be gone for the year as well.
 

Osprey hovering over the Trinity River looking for fish, 2-11-17

We have also seen an American kestrel, lots of vultures, and, MOST EXCITING OF ALL, a pair of bald eagles, YES-- IN NORTH TEXAS!!!  We saw them only briefly, but the Frog was able to get a picture of them on the side of the dam.  Unfortunately, it was from a very great distance.  By the time we got closer, they had already moved on. 

Bald eagles on Lewisville Lake Dam, 2-10-17

Other animals.  Other than Bun, our backyard cottontail rabbit, we have not seen many wild mammals.  (Bun is only marginally wild.)  We have seen deer a few times at LLELA, but only fleetingly as they ran away.  We never saw them long enough to get a picture.  We have also seen coyotes multiple times in multiple locations.  We used to see rabbits a lot, but those seem only to be in populated areas.

Although there are plenty of animals that frequent our backyard, we rarely see animals on our walks.  Despite not seeing them, we know they are around, at least at LLELA, since we have seen lots of tracks.  At various times we have seen tracks for raccoons, opossums, bobcats, and coyotes. 

Critter tracks, 2-18-17

One set of animals we would really like to see are the beavers.  We have seen plenty of evidence of them at LLELA. 

Trees cut by beavers near the viewing blind, 12-28-16

Beaver lodge and beaver dam along Bittern Marsh trail at LLELA, 2-12-17

This week, while watching for the beavers, we saw something move in the water near the beaver lodge.  However, it was not a beaver.  It was a 2-3 foot long snake, who froze in place for several minutes trying to figure out what we were.

A cottonmouth in the water along the Bittern Marsh Trail, 3-21-17.  Note his tongue.

According to the experts online, where I posted the pic, it is a northern cottonmouth water moccasin--yes, a venomous snake.  I am glad we were up on the boardwalk and he was down in the water. 

However, even a venomous snake was not the most unusual sighting of the day.  Through the trees we saw a birdhouse that looked rather strange.  With the binoculars we could see there were bees flying around the box that was nearly covered with a honeycomb.  The director of LLELA says the bees have taken over multiple birdhouses throughout the preserve.  Apparently the honey bees are doing very well here.

Beehive in a birdhouse on the Bittern Marsh Trail at LLELA, 3-21-17

It is safe to say that most of our daily walks would provide very little to blog about.  However, taken together over several months, we have seen many new and exciting things. It will be interesting to see how things change with the change of the seasons.

First Day of Spring

The calendar says that today is the first day of spring, i.e. the spring equinox.  The plants and animals are certainly acting like it is spring.

Most of the flowers on the flowering trees have already come and gone.  Our yaupon holly is creating pollen like crazy, hence making it a losing battle to keep my car and the patio furniture anything but yellow.  We saw bluebonnets while walking along Lewisville Lake this morning.

Bluebonnets at Lake Park on the first day of spring

The birds are singing away in the backyard and a wren is busily carrying nesting material into the bird house on the patio.

I guess I think it is spring, too.  I finished planting everything in the garden yesterday, despite the fact that that is weeks earlier than my original plan.  I wanted to take advantage of the predicted warm weather, near 90 today and in the 80's every day for the next week or so.  I am gambling that we will not have any more frosts or freezes, which doesn't seem like much of a gamble at the moment. 

Texas Motor Speedway

I have not been very good this year about keeping up with blog entries.  That is not a serious problem, except it defeats the purpose of this being a scrapbook of sorts for me.  I love to go back and relive some of our adventures, even if they are only mini (or nano) adventures.  I know in the past I have thought I would go back and fill in the things that I had not posted, but then I never do.  My goal is to do better.  To get caught up on some of the things I have been ignoring, here is the first of several belated posts on miscellaneous things of interest (at least to me) over the past several months.

Texas Motor Speedway Tour.  In November we toured the Texas Motor Speedway as part of the UNT Retiree Association group tour.   The Texas Motor Speedway has a range of different types of races, including both Indy car and NASCAR.  Neither of us are race fans, but we thought it would be fun to see this huge track up close and personal.

It really is mammoth, as we knew all too well from driving by many times on the interstate.  The infield is 4.5 times the footprint of AT&T stadium.  Total permanent seating is 128,655, with an estimated total capacity of 181,655.  Despite the enormity of the place, it did not feel nearly as big as I thought it would when I was inside.   

The Frog next to one of the race cars

We got to see a wide range of places, including inside one of the luxury suites.  I was surprised how much of the 1.5 mile track you could see from up there. 

In one of the luxury suites

From the luxury suite looking towards the north

 

Looking out over the finish line from the luxury suite.  The Big Hoss TV screen is across the track a bit to the left.  Also barely visible is the infield road course--something I did not know existed.

We could also see across to "Big Hoss", the large high definition TV screen.  It was not on so we could not judge for ourselves, but it is supposedly easily visible from the main grandstands.  It is as tall as a twelve story building and, at least at the time it was installed in 2014, was the largest HD TV in the world.  I guess it is a way to get instant replays even at the track.

Big Hoss, 218 x 94.6 feet, weighing in at 108 tons as compared to other local sports screens, at least at the time it was installed

Driving around the track.  The real highlight of the trip was riding around the track while crowded into one of the 16 seat vans.  It never felt like we were going very fast, but the driver said we were going over 70 mph.  I guess the lack of a sense of speed was due to the vastness of the place and to the extreme banking of the track, 24 degrees in the turns and 5 degrees in the straightaways!

I had read some of these facts about the track before, but it was a lot of fun to experience the place first hand.  The tour took more than two hours and was definitely worthwhile.

Threats to the spring garden

We have had two days in the high 70's/low 80's this week, so it has definitely felt like spring.  Everything in the garden is doing great. 

Garden on March 1

Despite the fact that February is gone and it is now officially the beginning of meteorological spring, March 1, the forecast for tonight is for temps near freezing.  Go figure!  However, all should be good with these particular plants as long as it doesn't get too cold.  For an extra margin of safety, I watered everything well.  That should keep things a bit warmer than if the soil were dry since water has a higher heat capacity than dry soil (or almost anything else that I know of other than liquid ammonia, but I digress).

I am getting anxious to plant some of the hot weather plants, such as tomatoes and peppers, but will wait a bit longer.  On average we get two freezes during March, so it is not worth the risk right now.

The bigger threat to the garden is likely attack from one of the four footed neighbors.  The squirrels have been in the garden several times retrieving buried nuts that I did not know they had buried last fall.  That has destroyed some of the seedlings, but the larger plants are ok.

The bigger threat is our neighborhood bunny. 

Bun "hiding" in the backyard

Bun typically hangs out in one spot in our backyard all day.  It is a little hollowed out spot that is just the size of one rabbit.  When he is there he is not very hidden.  We can easily see him from the house, but apparently he feels safe. 

Anytime I use carrots from the garden, I leave the greens on the patio for him.  He loves them and eats everything, leaving not a trace.  In retrospect that was probably not a good idea.  I may have created a monster.  Not only is he around nearly all the time, but he has now discovered that there are carrot greens in the garden.  Fortunately he has not yet figured out how to get over/around the chicken wire. 

Hopefully he does not figure out how to get in, or I fear there will be nothing left of the garden.