Hail Storm & Apple Tree

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNMPDFK5xPw&w=600&rel=0]

An ancient and neglected apple tree. Actually some sort of crab apple tree with fruit the size of golf balls. Large golf balls that were tart but delicious. Griffin loved to scarf them up when they carpeted the lawn in autumn.

Doug Decker cleans up ancient crab apple tree after hail storm hits Rosslyn on May, 16, 2012.
Doug Decker cleans up ancient crab apple tree after hail storm hits Rosslyn on May, 16, 2012.

For six years I pruned and nourished the crab apple tree back to health. Aside from a largely rotten trunk. Nevertheless, each spring the fruit tree filled with blooms which by summer’s end had become much fruit.

More pruning. Another spring; even more apple blossoms. The hope of fruit.

Yesterday, May 16, 2012 the skies blackened too early for night and then the clouds erupted in a short but angry tantrum of driving rain, mothball-sized hail and driving wind. When the hail and rain stopped and the fog cleared, the crooked fruit tree had fallen, snapped off at her stem.

This video is a eulogy of sorts…


Comments

5 responses to “Hail Storm & Apple Tree”

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  2. Katie Avatar
    Katie

    Wow. I’m just up the road, and while we got the thunder, lightning, and rain, but there was absolutely no hail! Maybe it was because you were right on the lake?

    1. virtualDavis Avatar
      virtualDavis

      Might have been a “lake effect” hail storm, although the weather and wind arrived from the West, driving the rain and hail almost horizontal!

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