Ten-Finger Exercises

Big, booming storm

There's a big, booming windstorm going on. It was hailing, then raining, now just blowing. Several fires started, my Emergency Services husband reports, along with he'll be late for supper. The sky to the east of us was so black at noon that I gave passing thought to wondering if there were any volcanoes that direction. Then by 5pm it was that black to the west; then the hail, then the rain. I'm hearing the propane cannons firing in the cherry orchard now, trying to protect the crop of baby cherries from the hail. I don't know how that works.

The big eruption of Mt. St. Helens was 26 years and one day ago. I was in church and noticed from the sanctuary that people in back were leaving, a couple at a time, coming back in after a while. That's not as unusual as one might think, but there was whispering and come-here motions. When the service was over, the sky was very black indeed. The psalm for the day was 104. I've included the following verses:

31 May the glory of the LORD endure forever;
may the LORD rejoice in his works-

32 he who looks at the earth, and it trembles,
who touches the mountains, and they smoke.

33 I will sing to the LORD all my life;
I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.


7pm--the sky is blue, and there are six quail and four doves scratching in our gravel driveway. My husband said the cherry gun works by changing the air pressure enough so that hail couldn't form. (I think that's what he said.) Sure enough, we didn't have any more after the booming began, but the radar showed lots of hail in our area at the time. Must have been all around us.