Black and white

My Saturday started out in the black. Unloading the dryer, I discovered the inside of the drum was covered in thick black skid marks. Of course, all the clothing inside had those same marks. But the pants that were left out to air dry was ink free, which lead me to believe that we've got a little mouse running loose in our basement dropping black markers into dryers. (Garrett!!!!) I managed to "erase" the marks (or rather the black went from 100% to 40% gray) with a Mr. Clean eraser sponge. But the clothes are probably a wash. Sorry, bad pun.

That afternoon Garrett and I were out running errands. Since I rarely turn on the TV these days I was unaware of the adventures that lie ahead. Driving along, I noticed the sky north of us was pitch black, which I assumed would pass us by. Wrong. Apparently a dangerous hail storm was barreling down I-94 straight towards us. Only a few raindrops hit the windshield before the hail struck. We're talking half dollar sized ice pellets assaulting the car for at least 7-8 minutes, accompanied by intense wind gusts. I pulled under a tree because at this point Garrett was screaming bloody murder (poor kid, he's been through enough and now it was Mother Nature's turn to torment him). Finally it let up so we slowly inched our way home through a wintery wonderland. The hail created a "snow" effect that completely blanketed the roads. This is what we came home to.

Quite frankly, it looked like a war zone. Broken branches, decapitated flowers, crushed plants and fallen leaves greeted us. (Poor Bob, he just got done putting in about half of our new plantings.) One poor pathetic tree has barely any leaves left. Here's Garrett standing in front of our newly planted vegetable garden--luckily, most of what's there are seeds, so everything is safely buried under dirt.
Today most of the day was spent cleaning up. The good news is it wasn't a deadly tornado like our neighbors in Hugo experienced last Sunday. We are very thankful for that.