Judy Clarke is the winner of our Guess the Date That We will First Be Selling Sweet Corn.  Please Judy send us your mailing address via magiclandfarms@yahoo.com.  BTW if yesterday wasn’t Sunday the date would have been July 8th since we did find quite a bit of ripe corn.  We sampled it in the field and it is quite sweet.  Tonight we will be having a meal of just corn and will post on how we all feel it tastes!

At around 10:15 in the morning on July 3rd I, along with most of sons and daughters, were out in the field weeding the giant pumpkins when we heard thunder to the northwest.  The storm that produced it moved east and we received a brief shower.  About 5 minutes later we again received a few drops which quickly turned into a moderate rain.  We hurried back to the stand to wait out the storm which we knew from the radar that would last less than a half hour. As we reached the stand the moderate rain quickly turned heavier until the downpour started.  We also noticed strong wind, although to me it didn’t look excessive.  While there was some lightning, it was quite infrequent.  Then the downpour seemed to strengthen and wind became stronger.  We were all real happy about the rain, at the time, since rains have been infrequent and the temperatures been excessive and humidity levels generally were low, although the day of the storm it was extremely humid.  After the rain ended (we had about .9 inch total on July 3) we decided to go home since the ground was so wet it was even hard to walk in the field.  Well, as we drove south on Gordon and passed 48th street, there were a few leaves on the road but no damage.  Then as we got to that big hill, about a 1000 feet south of 48th, we met some big equipment trying to move fallentrees.  A worker asked us if we lived down there and we said yes and he replied go ahead, but he wasn’t sure if we could get through.  Well we couldn’t and had to turn around.  We saw a number of trees down, one smashed a new garage and at least one hit a parked car and there was even more damage that wasn’t immediately obvious because we had in mind getting home.  As we turned around we met another car and told the driver he couldn’t get through.  He said he came this way because there was a tree down on Ferris and he couldn’t get through.  He thanked us and we decided to try to get home through Pickerel Lake Drive.  Well, that way we saw no damage just some small branches on the road.

As we passed Camp Henry and the tube no damage was seen.  We did see from our drive that to the north trees were down and equipment was working.  It looks like the damage occurred from about 200 feet north of our home to around the big hill on Gordon.  One thing that mystified me was where all that equipment came from in such a hurry!  They must have arrived within 5 to 10 minutes after the storm hit!

One other note.  Personally, I have never seen such damage concentrated in one small area (about 1000-1500 feet wide) in my life!  Also, as of today, I haven’t seen news reports of this damage!