From the ArcaMax Publishing, Recipes Newsletter:
http://www.arcamax.com/news/recipes/s-352118-220550
As the storm approached, the lightening flashes became much more
frequent and the thunder was rumbling continuously. The sky was dark
as night but it was still very calm outside. It was almost surreal
... the storm was coming up right on top of us but the winds had yet
to reach us. Talk about the calm before the storm! This storm was
going to be a real whopper.
The one thing I wasn't thinking about was my tomato garden. In my
three years of growing tomatoes, I had never had a storm related
tomato loss. Maybe one or two green tomatoes had been knocked off the
plants in a hard rain but it seemed like tomatoes were designed to
ride out the summer storms.
Besides, in the first two ultra-successful years of growing tomatoes,
I hadn't had anything to worry about. It was only in year three when
the muskrats invaded that I had to take any action to protect my
garden. The muskrats would get drunk off fermented fruit in the yard
and then attack the tomatoes to satisfy their munchies. The
uninhibited varmints would scale any fence so I had to put a chicken
wire roof over the garden. The fence/roof system worked remarkably
well and I hadn't had any problems with varmints since.
When the storm finally hit it was unbelievable. I know this sounds
cliche but it really did sound like a train was rolling through our
yard. We actually grabbed up the kids and went into a downstairs
bathroom for safety. It blew and rained and rained and blew for at
least a half an hour. We could hear branches and debris hitting the
house.
When things finally calmed down, I looked out the window to survey the
damage ...
Glory, Glory Man United!!!!!!
God Bless America.
Enjoy!