Hailstorm

A hailstorm rolled into Kandern this afternoon.  It couldn't have come at a better time either.  It was so hot this morning and I was so sweaty that my glasses kept slipping down my nose every five seconds. 

Clouds came first and then thunder and rain.  The raindrops were heavy and cold and smelled like earthworms.  And then the hail.  The raindrops were already loud, but when the hail came, the noise became ten times louder.  About the size of a thumbnail, the pellets of ice battered the roof and the windows and flooded the gutters.  It wasn't like listening to a metal can of dry seeds being shaken.  It was like being the seed inside the can, utterly surrounded by shaking and rattling and pelting.  We had to shout to be heard. 

Hail covered the street in white.  Tracks of rainwater cut dark trails through the white on the way to the drains.  The flowers on the windowsill thrashed and bent in pots overflowing with rainwater and hail.  (I'm afraid they might not be able to recover from that beating.) Then after maybe twenty minutes, the rattling softened and turned back into the drum of raindrops.  Then that too ceased, and now all I hear out the window is water trickling into drains.