My own environmental disaster...

Okay, for a bit of perspective, tt's not an erupting volcano.

Or an oil slick.

It's nothing that major, but it still caused me to mourn--it got down to 27 degrees yesterday morning (on Mother's Day!). 

I know, it is still May and technically, the last-frost-date is May 15, so of course it is possible.  It's just that all the plants were at least 2 weeks ahead of schedule.  To them, it felt like it was AFTER May 15.

All week long the cold snap had been forecast--I kept hoping they were wrong.

But I didn't plant my tomatoes or other bedding plants.  I kept them safe.

Then Saturday night, I gathered up every tarp, bucket, and sheet I could find and began covering things up.

It's kind of tricky when the plants are tall. 

How do you cover them without doing more damage than the frost did? 

Then at 5:30 a.m. yesterday, I dressed in winter coat and boots, and went out to spray everything with water. 

I don't know why that works, but my mother used to do it to save our vegetable garden, and it was written about in "Farmer Boy", from the Little House series.  So it must be a true principle!

 (I came after an hour and had some hot chocolate.  About that time, Alice came into the kitchen to fix a mother's day breakfast for me.  She had arisen  a half hour early to surprise me.  I was sad to have spoiled her plan!)

When I checked awhile later, the water droplets had frozen.

And things looked so sad.  So droopy.  So frozen.

But there is hope.  The peony bush, above, with frozen droplets.

And the bush, below, later in the day.  The heads were standing up again! 

I had spent an hour, dragging hoses around, trying my best to save things, besides the hour it took to cover things up, and the hour it took this morning to fold up the tarps.  I still have to wash all the sheets.

 

My footprints through the frosty grass left a visible path. 

And today, that path is still visible with the grass darkened on every foot fall.

The blooming strawberries look alright.

Most of the potatoes survived, and the peas look fine.

My hostas don't look so good--kind of like frozen lettuce leaves.

Still the "disaster" could have been so much worse!