When Grown Men Cry

The hail storm I mentioned from our weekend trip to western Kansas, it was brief, but devastating. A number of houses of good friends and family sustained serious damage and more than a few cars and houses lost windows. Our car only had a few minor dents. We were fortunate, apparently, to be right on the edge of the storm, or else well enough sheltered by my father's trees and buildings to protect us from the worst damage.

Just down the road, however, we saw this...



The day before, this was a wheat field that was perhaps two weeks away from being harvested, gorgeous stalks of grain that were bordering on turning gold. I've seen hail damage before, but I've never seen anything like this. Occasionally you see storms that put down patches of wheat, but this entire field was flattened. In fact, there were miles of fields like this.



It's a sad sight -- a wheat field just prior to harvest that is no longer recognizable as a wheat field.