It's all gone

It was nearly an hour of terror. I knew the deafening pounding on the roof was 'just' a hailstorm. My lizard brain was not having any of it. The dogs were a panting, quivering mess and my own heart was pounding hard. On top of this primal fear and the worry that every crack I heard was the sound of our solar pipes breaking was the sorrow for our plants.

The morning justified my grieving. The rose petals had been stripped and lay in a thick blanket on the ground. The kiwi- our first 'real' harvest- had tattered leaves and several of the promise-laden blooms had been torn off. The vegetable seedlings were tattered, several lay prone and broken. I got a message from a friend who lives at the top of the hill, " I am crying, my veggies are so damaged from the hail." "Hang in there, they will come back if the tips are okay" I replied as I continued with my melancholy accounting. Maybe half of the other fruits- the plums, peaches, pears and apricots- had fallen, the others were still okay. Or so I thought.

We are having some work done, and when G came with the workmen, I was all ready with my quip. "Was that a hailstorm last night, or did China shell us?" G and Hem laughed, Ragbar Da was beyond a smile.

Ragbar Da is one of a  fast disappearing breed of people in the mountains. He is a Renaissance man, an expert mason, tinsmith, weaver and horticulturist. He knows the ways of the plants and the animals, he knows to read the land and the rocks. He had never seen anything like this. A few years ago, Ragbar da had set out a new plum orchard. Being the man he is, he had done it excellently. Home-grafted trees, carefully set out and diligently tilled, manured and pruned. This year, they were going to repay him. Despite the hailstorm we had already endured, the plum trees bore about 400 cases of fruit.

 

Today, the fruits are gone. This is when I learnt that the fruit I had thought was okay because they were still on the trees were doomed. Apparently the hail bruises the fruit and it begins to rot at the point of impact. With time, the rot increases to the point where the fruit is unsaleable. 'Everything in Chatola and Sitla is gone', said Hem. "All we are going to harvest this year are mosquitoes and flies from the rotting fruit.'

There are a few people who have insured their fruit. For the vast majority, the premiums are high enough that gambling on the weather is worthwhile. With climate change, this is an increasingly loaded bet. And with farmers in the area almost entirely dependent on the fruit crop, they have indeed lost everything.