Hail, All Hail to Spring...

We'd been getting light snow all last week, but not really enough to plow until a couple of days ago when figured there was enough to bother with. After plowing the drive way and trail to the dog yard (more on that later), moved the pickup and cleaned up around the workshop. After parking the tractor, was walking over to move the truck back when it stared hailing. At first I thought it was sleet, which is pretty common here in late March/early April. but as I sat in the truck watching it come down, it definitely sounded like hail on the roof. So after it quit, went into the house, got the camera, and took these photos:

Was really glad I wasn't still out on the tractor, cause it was coming down pretty hard for 15-20 min.

Now technically, it was the first day of spring, but up here we normally think of spring starting in late April/early May when the snow's finally gone. Hail's usually associated with thunder storms, which occur from late May to early September, so it was kind of weird.

The other weird thing happened when walking our new dog. We'd been bringing him into the house to socialize him, since he's kind of shy, with a couple of the other younger dogs. Andy took the two out after a bit and I followed, giving him a biscuit occasionally to keep is interest on me and not drag me down the trail. So as I reached into my pocket, to pull out another one, then started to break it in half, since he tends to swallow them whole, he takes off full speed for the dog yard. I tried to keep my balance by running with him, but managed only a couple of stumbling steps before slamming down on the newly plowed trail. Landed on my side, knocked the wind out of me, and dropped the leash. The dog took off, fortunately running around the dog yard where Andy caught him. I thought I'd just bruised some ribs, but apparently had also hit my head on the rock hard trail, as the next morning woke up with this beautiful shiner.

After our next dog run, Jabba admires the shiner. He's probably thinking "if you had that on both eyes, you'd be handsome like me."  Update: found out that we didn't get hail, it's actually "graupel" that's formed similar to hail, but starts with snowflakes instead of rain drops and the end result is the same. Weird!