The dreaded hail storm....Bad for the crops but good for the kids. After a hail storm, with several inches of hail on the ground, we could rush out and gather as much hail as we could because we could have ice cream. This would be a real treat since we had no electricity and ice cream was hard to come by, . While we were busy gathering the ice mom would be getting the ingredients together. She used the eggs cream and milk., all produced on the farm. She filled the wooden ice cream freezer with about five quarts of the mixture. She had to allow for the cream to expand as it froze. The ice cream freezer was packed with the hail ice and salt. Each of us would take turns cranking the handle. At first it was easy but as the mixture began to freeze it became harder and harder to crank and the top mechanism would pop up so dad put several gunny sacks on the top and one of us would sit on the top and another would crank. when it got to hard dad took over to finish the job for us. Mom took out the dasher or mixer inside the machine then let the ice cream sit inside the wooden tub for a little while so it would freeze a little harder. We could hardly wait for this process and kept asking mom how much longer we'd have to wait. If it hailed late in the afternoon we would have ice cream only for supper....what a treat.