Struck by Lightning...


The tree that is.

We had a nasty thunder-boomer (as hubby calls them) yesterday afternoon. We were eating supper when one particularly close one hit. I saw it strike just a couple hundred yards from the house, to the south of us. KAWHAM! There was a flash and a boom all at the same time; then there was a fireball, with sparks and everything.

We went out there later and saw what it had done to the tree. The top pic is kind of dark, though you can kind of see the light colored stripe of bare wood from top to bottom. This bottom one shows what happened:




It pretty much peeled the tree from roots to crown, and there are slivers of bark blown away from the tree up to 100 yards or more. You can't really tell in the pictures, but the bark is actually just hanging from the tree, it's not attached any more. The tree, as you might expect, is a goner. It can't survive naked. But we are so thankful no calves were under it; or that the lightning bolt didn't hit US instead of the tree.

Comments

jel said…
humdinger that it was !

did ya get the hail too, we did
did it scare little one?
June 10, 2009 at 5:49 PM
Calfkeeper said…
jel-yep, my zucchini and melon leaves all have holes in them. I hope they will recover.

yea, little one didn't like all the racket. She squalled and squalled. Poor kid.
June 11, 2009 at 1:59 PM
simple living kate said…
Wow! We had a thunderstorm today , but nothing on your sclae. Glad to know the the claves are ok. All I know is that our storm made the cats disappear under the furniture and the chicken run in to their coop and lay! Maybe there is a good side to storms after all.
June 15, 2009 at 4:38 PM
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