thunderstorms

Thunderstorms

They are awe inspiring

They are works of nature, as they roll in, or slowly creep in, opening up above you, or tearing in like a stampede

And they are dangerous as well as destructive.

I haven't liked them since 1995, when a large number of twisters came in on the fringe of a bad thunderstorm. I was caught in it coming home, I remember pulling off to the side of the road, getting into the middle of the van, and pulling a blanket over my head. The hail did thousands of dollars worth of damage to my Mustang (miss that car), as well as my house, and I was at the beginning of the trail. Lost electricity for 2-3 days, every window on the front of the house, the roof. Was a nightmare

We had one of those big storms tear in last Sunday night. . we'd just given up on trying to get a breeding Bonnie wanted, and were headed back down the hill when the rain started, then the hail started. I’ve seen bigger, but starburst sized hail hitting you still hurts. We watched the torrential downpour from the safety of the kitchen, the electricity flickering on and off. A couple struck close and we didn't realize how close until the horse barn down the road went up in flames. They were still fighting that fight when I went to bed. It kept reigniting itself; I counted at least 6 big fire trucks there, got photos of the smoke, which was thick, so thick that when I walked out of the house Monday morning I couldn't breathe. It looked like fog until you smelt it.

Wires were down, live ones to the East, dead ones and a tree to the west, a tree that took out the dairy farmers fence, thankfully, his dairy cattle weren't in that pasture. Not the worst storm I've seen, but considering how short the storm was, pretty damn destructive.

We ran up to Safeway, hoping to get there and back to the house before BGE(Electric company) got there and closed the road down, picked up dry ice and something to eat, as we hadn't even eaten dinner yet. Dinner was a beautiful turkey breast which was half cooked in the oven when it happened. Oh joy. It got quickly tossed into the freezer

Interestingly, Touchet, who's been afraid of storms since the tree fell in the big back yard, didn't freak out in the puppy yard. Usually when the weather gets nasty, she and the bitty pups come in, but it came so fast we didn't get a chance to bring any of them in. Thankfully with the covered porch, I was able to keep an eye on them all, and they were all safely ensconced in their dog houses in their respective yards. Maybe she feels safer in the big wooden dog house vs. the plastic houses.

So, dinner by candle . . .err, flashlight, with two pathetic house dogs hoping we'd drop something on the floor. Thank goodness the stove is gas, so we were able to fix sides to go with the rotisserie chicken we picked up. Then an early bed time, only to wake up to the smoke so thick it wasn't funny. The tree was cut back so you could at least safely drive by it, didn’t' go the other way, out of the way to go to work. Figured work had AC, working toilet, and fresh air, safer for me with my asthma with that last one. THankfully electric was back up when I got home

From our front yard. You could hear the heavy machinery as they tried to push the walls down in order to try and contain the fire. We don't think anything but hay/straw was lost, but it explains why it went up so darn fast.
That's not fog, that's smoke still. The black square is about where the farm is.

Again, next morning,
Where the weird box is, that's not clouds, that's smoke the night before
The japanese tree Bonnie has, the leaves are absolutely huge, and pretty hard hit by the hail.

The afternoon after, it's amazing they didn't lose the two buildings shown here, tho I think they did lose two others.

The tree down to the west of us.