A Lightning Event

We weathered the storms fine and hope that you all did also. The lightning was severe. Tuesday morning at 5:00 I took the dogs out first thing and there was smoke hanging in the air. I figured that the 1:00 strike that made us all jump had likely hit something down in town and we were getting smoke from it. Syd left for work just before 6 a.m. and minutes later the dogs said that my brother was up on the road, having just come down from Mom's. He said, "You've got to come up and see this". Just a few hundred feet up the road was a huge maple tree on fire. This particular tree was dead in the middle but its outer branches still had life. It was on fire and obviously had been for hours. The flames and smoke rose from its center, making it appear as a huge chimmney fire! A small charred branch had fallen onto my brother's car, which is what alerted him to it at all. It was still raining and everything was soaking wet, so we watched it for a short time before I called 911. When our fire department came it was only a matter of 20 minutes or so before they had it completely out. I snuck up and took pictures before they got there, then scooted back before I got caught, as I knew that they would scold me for getting too close to falling, burning branches!

One sad note of that night; our computer may have been fried. Stay tuned for that one, as we will be taking it to the doctor tomorrow night and will find out. Praise the Lord, we bought the special insurance and have only had this computer for one year, therefore it will be replaced for free. The most important thing that I learned from this (other than UNPLUG everything coming into computer, satellite dish, power, etc) is BACKUP, especially pictures but also documents. We had not done so. We were bad! They will determine whether we actually did lose everything or not. Flash drives really do not cost all that much!

I do not have the photo of the tree with me right now, and do not know how long it will be before we have a computer at home, so I am going to publish this post today. I do not know when I will get to update the blog next but sure do hope that it is not too long.

Would love to see some comments now and then. I try to comment to everyone whose blogposts I read. I only keep up with about six, however. I understand, for those of you who read over 10 or so per day. It's hard to comment to everyone. It's a great encouragement though, I know.

Take care, all. Will be checking your blogs from various spots while I await my computer at home again!