Of Mice and Microbursts

No, this post has nothing to do with mice... it just sounded pithy. Read on.

So... there I was, last night, sitting at the kitchen table, talking to my mother on the telephone when the storm blew in. I knew that the rain was coming... I could hear the thunder and see the lightning in the east. All of a sudden the wind began to howl (stole part of that line from Jimi Hendrix), and the power went out briefly (just long enough to damage my Ipod in it's Bose speakerbase, damnit!), I told my mother that I needed to go and almost immediately after this, the wind and rain died abruptly.

I thought no more of the storm, figuring it was just some sort of fast moving thing that was of little consequence.

I was wrong.

Around 10 P.M., I looked out the front door windows, through which I can normally see the street... but this time all I saw was branches. I opened the door to find that the ornamental Pear Tree in my front yard (sans Partridge) had been struck by lightning. Split the trunk, quite nicely, as a matter of fact.

Not only was my tree trashed, so were the trees of two of my neighbors. Fortunately, there were no injuries nor any property damage besides the trashed trees.

My wife has been on to the insurance company already (thank you sweetie), and the rest of my day, today, will be spent with chainsaw in hand, clearing some of the debris... unless I can get in touch with the bloke that just removed two trees from another neighbor's yard just three days ago.

Watch this space.

GF