News From The Compound

It's been a week and a half, and I'm ashamed to admit that I forgot to report about drama at The Compound.  It occurred last Sunday evening.  We had a very wicked lightning storn and got about 3 inches of rain in about two hour's time.  At the beginning of the storm, I was in the back bedroom on the computer signing off and getting ready to shut it down before it got fried by lightning.  I face a window, and heard a clap of thunder and saw a bright orange flash of lightning.  I got up and looked out the window and saw the miniature horses next door running around in the field, like they were in a miniature Kentucky Derby.  I yelled at Dad to look at the horses trippin' out, and he yelled back "I'm going to look outside - that lightning hit sounded close."  About fifteen seconds later he was yelling for me to come outside and look. Imagine my surprise when I looked out into the back yard and saw flames coming from a gigantic pin oak tree.  For the first time in the history of The Compound, lightning had hit something.

Any other people would have ran back in the house to call 911 for the fire department; not me and the Old Man. We were too busy looking up at the tree and laughing.  We were laughing because the lightning had not hit the actual tree after all - it had hit a big squrrel's nest in the tree.  Flames were about three-feet high coming from the nest at one point.  It just hit us as being funny.  Squirrels hadn't lived in that nest since the early spring, so I'm pretty sure there were no casualties as their residence sustained severed damage in the fire.  We called some neighbors to come down and look at it, and by the time they ran down, it had started to rain and fortunately the raindrops put out the fire.

We checked the next day after the rains had quit, and it was kinda wild to see where the lightning ran down the tree and under the gazebo.  I'm guessing that if someone had been under the gazebo to get out of the storm, they probably would have been dried.  Yikes. I'm glad I was safe in the house on a computer with miles of wires and cables all around me.