And in a flash…….

Last night we attended Bob’s end of year work function and around 9.30pm we saw lightning starting to flash in the distance. Our crazy dogs have a serious issue with storms to we left the function early and rushed towards home. We were a bit late  and most of he storm had passed by the time we reached the dogs. They were thrilled to see us and we noticed then that the entire farm was in darkness. This in itself is not unusual as we often lose power for an hour or two after a serious storm. We calmed he dogs and headed for bed. This morning the power was still off so I headed out to check on the breaker at the electricity pole. As I neared the pole I saw bark and bits of wood lying  all over the place.

The bits of wood had come from this tree. You can see how close it is to our electricity pole.

As I looked closely I noticed a seam of bark had pealed right off the tree on one side and as I walked around the tree there was another one that had ripped down the other side.

Further up the tree there was a whole section of bark that had come off in one big chunk.

I then made the assumption that our tall tree had been hit by lightning during the storm. Upon checking the fuses on the pole all three were dangling down.

Our tenants had been home at the time of the strike and they explained how the lightning went right through their house and their ears were deafend by the crash as the tree was hit. Bits of bark hit their windows and a pipe in their roof burst, damaging the ceiling. The energizer for our brand new electric fence had also blown it’s cover right off and is looking slightly blackened.

All this a few weeks after our farm in Hoedspruit was so badly hit by hail and the roofs damaged. It’s all becoming a little much for me now with the accompanying heat wave we are experiencing as well as the drought and water restrictions.

El Nino be damned! I have had enough.