Thunder & Lightning

I dropped by the garden yesterday and while I was watering the tomatoes, the wind came up. In the distance I heard the rumble and could see the cumulus tops of the anvil clouds building just past a patch of thickening clouds. The tops were catching the setting sun and had turned pink. I felt so charged up—like a pacing animal, buy the wind and electricity. And later after I got home, more thunder and then a brilliant light show--flashes of lighting forking out, reaching across the dark night sky. Wow, it was fabulous.

My mother always told me to never leave the windows open during a thunder storm. There is a possibility of lighting coming in an open window. She also said that a ball of lightning rolled through her house once when she was a child growing up in Virginia. Now that would scare the pageebeew out of me and I'm guessing it did her, since she was so afraid of storms. The windows all slammed shut as soon as the wind started; I swear she sat in a corner holding her head.

Anyway, out over the Grangeville prairie along the Clearwater river, a big storm came through when I was a fire tower attendant in the 70s. It pounded the prairie with bolts of lightning and continued moving toward us, up the mountains toward the Corral Hill. I was frightened. The forest was catching fire with each strike and flames were blocking our exit route. Then as it started to pour and it poured all night. All the fires were put out.

A guy got struck in that storm. He came to see us on the tower later, when he'd recovered some. He said he felt like he'd been beaten up in a bar fight. Huh, guess cowboys know that kind of thing. He was walking along a fence line when the strike came up from beneath the ground. I still don't understand how it works; it's a si-fi kind of thing and I like it.

As for the garden, Mike had dug up an area within my plot for beets and it looked better than the rest of the plot. The woman next door was watering and when I said, doesn't it look great, she looked at me and nodded reluctantly. Really, I must get some manure on this garden. I know that will improve the look of my puny plants.

Ciao!