I started my birthday out with a bang... literally. A bolt of lightning struck a pine tree 20 feet from Dad's house knocking out TVs, receptacle to a paddle fan, Internet, Dish, etc. Dad and I live 4.5 miles apart on the same latitude so I knew it was a whopper over there. I went over to check things after checking radar to see if the storm passed. I check the tree out in the dark.
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I checked to make sure my water was good and decided I will try to count the herd in the dark. I walked out into the pasture and started counting black cows in the dark... got halfway through and lightning was ramping up and I said screw this and went home. As I'm wide awake at this point I turned the TV on trying to tire myself out. The lamp dimmed low and a simultaneous flash of light out the blinds followed by a nanosecond boom that rattled my toy tractors, one of those that you can feel the shock in your chest. The strike hit in the pasture, if I had to estimate it was maybe 100'. There was another strike that hit close as well, probably 300 yards away. Woke up before sunrise and went out to look around a bit later. All was well at my house.
Went to Dad's, aka my main farm. I counted my herd there and came up one short, a registered bull and I thought chit. I found him, he was off on his own lolly gagging. The tree was the only damage I could find, well I didn't look that hard. So here's a couple of daylight pics. It's hard to see but there's a crease all the way to the top. The ground picture shows the shrapnel flying across the yard. If you look close you will see shreds resting at the base of the furthest trees, there are some bits past them.
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Despite an inch and a half of rain, ground is relatively hard.