Speaking of storms . . . last week our Fire Inspector ended up with a few extra days off from work.
He was home on Friday (actually the Friday before this past Friday) when a lightning storm passed through. To make a long story short lightning hit a pine tree near his house . . . blew parts of the tree all over the place, branches and rocks blown up by the blast put numerous holes in his siding, his garden shed was partially destroyed and the surge took out both of his TVs, satellite dish, phone service, internet service and generator . . . and to make matters worse he ended up staying overnight in the hospital when he went to check on the electrical panel to see why his back-up generator had not kicked on, receiving a pretty significant shock in the process . . . and in the meantime the woods had caught on fire which necessitated him having to use his extinguishers to put out the fire.
So he tells me all this and what was my response? . . . . .. . . . Well, at least you'll have some pre-split kindling for your wood fire next year.
Of course, we can blame all of our Fire Inspector's misfortunes on the fact that this was a pine tree . . . if it was an oak or hickory tree nothing bad would have happened.