Another One Bites the Dust

There often seems to be no rhyme or reason to storm damage.  One house can be destroyed by a tornado and across the street a house stands untouched.  Thankfully, there were no tornadoes here last night, but strong winds and a lot of lightening.

A few years ago we lost two trees in one storm while we were out of town.  They actually fell towards each other, blocking the back door.  Last night, we lost another one in the front yard.  I didn't realize how bad of shape that tree was in, although only one of our mature trees looks totally healthy. Our house is 100 yrs old, plus some, so all of these maples are who knows how old.

What cracks me up, is that this is still standing!

 Some of it fell last year, I don't even recall there being a storm when one of the huge branches fell into the corn field, but there could have been.  We are still working on cleaning that up a little bit at a time.  Chopping.  Burning.  Chopping.  Burning.

What's kind of cool about last nights storm is the way this tree fell.  We live on a very busy road and although the storm didn't start until after 1:00 a.m., there are always a few cars and semis traveling by.  This tree is the closest to the road and also pretty close to our house.  It fell in between the house and the road, causing no damage what so ever.  Thank you Lord!!  Not only would it have blocked the road and people may not have been able to see it until too late, it would have also knocked down power lines. If it had hit the house it would have been right over Callie's room, although by this time both girls were downstairs.

Both girls ended up in our bed for awhile, wide awake while Cameron kept watch on his phone. Sometimes I hate modern technology, but a fully charged smart phone in a bad storm?  Priceless!