Weird weather we're having...

Just after noon today we had a squall line go through the neighborhood with some intense dark green winds and lightning, so the power was out until about 6 o'clock this evening, when a second squall hit with more high winds.

Although a bit hard to see in the piercing rain and thundering gloom, these gentle June zephyrs wagged an electric wire around in the back yard like a jump rope, and our sixty-year-old silver maple snagged it under a piece of shaggy bark. So the bark caught on fire, sparks, smoke and all. Just a smoulder, as it turned out, but Alliant Energy had to come out again, unsnag the wire and whack at the embers with a 20 foot fiberglass pole until the burn went out.

It's been raining a bit since then, so we'll probably still have our tree in the morning knock on wood.