It must have been Electrifying!!

Facing south in the blast zone where the tree used to be! Our friend Art parks his truck on our yard and occassionally works on it here as well. Last Thursday he was working here and a big thunder and lightening storm rolled thru. He heard a big lightening crack and instantaneously the "boom". Uh oh, he thought....that hit right here on the yard. But after looking all over the yard and up at the barn (after all, it's the highest spot), he could find no evidence. It wasn't until Durk came to push brush on Saturday that we discovered the "hit". It was out in the orchard about 10-15 rows north of Bacon Rd. Durk had noticed odd shredded pieces of wood laying here and there and wondered...where did THOSE come from? That's not what chain-sawed wood looks like....and some of the hunks were far too big for the pruners to have left behind. Then he saw it, a tree that had been literally "blown up" and out of the ground. We went to have a look, and here are the pictures I took. They don't nearly show the scope of what this "blast" must have been like. The wood pieces are in a radius of approx. 300+ feet. We found wood from this tree across the road south of Bacon and nearly to Jackson. It appears that the lower 3-4 ft. of the tree (the main trunk) was just blown apart into shreds. The trees around it also took a hit from all the flying wood, aparently. They are all skinned up and shredded wood is dangling from limbs 10 rows away. I know it's hard to see on the pictures, but if you look amongst the leaves you will notice the shredded bits of wood. They range in size from a couple inches long to 3 ft. long! Awesome!