Mother Nature's Dance
I am sorry I didn't post last night.
I am sorry I didn't post last night.
I am sorry I didn't post last night.
A. and V. and Vernon and I were caught up in a dance with Mother Nature last night.
We had a little too much of this going on...
Just at sundown, the storm was approaching...
Since A. and V. are not used to lightning storms in New Zealand...
they have them - just not like this!...
We drove to the top of the hill <of course> and took photos.
What ELSE do you do???
My camera was set to a two second exposure...
so the shake comes from lightning that lasted the entire time...
I had my camera resting on my car window...
We finally started to get a little nervous...
It was a slow moving storm...
But we began to hear the thunder just a little closer...
So we returned to my house...
Stood under my tall cottonwoods for JUST A BIT MORE...
This bolt is right over the familiar rimrock notch...
Soon spatters of rain began and we headed inside.
The spatters transformed into pea sized hail whitening my grass in the pitiful*by*comparison glow of my porch light.
Lightning crept ever closer.
Thunder switched from deep-throated rumbles to intense cracking.
Nothing like this is unusual here...
but it was EXTREMELY slow moving...
Rainwater POURED off my roof...
I lit a candle in preparation of losing electricity...
I unplugged my computer finally (after checking the local radar)...
SUDDENLY a bzzzzzzzpop sounded in my living room next to where A. was standing!
She jumped.
We all jumped!
My airconditioner stopped working...
We figured it was a goner.
We sniffed around looking for smoke, fire... but... nothing much past the initial whiff.
The storm continued...
It gradually left here and we again got in the car...
A neighbor's shop burned down two weeks ago due to a lightning strike, so we were off to look for fires and flooding.
My road was washed badly...
The creek hadn't risen yet...
Leaves and limbs littered my lawn...
We spotted a juniper tree burning up high on Cogdill's ridge...
in an inaccessible spot...
We trusted to the rain to put it out...
With everything as secure as we could tell we returned home...
Still raining...
But before I went to bed, I prepared to write this post...
Wait a minute!
No internet!
What????
Ah... no phone either.
No post was going to happen last night!
This morning the phone company showed up...
Lightning had evidently traveled along our copper wire...
popped some fuses and some other boxy type device thingybob in my phone box attached to my house...
plus it fried my modem!
So I apologize for that, but this time you'll have to send complaints to Mother Nature.
It was her show.
Johnny measured an inch and 2/3 worth of moisture.
WOW!
My best lightning photo I'm saving for Wednesday...
come on back!
I'm someone who enjoys your writing and your photographs and your wonderful dogs and I just changed my email address. (unsubscribed and resubscribed)
Keep up the good stuff. I live in west Michigan, with a 13.5 yr tri color ES, gritty and bossy (VERY Alpha), and smart and crippled with hip dysplasia and arthritis in the shoulders - but intensly hanging in there. And, a B&T sweetie from Rebecca Wingler, now three, much more submissive and sweet - she's hanging in there in the princess role while the queen still reigns. All my kids are grown, I have four grandkids who live in Oregon and New Mexico -- sigh-- and I am still wandering happily around in this rolling farm land dotted with woods and an occasional creek or river. I do photography too, mostly dogs and the incredible natural world - I'll try to send you some of that sometime. At the moment I have to go mow a big lawn which is all overgrown because of excessive rain all month. I am a widow so everything has to be done by me - and subsequently lots doesn't get done. And I am still working even at age 71 - I am a piano technician and still have enough loyal happy clients to make a good difference in my "retirement" income. My dogs are my companions - the ones who keep me here and now and are always silly glad to see me when I come home. You know.
The shots of the lightning are awesome!
thanks for sharing.
Martha
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Today I got a new, flat screen monitor for my computer so the pictures of the lightning storm were even more awesome!! I too, love the exceptional photos and writing. It makes my day! Hello to Martha - I am a musician in WNY with one 4 year old clear Sable ES named Taffy. I was interested to read your comment, and to share that I too, was a piano tuner-technician for 15 years till my R shoulder developed a problem. I love the West, horses, and
the daily tonic I get from this blog!!
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Martha, thanks so much for your interest in my blog... sounds like you have good stories to share as well! I'd like to see some of your photos, esp. those of your English Shepherds! Thanks for commenting, I hope that you continue to enjoy my ramblings...
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I love lightning storms. Unfortunately, I've never been able to get awesome photos like that.
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I love lightning at a distance too... this was the first time I've really tried to capture them... and I think I could get addicted to the pursuit of great photos... It is a gamble!
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Amazing photos! Thanks for sharing
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I know I am just repeating what others have already said, but I had to comment on those amazing photos. Glad you are back online, can't wait to see what tomorrow's WW shot looks like!
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A beautiful dance Mother Nature provided and quite a capture you got...great shots! I especially love the next to last one.
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Taffy hopes your doggies were not afraid of all that thunder, lightning, rain, hail, fires, and gully washers!
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Well, Taffy, Elsa came to me from Oklahoma full of fear of thunderstorms and has taught the other dogs to fear them as well. <sigh>
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We had an amazing lightening storm here in Auckland NZ on Friday see the video on this link
http://www.weatherwatch.co.nz/content/amazing-new-video-lightning-stikes-over-auckland-cbd
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Wow, after looking at those photos, I can't wait to see the best one!
(Chandler says he is very happy all that lightning wasn't ANYWHERE near him.)
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WOW Carol... great photos, I'm really looking forward to the one on Wednesday! What sort of camera did you use? We have some intense thunderstorms here too... and I'm always awed and impressed and scared by the intensity of it all.
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Was up on the mountain about to camp out when I saw those storm clouds coming...headed back down, and by the time i reached Buffalo the lightning was in full effect. Very awesome...but I sure am glad I didn't stay in a tent during that.
Excellent photos, truly captured the feeling of that storm. I can't wait to see Wednesday's photo.
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Been there - done that! "Slept" in wet sleeping bags too... yuck! Hope Wednesday's doesn't disappoint you!
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Wow! Shreve pointed her readers your way. I remember sitting in my tiny little truck in the middle of the prairie near Seminoe with lightening like this surrounding me. It was beautiful, but I admit to being scared. Finally, it ended and I fell asleep. And then it happened all over again! Wish I'd had a camera back then! I must follow your blog. I grew up on a farm near Riverton and am now a "city" girl in Laramie.
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Incredible pics! The next to last is reminiscent of two people dancing!
got here by way of Coyote.
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Thanks to all of the Daily Coyote readers that popped over for a look... I sure hope you come back and visit often!
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