The Power of the Storm . . . A Near Miss

The storm was, as always very welcome on the farm. It built up steadily for about an hour with thunder and lightning increasing in intensity. Suddenly there was an exceptionally loud burst of thunder and the heavens opened. The driving rain fell almost horizontally and continually for almost an hour

The wind speed, already high climbed even higher. Then without warning my power failure alarm sounded, warning me that my incubators and chicken brooders were without electricity

"I cannot go out in this" I said to myself as the thunder sounded and the lightning flashes were only a second or two apart indicating the nearness of the strikes

I waited twenty minutes then donned my heavy duty "waterproof" raincoat, grabbed the handles of my generator trolley (featured in my blog of a few days ago) and ran with it from the feed store to the chicken shed. Connected it up and returned to the house

Some hours later the rain abated but the wind continued blowing in all its fury

I was sitting on my couch with a cup of coffee in my hand and Sylvester the cat was sleeping peacefully on my lap

A crash shook the house!

Sylvester took off, scratching me in parts of my anatomy that shall remain unnamed!

I lifted a few feet off the chair coffee flying in all directions, the coffee mug shattered on the tiles adding to the general chaos

I went outside to see what had caused the "explosion" . . .

The Norfolk Pine must have been more than twenty years old and some 60 foot high

This tree's twin is visible behind the house

The only part of me that was dry was the inside if my gumboots!
The only part of my expensive "weatherproof" raincoat that WAS waterproof was the lower part of the legs which I had pulled over my gumboots to stop the rain from filling them!

!

Had the wind blown in the opposite direction the house would have been flattened!

A near miss indeed!