Summer Storms

Hope everyone enjoyed the photos of my beautiful irises.  They are all gone—thanks to the last two days of terrific storms.  Actually, Bon Bon Pond lucked out.  Monsoon rains, straight line winds and lightning only took out my flowers and one lovely old oak.  We never lost power so are much luckier than most of the metro.  Xcel Energy said 505,000 homes were without electricity Saturday morning.  One of the storm victims was our friend Jeff whose city of Long Lake was hit hard.  A good share of the town experienced damage plus a loss of electricity. 

Power crews from around the Midwest have been called in to help and many homes have had service restored.  We’re sending thoughts and prayers out to all who suffered property damage and outages—especially those kindred souls with wells who are then also without running water and flush toilets. 

The Pioneer Press has 40 photos of the storm damage.  Check them out here:

http://photos.twincities.com/2013/06/21/photos-friday-night-storm-knocks-out-power-fells-large-trees-across-twin-cities/

P.S.  Storms such as these are just one of a multitude of reasons why I HATE hot weather.  It’s always trouble,  

One of our beautiful oaks fell victim to Thursday's night vicious gale force winds.  I thought it was a lightning strike but Jeff said he could see an old wound which had weakened the tree and made it susceptible to high winds.

The wound looks dark because I ran outside Friday morning and sprayed the area with brown latex paint.  Oak wilt is always a concern with summer storm damage.