Sunday Afternoon Thunderstorms . . . Part Two

So, this morning we awoke to the distant rumblings of thunder, which continued throughout the morning while we were at church.  When Sarah and I got home, we were standing in the kitchen making a sandwich for lunch when we were startled by the loudest and closest crack of thunder I have ever heard!  I knew it had to have hit somewhere in our neighborhood, so I decided to look out the front windows to see if I could see anything, and this is the scene that greeted my eyes . . .

Now, this may seem like nothing to you, but if you look closely, you will see large shards of wood scattered across the front lawn . . . it was enough to make me look out the side window.  This is what I saw . . .

. . . yes, it's true, one of our huge oak trees had been struck by lightning . . . and EXPLODED!  When Tim got home, we took a few pictures with us in them to get an idea of the scale of the tree and the explosion . . . 

Luckily, the tree itself is still standing, and we didn't sustain any damage to our house, but there are pieces of bark and shards of wood scattered all across the front lawn and even across our driveway.  This shard of wood that I am standing by has been completely stripped of all its bark and is sticking straight out of the ground.

It is still raining outside, but the thunder has returned to just distant rumbles - thankfully!