Pruned by mother nature!
This weather related slideshow is another one that is "outside of the box".
The story behind it is that the weather was nice and calm one minute, then a storm blew in. It rained so hard that we couldn't see the garden at all through the window, though we could hear it thundering. It seemed to be relentless and there was no way that anyone was safe going out in that. After a while, we all lost interest in the weather - once I'd determined that we weren't in any immediate risk of a tornado and we retreated to the comfort of a chair to wait for the weather to abate a little.
All of a sudden, there was a huge bang followed by a thud - of course, everyone was back up and at the window... not that it made any difference because the rain was still so heavy that the glass was acting more like a mirror than a window. Being the only one who is more tornado aware, I attempted to assess our risk as best as I could and I couldn't hear or see anything that left me concerned that we were in imminent danger, so I concluded that the tree in the middle of the communal area had been struck by lightning and ushered everyone to return to their seats since my sister in law was wanting to go out and investigate during the ongoing storm.
Though I'm not against anyone venturing out in this type of weather if they need to, this wasn't a time of any great need to get out of our shelter and she's not so good on her legs either, so if she'd fallen out there, we wouldn't have known where she was until we'd literally fallen over either her or the tree limb that I suspected was on the ground somewhere close by us going by the thud that we felt.
When the weather eventually cleared, this is the sight that greeted us.
The story behind it is that the weather was nice and calm one minute, then a storm blew in. It rained so hard that we couldn't see the garden at all through the window, though we could hear it thundering. It seemed to be relentless and there was no way that anyone was safe going out in that. After a while, we all lost interest in the weather - once I'd determined that we weren't in any immediate risk of a tornado and we retreated to the comfort of a chair to wait for the weather to abate a little.
All of a sudden, there was a huge bang followed by a thud - of course, everyone was back up and at the window... not that it made any difference because the rain was still so heavy that the glass was acting more like a mirror than a window. Being the only one who is more tornado aware, I attempted to assess our risk as best as I could and I couldn't hear or see anything that left me concerned that we were in imminent danger, so I concluded that the tree in the middle of the communal area had been struck by lightning and ushered everyone to return to their seats since my sister in law was wanting to go out and investigate during the ongoing storm.
Though I'm not against anyone venturing out in this type of weather if they need to, this wasn't a time of any great need to get out of our shelter and she's not so good on her legs either, so if she'd fallen out there, we wouldn't have known where she was until we'd literally fallen over either her or the tree limb that I suspected was on the ground somewhere close by us going by the thud that we felt.
When the weather eventually cleared, this is the sight that greeted us.