Summer Storms in East Texas

The reason East Texas is so beautiful is because it gets a good amount of rain.  The pine trees love it, the oak trees love it, the pecan trees love it...  I love the storms that come with the rain: cooling wind, cooling rain, an excitement in the air.  I always pray that no one and nothing gets damaged by the storms though.

We have an oak tree just to the west of the house that is about 100 years old.  It's the tallest thing on the land at one of the highest spots on the land.  That's good news/bad news.  The bad news is that it occasionally gets hit by lighting.

See that light strip of color on the trunk?  Yup, that lighting strike nearly made me jump five feet in the air! The next morning our son pointed out why the "crack" of lightening was so loud.  That missing bark is laying on the ground.  (The place is a mess after the storm!)

Well, as long as the bark missing is up and down, not girdling the tree, this ol' boy should be okay for another hundred years - and probably another hundred storms.  (And yes, that's an oil well in the background.  Black gold, Texas tease.)