Another trip to the woods

I made it down to the little house in the woods in record time this weekend. The skies were crystal clear and it was smooth sailing. My beloved orange juicy mobile purred at 80 mph and everything was right with the world.

As soon as I got to our little house, I flipped on the radio, applied 36 gallons of bug spray and started collecting wood for a bonfire. We have a "pond" that holds water for as long the water table stays up. It's been pretty full for the past 2-3 months but has slowly been receding. During the time it had water in it some sizable branches fell so now that it's practically empty I decided to retrieve them. I did pretty good and managed not to slip and fall in the mud. But I got frustrated because I wasn't strong enough to pull the logs up to the fire pit.

I sprayed on a couple more gallons of bug spray, popped open a beer and went on a quest for fallen branches - one of my favorite things to do by the way. I got some small stuff, but I wasn't willing to venture into the woods because I didn't want to end up being Jo Jo the living chigger bite.
Manchild came to my rescue and drug up some big stuff AND he brought me more beer! Yea!!! Before you could say boo-yeah, I had a nice fire burning. We enjoyed the fire, the tunes and the cold beer for a while then we noticed some ominous lightning starting to flash.

A few branches & beers later, the lightning was starting to become a showoff so we figured we had better take a peek at the weather radar to see what was in store. You see, when you stay at a little house in the woods which you must get to via a dirt road, and you drive a low slung sports car, it's a good idea not to get caught in the rain. Because you might not be able to drive that sports car down the muddy road. For days. Nosirree!

Sure enough, the gay-dar (that's what Manchild calls it) showed a big scary line of storms headed right for us! We jumped in our cars, speedy quick and peeled out to park a mile away on a rock road where we store our 4-wheeler for occasions just like the one we were in.

The ride back to the little house was a real adventure, let me tell ya. The wind was gusting like crazy and bolts of lightning were zapping all over the place and to be honest, we were both a little scared. (does anyone smell burning bacon???) We made it back to the house without getting killed which is always a good thing. After that, we spent the rest of the night sitting on the front porch watching the light show. When the skies lit up we watched the trees whipping back and forth and listened for breaking branches. At one point I heard the wind stop suddenly and shift directions and when the sky lit up that time, everything was a strange greenish yellow color.

The next morning I went for a walk to see if the fallen branches landed where I thought they had. My ears weren't as keen as I had thought they were. I was about 50 feet off. But there were branches blocking the driveway and the pond got some more firewood. Looking outside the day after the storm it looked just as calm and clear as it did on the day I drove down 24 hours earlier.

Mother nature is so amazing. So is lightning. I'm not sure, but I bet if you look closely you just might see some singed hairs on the top of my head. Manchild doesn't have hair per se. He's got prickles but I bet some of those prickles are singed, too. And we had fun making that 4-wheeler do 50 down a dirt road!