Ed Soehnel

Lightening seems to find us at home more than we like. We were hit twice last year and so far, twice this year (that we know of…could be more, if we are not around when a storm rolls through). I think it is because we have a huge copper top on our chimney that is built all the way up with stone rocks (there is metal in rocks). It attracts lightening. In addition, we have a large number of very tall evergrees around us in a valley that is traditionally void of tall trees.

This last strike definitely hit our lightening rod on the house, but must have also split off (we think) and hit the big maple tree we have in front. Both Sue and I were home. The tree has a little split in the main trunk and bark was blown off. The lightening must have traveled in the ground from the tree to electrical conduit under the garage, went up and fried our garage door opener, but continued in the ground to somehow find the well pump electrical. It fried the well pump and the associated electrical box for it. We replaced the well pump and electrical (some video and pictures below), will replace the garage door opener and hopefully the tree was not too badly hit so we can leave it (assuming it lives…we have a tree expert coming next week).

From 2010_Misc

From 2010_Misc

From 2010_Misc

Sunday afternoon I was sitting on the back deck looking east and spotted a funnel cloud coming down from a storm that was gathering east to us. It was a ways off and a ways up. I snapped it with my cell phone, so image is not the best. We see funnel clouds about once a year and I was lucky to have grabbed a picture of it as this particular one fizzled after only a few minutes.

From 2010_Misc

Great trip.  Back yesterday.  Will post pictures and other content soon.  Redeye flight back was predictably uncomfortable.  Slept, but not very well.  Still having hard time getting back into normal routine.  Cold rainy day here at home.  Glad to be back, but a  drag I have to get back on plane tomorrow morning early to Orlando for tradeshow. Hate leaving Colorado…its such a nice place to live.

First weekend with great weather, but very windy. We weed-whacked with a new 4-stroke machine that performed great (gift from my Dad…thanks, Dad) and mowed the south meadow. Here is some quick video of Sue doing the mowing.

We’ll finish the additional meadows around the house next weekend.

We also planted 10 Colorado Spruce Trees that we got in the mail earlier in the week…see photos. We will use the chicken coop as the nursery, since its a nice enclosure from the deer and other critters running around that can destroy plants. Unfortunately, we have not had time yet to fix the roof…see photos. We were planning on having contractors do that earlier this year when we did the guest room remodel, but since that went over-budget, we scrapped this activity. We plan to fix it later this year by putting in new 2 by 8′s (which I already have).

The dumpster is also full…finished loading it full of junk; see photos. That is dumpster number 12 since we moved in a year ago, and many more to go.

As you can see from one of the photos in the album, the grass we planted in the front is coming along nicely.

Also, a photo of the damage the wind has recently done to the upper barn room. I will work on that next weekend.

We are finally getting nice warm spring weather. Wore shorts to the office and hope to get out for a walk at lunch. Started reading the Kauai travel book last night to get ready for our upcoming trip with the whole family.