After The Storm-Sunshine!

The night before's severe storms, spewing tornadoes across many parts of the mid west, never arrived in our area, although I was nervous, and quite worried about them. However, not even one clap of thunder could be heard all night, so I slept peacefully, and was thankful in the morning that the storm had missed us. Then, by mid-morning, the sky grew dark and ominous, as you can see in the first picture I took. Torrential rains and thunder and lightning arrived, terrorizing my two dogs, who were both trying to get under my chair, for protection. The cats slept through it all, unperturbed. And my weather radio announced that we were under a tornado watch until 4 PM. But we were lucky; we didn't get any of the devastating storms other areas of the country experienced.

The storms blew out of here on cue, and by 4 PM the sun succeeded in coming out. Soon, the pond sized puddles that had formed in the field, sunk into the earth, and everything looked refreshed from the great showers of the day. I took this photo of the same area, in late afternoon, and you can see white, puffy clouds floating above the trees, where the dark ominous clouds had been in the morning.

The cattails at the pond looked quite nice with their dry stalks and leaves and pretty reddish tails, glowing in the sun.

And here, you can see the pond reflecting the beautiful blue sky and the leafless trees around it. Everything looked lovely and serene, after the storm. My prayers are with those people that were not as fortunate.