Saturday coffee June 17

[Dragonsdad]

Mowed 1/2 the yard this morning.
We had a series of showers last week (seems like yesterday) and I got complacent, thinking I didn't need to water. I was wrong. Hops and Applemint were wilting. Both would be considered invasive species in anyone else's yard. Here, they're dead if I don't water them. Lawn sprinklers are going as I type. 20% chance of thundershowers tomorrow night, which is odd. Late afternoon / early evening, hot part of the day thunderstorms would be more in line with our 'usual'.

Nobody needs late night lightning strikes, not in dry country.

[Dragonsdad]

If you were expecting me to pull out a pic to illustrate my point....

smoke from a lightning strike fire adding to the departing storm clouds that started it.
Smoke_1.jpg

This was 6 years ago.
We've had fires come closer. I try to keep a firebreak cleared around the house.
Depending on my level of paranoia in any given year I'll break out the strung trimmer and go for 30 to 50' or more of clearcut.

[Allen]

We have as much lightning as we do rain however the strikes are drowned before they hit usually.

There's always the excitement of getting electrocuted but seldom do we get forest fires. Occasionally a house will get blown up and burn if dry enough.

The biggest problem I have with lightning is it striking trees. It always kills them. Sometimes you don't know till months later. I've lost a couple just the past couple of years. When hitting the tree the charge damages other things nearby. On one occasion it blew out a new tire on my truck and blew the smithereens out of my telephone box on the corner of the house 200' away. On my son-in-laws truck it fried the ECM and took the dealership like 8 months to repair. It too was parked near a tree that got struck.

Sometimes mother nature sucks.

[lyman]

in the 20+ years we have lived in this house, we have had 2 lightening strikes with in 50 yrds of the house,

someone suggested there maybe something in the ground attracting the lightning,


so far, the house has been spared, but 2 trees have been hit

[5thDragoons]

I've seen some close hits. I was stopped for track work several years ago while a gang replaced bad ties. A bolt struck between my train and the gang - close enough for me to observe energy from it turning a puddle into steam. Man, you should have seen the high knee action of that gang beating it to the bus!

It was truly a miracle none of them got fried. SW

[lyman]

kinda on topic, met a guy last weekend at the gunshow

he makes wood planks and cutting boards using some fractal engraving , (may have that wrong)

he basically has a rig that shoot electricity (like lightning) thru a piece of wood then fills the voids and coats it in a clear coat,

only he slipped and touched something he should not have and fractaled himself, ground on his foot, and then shot thru his head,

he showed me a pic of the hole in his head (about the size of a 22) where the current exited, (he guessed 4000 volts, but no way to know)

it messed him up, had to do rehab etc etc

[Allen]

He may be onto the invention of a new type weapon. No ammo needed.

[Dragonsdad]

I'm having trouble working up a clear picture of what your friend was doing but it sounds like he's going to be okay. I hope that's the case.

[lyman]

I'm having trouble working up a clear picture of what your friend was doing but it sounds like he's going to be okay. I hope that's the case.

would not call him a friend, seemed like a nice guy, bought 2 rifles from him, but that was the first time I had met him,

here is what he is basically doing,

https://www.bobvila.com/articles/fractal-wood-burning-dangers/

[Dragonsdad]

Interesting...
Not interesting enough to run the associated risks of playing with 20,000 volts. Just, interesting.
I will admit that pyrography sounds much cooler than 'burning s**t and leaving a mark'.

Heck, my spell-checker doesn't even recognize the term so we both learned something.