…I’m convinced there’s something a lot less sophisticated than we like to think.
Rainy afternoon yesterday. After a cloudless start to the day, the clouds began rolling in around ten and it settled down to a steady all-day rain such as I rarely see. Then in the evening it all turned to lightning.
With all the clouds the sun never did its duty to the batteries and I wasn’t as cautious with my power use as was quite right. The inverter started complaining around eight so I turned it off and went to kerosene. That was no big thing but it could have picked a better night for it because the whole night was taken up by wondering – not altogether idly – whether we were all going to survive.
You might think this was a waste of good worry. The Lair has its faults and may never really be complete, but it’s essentially waterproof and down in a hollow where the lightning strikes are a little less likely to go. I’ve got less to worry about than the people who built on ridges, which is most people. I kept telling myself that. It didn’t help a lot.
Terrific thunderstorms on all sides, moving ponderously from east to west, shooting terrifying lightning bolts around amid thunderclaps so numerous it was hard to tell if a particular squall was coming or going. My own mood wasn’t so much that of a hearty outdoorsman snug in his stout cabin and laughing at the tempest, I can tell you. It was just a bit more primitive than that. At the time I could fully understand why a more ignorant man might draw what to him could seem the perfectly logical conclusion that he was in the hands of angry earth gods, and so look for ways to pay them to go away. It’s probably a good thing I don’t keep sheep, because I might have sacrificed one for a more peaceful night if I thought it would help. The dogs might have had the same thought: I noticed they were particularly ingratiating last night. 🙂
