I took a picture of this silver maple tree earlier this summer to be used for a base image of a family tree, but the look of the tree was changed overnight when a bolt of lightning blew a lot of the bark off the tree. And you can follow the missing bark all the way up one of the limbs to the top of the tree. The bark was thrown from the tree across the driveway and lawn to the other side of the house. The new cracks in the trunk might make the tree blow down in the next wind storm and it is lightning out again this evening. The lightning also zapped the transformer (and at least one electric fencer) so the farm was without power for a while early this morning.

Blown Away Bark