Storms in the night.

Thunderstorms in the night are not a rare occurrence, especially this summer, but rarely cause any damage so when I was awakened by a huge clap of thunder directly overhead all I did was look at the time, 2am,  roll over and go back to sleep!  One of the first things I do in the morning is open the  blind in my room overlooking the garden bench, this is what I saw:

The bench is very heavy and was lifted up over the pots on the right.  It appears unharmed by the adventure, it will be a while before I can tell about the pot on the bottom!  So because of that I decided I'd check for other damage.  This is what I found:

The dining canopy I had on the deck is no more, sigh.  I cannot keep anything up on the deck for shade! The canopy itself is light but each of the four legs was attached to one of these:

A gallon paint can nearly filled with cement.  Larry made these for use on handicapped camp sites, those are cement and you can't stake down the canopy.  Heavy enough that the leg left on the deck moved my stainless steel barbecue grill!  It's the trash for the canopy. Otherwise, the deck chairs and table have been moved around, one trashcan was across the street-lid is still missing-the others just moved about.
The worst of it, though, is that the oriole's nest in my neighbors sweet gum tree was knocked down and the babies are dead.  So sad.  Seeing orioles is such a treat, they are fairly rare here, and we had so hoped that this nest would bring others in the future.  Mama is still hanging around, I hope she tries again.

How's al that for a way to start the day?!