This post reminded me of a serious but funny story of something that happened in my life about 40 years ago. My husband and 2 young sons and I lived in a wooded area in Georgia. We had a large garden and I'd been wanting chickens. In those days, he worked and I stayed home. I pestered him and pestered and pestered him about building me a chicken coop but we really didn't have the money to buy supplies. So he said, "If you can find 4 posts, I'll buy the wire and build you a coop."
Little did he know that while the children were napping, I often was out walking in the nearby woods (Today they'd put me in jail - but in those days, it was ok to leave children alone for short spurts.)
Well, out in the woods, I found an old abandoned swingset with FOUR love bright yellow poles. I got some tools, took that swingset apart and dragged the poles home, one by one.
True to his word, he dug holes, sunk the poles, bought wire, and built me a coop. I bought 24 chicks and soon had a coop of meat and eggs growing out in the yard.
We often sat in front of our large picture window in the kitchen to have morning coffee before he set off to work. One morning, we were sitting there watching a large thunderstorm and all of a sudden there was a flash and giant "BOOM!"
We both jumped! And when we looked outside, two of those pretty yellow poles were black as coal. There was steam coming up from the ground and 24 chickens were walking around, stunned, frizzled feathers, but alive! Holy HELL! Those poor chickens. In examining them, several had burned feet, so the lightning did indeed travel through the ground.
Needless to say, we took down those poles immediately and replaced them with wood.
He and I have been divorced for many years, but remain friends, and he visits every Christmas for the family dinner. We have had a great laugh about this more than once. What idiots we were!
Anyway, because of this, and because more than once I knew of people being killed while sheltering from storms in the domes of the fort wall in San Juan, Puerto Rico, I'm pretty scared of lightning. If there's a chance of it, and I know, I probably won't walk that day!