Stormy Weather

Two days ago we had a big storm hit.Tonight around ten we will have a HUGE storm hit. It has been traveling through France, Belgium and now the Netherlands for a whole ten hours. The storm two days ago was only fifteen minutes, but thrashing rain and wind and tunder and lightning made it very memorable.
All of us were sittingoutside after lunch, all of us includes:
Claudio and Rosanna, Benedetta's parents visiting from Urbino,Italia
Benedetta and Arthur
Kasia, from Melbourne,Australia
Jeremy,from Rochester,NY
me from Hawai'i.
Needless to say, we all whipped out our cameras and took videos and pictures. Arthur raced off to turn on his expensive lightning protector. This shuts off the electricity but provides power for the electricity.And since Arthur had an actual ball of lightning in his house once, he ain't taking any chances.
Kasia is gone now, and Arthur's parents arrived today. I plan on being asleep when IT HITS. I feel bad for the cats, they don't really have any shelter except for the open garage. The 16 year old Perisan,Chocolate, was wet for hours after the last storm, and I found her happily sleeping on the washing machine when it did a hot wash. However the cats cannot come in, so they will have to rough it outside.
Today I've been picking lupine seed pods and sunflowers. When a sunflower starts losing it's yellow over the seeds, it's ready to be beheaded ! Then you take all the yellow off,and put it in a tray to dry. With the lupine, you take off the black seed pods, pop them open and remove the seeds.
In the coming days,I will be harvesting lavender, oregano, thyme,mint,zucchini,broccoli,green beans,peas, and collect marigold seeds. There are bunches of lavender hanging to dry,and even some large pink roses, which Benedetta uses to make facial cream out of. I planted twenty four young basil plants yesterday, after taking out all the whole broad bean plants, which entailed dragging them to the compost heap in many trips.
Off to enjoy the calm,sunny weather before the storm!