The 'almost' perfect shot...

I would normally say that no animals were harmed in the making of this photo but tonight, I nearly strangled a cat. It was the perfect storm. 20 miles away, lots of lightning, no rain, perfectly still evening. I grabbed my camera and tripod and headed out by the barns to take photo's of the lightning over the prairie. I plopped myself down in some tall prairie grass next to the barn so that I wouldn't be the only tall thing standing. I set up my gear and began. First 10 shots, nothing... but then, the mother of all shots occurred... almost.

3 flashes from cloud to ground in one freaking shot! I was ecstatic! I knew I had just captured something cool. My camera still had 5 seconds before the picture was officially taken, and right before that magical click, the thunder rolled, and startled a barn cat which jumped out of the grass and knocked my tripod. The picture came up and it was blurred. I called that cat a nasty word and spent the rest of my evening chasing it around the farm. It's lucky all it got was a kick in the tush, I wanted to strangle the living daylights out of that varmint. I'm sure I must have looked like a maniac running after that thing. I'm screaming, "you damn cat", "you ruined my shot", blah blah blah. I've waited all summer for that shot. Stupid cat. May it be struck by lightning... well, not really.

So here it is... the 'almost' perfect shot. It makes me cry. Damn cat.