Summertime Clouds

The landscape out here in eastern South Dakota isn't always a wonder to behold, consisting of corn, soybean, and wheat fields and pasture land, unless you include clouds as part of the scenery. Then, visitors often get a real eyeful as the weather twists and thunders through at the end of a hot summer day. These pictures were all taken yesterday, Monday, within about a two-hour span, on a drive to Mitchell. The thunderhead, at the top, ended the softball game we had gone to see, lightning spitting and flashing as the big mushrooming cloud, fingers radiating in all directions, crept over the town from the south.
It amused me that when the man in charge called the games because of lightning, he came over to where the girls were playing and offered his explanation while leaning on the chain link fence and backdrop that was probably the most attractive conducter for a bolt from the beyond.
We did, by the way, get some good rain in Madison out of this cloud bank, breaking the building drought.