Mother Nature

Friday night marked the beginning of a tragedy for the American people — an electrical storm hit the East Coast and brought down Netflix, Pinterest and Instagram. You could practically hear the crazy stay-at-home cat people howling.

Every year, Mother Nature likes to remind us who’s the boss and 2011 was no different. In fact, it was the second most expensive year on record for insurers, costing $108 billion. Here’s a look back at the 10 most memorable natural disasters of 2011 in chronological order. ...

Artist Curtis Kilhorn is making it his mission to restore beauty to dead trees in the Colorado wilderness. Kilhorn paints their remains in a rainbow of bright colors, turning a dried-up tree skeleton into a technicolor conversation piece, and will install his creations in customers’ backyards. He says the intention of the installations is to remind people “of the splendor of the world around us” b