Earthquake, Hurricane, and some yard critters

Today I experienced my third earthquake. The other 2 - one in PA, and one in IL - were very minor. Both felt like a train was passing by the house. Today's VA quake was a real one. I work about 45-50 miles from the epicenter of the 6.0 earthquake that hit VA today. The walls shook in the building for about 15 seconds (seemed like forever), stuff fell off of the top shelves, and I dove under the desk. People who were outside at the time said the building was swaying, and the cars in the lot were jumping. Not being a seasoned earthquake veteran, it was a little scary. But, now that it's over, it was actually pretty cool. (Since no one got hurt)

Now I see that Hurricane Irene is strengthening and is likely to hit NC on Sat. That will put it over my new house by late Sunday. YEAHH - 2 natural disasters in 6 days. Awesome.

So, after they closed our building for the day, I got home and sat outside with my wife to see a plethora of birds hitting the feeders. It was insane - hummingbirds, finches, cardinals, a titmouse, a nuthatch, and we saw a bald eagle and 2 ospreys overhead. I tried to get a hummingbird picture that was a actually identifiable as such - no easy task for me! So, here are a few pics from this afternoon.

What a beautiful day it turned out to be. Please click on teh pictures for larger images.


A juvenile 5 lined skink - apparently pretty well fed.