Hurricane Irene (Mk 2)

It was a gusty and rainy night as the hurricane came past us to the East, but we awoke with power, lots of leaves and small trees strewn on the ground and about 2 inches of rain from the night:



I went on a run this morning, and some of the trees around our lake are down, but mainly it's only branches and leaves that have fallen. Here is a photo off one of the trees by the lake, which the storm snapped in half:



It's still raining some, but this afternoon is forecast to be lovely. Now we are left with the happy task of eating all the food we panic bought as the hurricane approached. French toast and bacon this morning!

Hurricane Irene

It has been an exciting week in Maryland. We had a 5.8 magnitude earthquake in Virginia, and I am writing this as Hurricane Irene works it's way up the East Coast.

Both Sarah and I felt the earthquake, and there was a significant amount of shaking, but it luckily did very little damage.

We have spent the day doing DIY and watching the weather channel as the hurricane moves up the coast. It should pass to the east of us, with strong winds on the coast. We're currently watching our local news, and a poor reporter at Ocean City being covered in an awful sea foam, which they definitely didn't have in Virginia.

It's raining here at the moment, but not too hard. Here's a satellite, picture from the weather channel:

Ticket to Ride

Today, Sarah and I played Ticket To Ride, the railroad building game across the US. You have to plot connections between cities to achieve certain long range routes.

This was our first game, I was Blue and Sarah Black. It was close, but I was lucky to complete the Portland to Nashville route and win. The game would have been different if I didn't find out where Nashville was just before the end.

Montgomery County Fair

We went to the Montgomy County Fair today, just one town south of here. Despite reports of impending rain, it was lovely weather:




The fair was huge, with a carnival, pens full of animals and halls full of food of every variety of food you can grow, all judged by category and size:



The honey bee exhibit was awesome too, explaining how to make different grades of honey. None of it was as cool as the food, though. Sarah and I were good, and only tried one thing - deep fried Oreo cookies. These tasted, well, like nothing else I have ever tasted. At the time, I didn't really like them, but 5 minutes later, I really wanted more.



At home, we also performed an important task. My lab has been plagued by Gremlins of late, and in an attempt to drive out these foul creatures, we baked Gremlin gingerbread cookies:

More Repairs!

This week, we had some wood on the corner of our roof repaired; a piece between the end of the roof overhang and the wall.

The section is affectionately called the birds nest, and based on this photo, you can see the birds were quite content there:

Billy Goat Trail

This weekend, Sarah and I re-visited the Billy Goat Trail at Great Falls on the C&O canal. After last year's visit, when we were quite unprepared for the trail, we decided to plan this one more carefully. The result was a much more fun walk, where we were far less worried about running out of water, and less crisp-ified by the sun and the heat.

The views were still wonderful, and the steep climb next to the river was still scary:

I even braved crossing this stream without using the newly built bridge -