Earthquakes, earthworms and visas

I was off Wednesday and it was a beautiful day!! I worked outside most of the day and as I was moving shrubs, dividing Japanese Iris, hostas and astilbe I came across many of these little earthworms, I also came across many vole tunnels. These little critters are driving me crazy, they are a small version of a mole and they eat the roots of plants and kill them. I have been battling them for several years, if any one has any ideas to get rid of them, please share!!!! This forsythia is on the Northeast corner of the house and was just beautiful on Wednesday I put this fish fountain flower bed in a number of years ago and the voles manage to kill almost everything I put in there. They have not messed with the irises and tickseed I have in there, but most everything else seems to disappear. I have put pots of annuals around the fountain in years past to make up for it. The rocks around the fountain came from the shores of Lake Superior and from Lake Michigamme at my sister Toni's house, my little bit of the U.P. in Illinois.

We woke up Friday morning to the house shaking. The windows were rattling and the bed was moving back and forth. As I woke up Wendell sat up in the bed, I said "what is that?!" and as calmly as anything he said "earthquake" How in the world he computed all that at 4:30 in the morning is amazing to me. Nick said he woke up and the handles on his dresser were rattling and his bed was moving back and forth as well as the windows rattling and he immmediately thought of a scene from the movie "the exorcist" - freaked him out. I was amazed to read in the paper this morning that the strongest earthquakes in the U.S. have been along the New Madrid fault along the Missouri, Tennessee border and in 1811-12 a series of quakes measured 7.8, 8.0 and 8.1, which is 10 times stronger than the earthquake in San Francisco in 1906!!! I had no idea! April called from Louisville, it woke her up and she got a call from her dad in Cinncinatti, it woke them up too. I was at work and about 10:15 our chairs started shaking and our computer monitors started moving - an aftershock. We are in the basement, not a good place to be in an earthquake! It is surprising to me, most everyone has not been frightened by this, it just seems to be a novelty. It is just so unusual to us.

We sent our visas off, we should have them back in a week or so. I will post our itinerary and some prayer requests as our departure date gets closer. Hope you have a great weekend, it is supposed to be 70 here tomorrow, it is raining today. The farmers are really getting frustrated, they are ready to get into the fields. For anyone who does not know, this area of the country is mainly farm ground - corn, soybeans and wheat. This time last year crops were already starting to come up, for the most part they have not even been able to get our and plow yet. It may be a late season for them. Hope you get out in the yard, or the park or somewhere to enjoy spring!