Nelson County Rocks

While Hurricane Irene wreaked a lot of havoc along the Virginia coast this past Saturday, we were only mildly affected in Nelson County.  By evening the off-and-on rain showers and winds were gone, and Sunday was a beautiful day.  Nic and I headed off for a 5.5 mile hike in neighboring Amherst County, where we follwed the Henry Lanum loop trail up to the two peaks of Mount Pleasant, and then on over Pompey mountain.  Thanks to the spector of Irene, we had the trail and the summits mostly to ourselves.  The views from the east and west (windy!) summits of Mt. Pleasant are among the most spectacular in the region.  Above: fortunately this tree that Irene’s winds had blown down across the forest service road left enough space for us to get past.

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In 2009 we moved down here just in time for the biggest Virginia snowstorm before Christmas since 1936, and today we experienced the biggest Virginia earthquake since 1897!  While rating a respectable 5.8 on the Richter scale, the experience at our home in Nelson County was memorable but modest.  We were standing on our back deck on a lovely summer day when the deck began to shake and a strange noise which Monika aptly describes as an off-balance washing machine emanated from the house.  We went inside and could feel the whole thing trembling, then went to the kennel building in the back, where the glasses vases on the counter were shaking sufficiently to clink musically against each other.  The chickens disappeared from sight—presumably to the security of the hen house.  It was all over within two minutes or so.  We were about 75 miles from the quake’s epicenter in Mineral, Virginia.  We went back to enjoying an absolutely beautiful day.

Garden views front and back on an otherwise lovely day