Josh: Did you ever finish the cover? I can only imagine how good it must look and work. A small space heater on timers when you know the nights get cold should do the trick! Will you have a auto vent opener for the warmer days or will you just create a small opening each day to let the heat out if it should get to warm and to circulate the carbon dioxide out and let in fresh air? This will also help you avoid the ole SPIDER MITE, disease, and pest issues! Mike: Same to you. Maybe you can find a way to keep your temps stable, at least into the low 70's for the winter. You can avoid some major bug issues and extreme temp swings. Sounds like you have yours all set for the winter too. Great! Dave: I have seen your trees and Palms. Amazing is what I have to say! I hope we keep these warm temps. I would hate to see the Artic cold blasts move through though without giving my plants, the outside ones a chance to rest from all this unusual warmth. Last year it killed a few of my shrubs. Dl: What can I say but WOW. You sure are prepared this winter. I know you had a rough one last year, but not to be taken of guard this year. Nice job protecting your trees and I hope they all fare well. You have yourself a great set-up and put much thought into that. Very nice for anyone thinking about doing the same. Sheesh, I just heard that Texas has had more snow and cold than us way up here! Mine are happy now that I have them protected with a Solar Cover. I only need 1 space heater compared to 2 keeping the temps even warmer than before. I am so thrilled about this and the lack of electricity I will be using. I spent almost 275 one month keeping them warm in a greenhouse, but I hope not this year. So far so good:-) Mike

I was in Hennessy and felt the one on the 30th. 3 distinct "shakes" and my water glass was confirming my wonder. I lived in California for most of my life so quakes are nothing new to me, I felt the Northridge quake and the Whittier Narrows quake, both were tremendously strong. When the Northridge quake hit, it slammed our bedroom door open and shut 3 times and 20 gallons of water in my 100 gallon aquarium sloshed out onto the carpet. That quake crushed cars like pancakes inside a parking structure close to the epicenter. We are having quite a few small quakes here in OK, I think we have reached the same total of all last year here in early April.

It was my guess that these small quakes were associated with the oil and gas industry. These can be caused by "fracking" and "water driving". The pratice of water drive has been used since about 1970 in Illinois and other places. When a field of well begin to dimish production and if these are in a well defined 'dome', it was found that if water was forced into the wells in the outer perimeter of the field, it would force what little remaining oil there was toward the central wells. It could extend the prodcutive life of a few wells by 5 to 10 years. A side benifit: It was a place to dump the waste water/brine from the producing wells. In Illinois, this practice has not caused any major earth movements. However, it has been documented that water drives in the Colorado oil fields were the cause of earthquakes. A geologist ran an experiment to show that the quakes could be turned on or off by activating or deactivating water drives. Thus, it was my hunch that fracking and/or water drives may be the driver of the swarm of small quakes in central Oklanoma. The longer duration quake in Menphis mentioned above was likely associated with the New Madrid fault zone. In 1811 - 1812, it produced three very large earthqaukes and many aftershocks, and likley was the largest ever released in the US over the last 300 years. That zone continues to shake to day. Reelfoot lake in Tennessee was created during those quakes. it is a slump zone depression that filled with ground water. The new Madrid quakes was instrumental in the rapid rise of steam boats on the Mississippi river and it tributaries, but that is another story.

For Faron and others, if you want to search earthquake activity in your locale, or anywhere in the world, the USGS has a cool map that allows you to do so http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/ Use the settings in the upper right to search for big, small, etc, quakes. On the map that Annie posted, the size of the dot relates to the size of the quake. The color is usually related to how long ago it happened. I agree this is a wake up call! Congress has managed to set things up so that fracking cannot be overseen by any Federal agency. There can be state-level regulations only. So, Oklahoma, how's that working out for you? It will be interesting to see how it shakes out (pun intended) and if there are policy changes because of this. Glad everyone is in good shape, and that pets and chandeliers are all OK!