Sorry for your mess, Greta, but am glad you are safe. Hope all in Andrea's path stay safe, including you and Laura1 in Tampa. In Cape Coral we are at the bottom edge of the storm. Lots of rain, wind gusts to about 45, and a couple of tornadoes in the area. There are whitecaps on the lake out back. Some streets are flooded, but nothing too bad this time in my area. Take care!

We'll be free from your incessant picture posting?? Au contraire, dear Boxo. We will greatly miss you!! Hope you two have the NEWEST, BEST 4TH OF JULY VACATION ever. You both sooo deserve it! :~D Now, about these wonderful pictures... I just LOVE your home's new paint scheme. And your yard looks fabulous--so tasteful and well-groomed. Faith is such an adorable cutie-pie. :~) Well, with a name like that, how could she not be? ;~) All of these photos are just awesome! Are You going to take pictures of your vacation and share them with us like you did last year? Sure do hope so!!! Love 'n' hugs to you two. I'll be praying for a safe and wonderful 4th of July vacation for you. See you back here, really soon...

It didn't reach us until about 1 AM and at first it was just quick showers, but we ended up with a nice rainfall overall. I jumped up early to uncover everything since my garden looked like I was growing upside down flower pots that I had used for hail protection. I still have some row cover to remove but I'm waiting for it to dry out a little. I had planted 3 rhubarb roots and 2 had one leaf above ground late yesterday, so I covered them in case we got hail (we didn't), but when I went out this morning to uncover them, I had 3. I guess the rainfall brought the other one up during the night. I love the way everything looks after a nice rain. We have had very little rain this year, but my garden soil has still been moist under my heavy mulch of leaves. I only had one small section that wasn't mulched and although it still had a little moisture, it certainly wasn't as wet as the mulched part. I have only cool season crops in the ground except for 10 tomato plants. Six of those were planted last Saturday and I can already see the leaves have changed to a darker color in the center top of the plant, so they are taking root fast. My 'in the ground' onions have done so much better than the ones in the new raised beds. I didn't work the new compost in and it dried out much too fast. I made raised beds because that part of my garden always gets too wet in Spring, but wouldn't you know that the year I started using them, we didn't get the normal rainfall. Although you make adjustments for 'the norm', it doesn't always work. The 'norm' in Oklahoma seems to be a moving target. Our forecast for tonight is 38 degrees with a slight chance of rain showers, and I am hoping this will be our last night with temps that could possibly create frost, but that is probably just wishful thinking. In any case, as soon as it is dry enough, I will be planting beans. I can always cover them if I need to. All of my transplants spent the night outdoors, but with a roof over them, but with a forecast of 38 tonight, I guess the peppers will get to sleep indoors.

While our condo unit was boarded and got no damage at all, the unit above us was blown out. Last Thursday we realized what was going on with water damage seeping from above. I flew down there with my SIL to get stuff out of the condo. I spent the night and continued emptying the unit Friday. Saturday I returned with a U-Haul to pack it out to higher and less humid storage. We stripped it down including toilets and light fixtures. But anyway, that gave me some time to evaluate the relief efforts. I don't know how they cleared the streets so fast, but they did it in a couple days. Once the streets were cleared utility truck convoys showed up from over a thousand miles away. They reset telephone poles six at a time working their way through the area. It was amazing to see. Also after the streets were cleared, food trucks began to arrive. They were paid for by companies and private donations. Church trucks from all over arrived with collections of water, clothes, and stuff they thought would be helpful. I was there for 4 of the last 5 days and never saw a baby, so diaper donations are piling up and going unused. Also diaper donations without baby wipes are not that helpful. The two go together. Wipes are about the only way to clean your hands, so those are getting used very fast. The trees are stripped so there is no shade left. Workers need sunscreen, hats, and long sleeved t-shirts. Workers need gloves. The outside helpers have gloves, but the locals need gloves in all sizes. XXL size is needed. Generators are needed until they get electricity back on. I don't know how best to make those available. They are not cheap, but the oil companies have them by the hundreds for oil rigs. 60% of Rockport is immediately obvious to be a total loss. Another 20% is quickly deteriorating from mold. The remaining 20% was protected by trees or boarding up. There are houses side by side where one looks like it's brand new and the one next door looks like a beaver dam of sticks. These two houses are two houses apart from each other on the water's edge. One looks melted and the other looks fine. The one that looks fine is not perfect, but certainly they will recover quickly.