I winter sowed alpine strawberries last year (the variety 'Ruegen,' from the Pinetree Garden Seeds catalog). I got a handful of nice healthy plants. (I would have had many more if the squirrels hadn't dug into my larger WS container when I uncovered it. Next year I'll know to protect them with wire mesh until they're firmly established. The ones I abused by leaving in the milk jugs waaay too long were just fine and thrived when I planted them out.) I plan on winter sowing more this year. The seedlings were TINY, and stayed that way for quite a while (several weeks) before having a serious growth spurt. Laurel

like everyone is saying, fill gas tank in as many cars as you have. If you have a grill make sure you have gas for that too. Make sure to get extra food for animals and for yourself. none parishable(sp) if possible. Get extra water. any patio furniture bring into you garage. any plants you have that you want to keep bring inside. Make sure that all items that are unable to be brought indoors is secured somehow. Make sure that you have plenty of cash in hand. No power means no ATMs. If you have a generator, make sure it is outside before starting it. Have a safe place to go in case there is a tornado. Have all important documents in a water tight bag or container. If you can take pictures or video of your items in your home, so that you know what you have incase you need to provide info to the insurance companies. For example all electronics, furniture, collectables etc... If you like I will post a link to the guide that they give us here in florida. It has info for before and after a storm. Here is a link that might be useful: hurricane get prepared

Adella, Normally you can go to the website of the Oklahoma Forestry Service and there's a link on the website that takes you to a burn ban page with a map, a listing of counties with burn bans in place, and another link to the burn ban law. Both today and yesterday I haven't been able to access the Burn Ban page using Internet Explorer, so depending on what browser you use and whether the issue is with IE or with OFS, you may or may not be able to access the burn ban page today. The rules can vary in each county because often counties implement additional restrictions above and beyond those in the basic burn ban statute, but in most counties you are allowed to grill during a burn ban as long as you're not using an open flame. In some counties, the grill you're using has to be placed on a nonflammable surface like a paved patio or driveway. In some counties, the grill has to be at least 5 feet from anything flammable like grass or wood decking or a wood fence or whatever. The big tankers could have been fire tankers. Many fire departments have big tankers, and often they are surplus army trucks or surplus milk trucks that carry thousands of gallons of water. Most of the volunteer fire departments in our county have at least 1 or 2 tankers because there are no hydrants out in the rural countryside. Sometimes when we have very large, uncontrollable wildfires, some of the oilfield service companies here in southern OK assist us by sending us tankers full of water and we use those tankers to refuel our smaller tankers or brush trucks. On really bad wildfires far from town, a local gasoline distributor even brings out a tanker truck of gasoline and refuels the fire trucks at a location close (but not too close) to the fire. If your city or county has a website, you could check it to see if there's a County Burn Ban notice posted. When I last looked at the OFS website on Thursday, I think that 31 of OK's 77 counties had implemented burn bans, and most of them were in western/southwestern OK through central/northcentral OK. Most of southcentral and eastern OK did not have burn bans as of Thursday. I suspect a lot of new counties will implement burn bans at their next county commissioner's meeting. Dawn

Thank you for the feedback, hindaw. It prompted me to give more info. Due to a family emergency (for the pb) and the rains, the $35k pb had to reschedule our meeting to talk about his bid until next Tue. He has faxed us his bid but we don't quite understand his vision, if you will. We know there are some things we want to change which will bring his price up -- probably closer to $40k. We wanted rbb and a rock spillway from spa to pool which he didn't include. We've also decide on an in-floor cleaner, and a bit longer pool. In fairness to the pb, he was one of the first ones we met w/ and we were able to flesh out what we want as we met w/ each subsequent builder and learned more. So, we may well end up going w/ him after we meet w/ him on Tue. We just wanted to keep the ball rolling in case we do decide to go the ob route.