George, Jerreth certainly is having a challenging week. It sounds like the power might make it back on before you get home. What wonderful friends y'all have.....loaning Jerreth the RV with its' generator. I'm glad Jerreth is going to be able to save the frozen food. And, putting the refrigerated food in the 5-gallon buckets was a brilliant idea. That's a long way to haul water. So, I guess the two of them are building some serious muscle tissue.....and they don't even have to drive to "the gym" to do it. I know that you are doing terrific work at the Bible Institute and you are fortunate to have a spouse who shares your faith and supports your efforts. It can't be fun to be the one who is "home alone" at this time of year with the risk of ice storms, and I admire her so much for being willing to do it. You said that this is one of the "prices" which you wish y'all didn't have to pay, and I understand that, but we don't really get to choose the price we pay or the challenges we face. I know that Jerreth will come through this challenging period just fine and I suspect she won't even "rub it in" too much that you were off in sunny Mexico doing the work of the Lord while she was here dealing with the mixed blessing of having frozen moisture fall. Look at it this way: The good news, George, is that while you are away in Mexico, all your trees got watered. The bad news is that they got iced too. I hope the rest of your trip is successful and productive and the conditions at "the home place" improve soon. Dawn

My husband was in michigan this week and that was one of the flights he thought about taking on thursday night. He flies a lot and it just hit close to home. Clarence is not far from where we live. We are a little more out in the country. Big sigh of relief. When the news came on at 10pm they announced at the end of the broadcast that a plane had crashed by the airport, but they didn't know anything yet. By the time the 11pm news came on, it was not until after the weather that their news crews made it to the neighborhood and they announced it was a commercial plane. WIVB broadcast without commercial break until I went to bed at 2am. When my husband called to say he was alright i was so grateful. (wipes tears and sniffles) Fran, Could i have the blanket flower, please? BTW, DS#3 watered my keyboard once, its still a little iffy. We set it in from of the blower on the woodstove for a week. Just FYI those of you sowing in the keys LOL! Thank all of you for the prayers. Families here are esp. close knit and things like this are difficult for anyone. Praying for your FIL, too Nichol. Fleethart

Morning all! Fran, I put in a bit more postage than what it was for me to mail my package to you. I don't think that I'll get back what I sent because we have a lot of veggie growers here, BUT if by chanace you dont have enough postage I'd be happy to send more if you need it to get my package back to me. I'm so glad that I bought the veggie seeds, I could almost hear how excited people were when I offered them up for grabs! Thank you to anyone who sent flowers in for me, I assure you that every single seed will find a good home. Lisa

Enjoyed your story and pics! Too bad your scarlet snake was a DOR. I am always impressed with your pics. That was a really cool post you had a while back with pics of the red milks you found this year. I always look at your backgrounds. Elephant ear leaves, old boards, moss covered rocks. Some of those really make the snake stand out. I don't think everyone realizes how difficult it is to get a snake to cooperate sometimes!