Good Luck Rita. Wish you were getting out- flowers and trees can grow back but your family can't! Get as much water on hand as you can, I suppose you have heard lots of advice on tv and in the newspaper. Be prepared for the power to be off for a long time if you get hit.
We'll be thinking of you!

Hope everything comes out ok for you, Rita.

As to the price gouging - when the people looted in NO, everybody criticized them severely. I don't approve of looters, but what about the really BIG looters, like price gougers, Tyco executives etc? They loot all of us!

After going through a drought for the last 4,5,6, or more months, and w/ an all time high of 101 today, lots of mid-high 90's and a few 100's lately, I'm READY for some rain. Since flower wise, I have hardly anything left, the rain is coming a little bit too late! (grumble grumble!)

Looks like we'll be in the area in NE TX where Rita is going to stall for a few days, Sun-thru Tues. So, barring flooding (shouldn't be a problem on our hill) and tree limbs falling (could be a BIG problem w/ a couple of hundred trees on our property), our family SHOULD be okay. The town might get some flooding, and our church will be the shelter location if there are any tornadoes spawned from Rita in our county. Another church in our town is just finishing their duty as a fairly big shelter for the Katrina Evacuees. I think our town's turn as shelter host for hurricane evacuees is over--other N. TX towns will be called on if needed. We as a town aren't saying "no", it's just how the N TX Council of Govts allocates things.

Rita, by now you've probably heard that the storm is going to hit on the TX/ LA border--maybe you'll get SOME less damage. Still, ALL of us in E & N TX may be facing SUSTAINED winds in the 30-60 mph range, and some gusts up to 75mph, all day Saturday.

Sherri, I hope you've been able to harvest your sunflowers this week!

Bob up in OK-- you may get some of the rain & wind too!

Rita, have you heard from Kim? Isn't she somewhere near you?

I'm SO sorry about the crop damages that you & your son's family are facing, Rita. Since my few straggly little plants don't count, any damage I get will be insignificant. Maybe the storm will drown several hundred (thousand) grasshoppers, my other nemesis besides drought!

The day Katrina hit, she spun some of those far reaching storm clouds into NE TX, and it rained quite heavily IN TOWN for about 20-30 minutes. Five miles away, at my house, there was nothing! SO many storms this spring/summer/fall have hit all around us, hardly any have made it here, long enough to even dirty the windsheilds. I wouldn't be surprised if the Rita cloud mass separates right over my house & field leaving me dry once again! LOL! However, the rain SHOULD put an end to the no-burning ban in this and many other counties! One would think!....

Hugs & prayers Rita, Kim, Sherri, Janet in LA, and anyone else in the storm path.

Susi in NE TX

Susi,
You might be in worst shape than me according to the track. I heard this morning that colorado county will get those winds up to 75 mostly around 60 they say. I just pray we get rain. I put those sides up on the 12,000 tomato house and I feel pretty good about that house holding up. My son in laws family had so much help yesterday and they were able to get those trees laid down and hopefully should be OK barring no tornadoes. Yesterday I had to run into town for a couple of things, and I just cried on the way home. There were people everywhere. It upset me because I guess they may not have a place to go back to. The governemnt sent a truck of gas to the Shell station for the evacuees on IH 10 and they were lined up 4 and 5 lines for a long way getting off the interstate to get more gas so they could keep going. The station stayed open till around 9:00 last night until a big fight broke out and they were forced to shut down for safety reasons. The station across the street had no more gas, so people were going there for food and drinks and left the place leaving all their trash behind and it looked awful. Our town is only 2000 peopl and I couldn't start to guess how many people were in town. Columbus the town 10 miles to the east of us has alot more to offer and one of my best friends went into town and there were people parked all over Columbus sleeping on top of the cars , in the cars, on the sidewalks, anywhere just to get a break, The Wal-Mart shelves were bear.. Yesterday we saw history being made when they did the counterflow on the IH 10 and 45. If the traffic is still heavy today, I want to go take a picture of the traffic going under our crossroad of IH10. I bet that is something we may not see again for a long, long time. Oh except when all these l.5 million people have to go back.

I hope everyone gets lots of badly needed rain.

Susi, Kim is in Hemstead and yes I have gotten an e-mail or two from her, but not lately. She is a little to my NW, about an hours drive.
Susi, we live on a hill also and yesterday we had a lesson in boarding up windows. My son and a coupld of his friends with my husband looking on did the boarding up just on the south and east side of our house. We may not need it , but I feel better having the boards on the big glass windows. If not to make matters worse, yesterday at about 5:00, our AC quit working. They are supppose to come out early this morning and see if he can get it working for the weekend. Hey the power goes out, we just had an early start to seeing what it will be like.

Prayers to all,

Rita

Rita, Susi, Kim...please keep us all posted. You all are in my thoughts this weekend. Mother nature is certainly teaching lessons about many things this year...

I am not in the same boat as you - but, we have a frost warning tonight! It is supposed to be between 26-32...and right now its mid 70's and no wind, ugh...if it will only stay above freezing, I'll be happy!

Take Care!
Wendy

To All,

We made it through. Didn't even get a drop of rain , just 30-40 mile winds from the north. Nothing even damaged.
Susi, how did you come out? How about everyone else? Thanks for the prayers. Houston has been spared.

Rita

We had gusty winds in the mid morning, then rain for about an hour, then nothing for a couple of hours. Around 2:30 it started raining again and blowing hard, and this lasted 3-4-5 hours. No big damage that I'm aware of-- maybe a few trees down in town, lots of leaves and small branches down in/on our lane, but nothing serious.

So, two big joys: No serious damages or injuries, and WE GOT RAIN!!!!! The weather map on one of the TV stations claimed our area probably only got an inch & a half to 2 inches, but that's SO much more than we've had in ages, that it is indeed welcome!

Glad you're okay Rita, and that Houston/Galveston didn't suffer much. Poor Port Arthur looks just like New Orleans.

I was realizing today that this is one of the first times I've ever been "this close" to a hurricane before. It seems like most of the others, if they send rain our direction, the rain comes several days after the hurricane makes landfall. WE got to see the storm's progress all morning, huge deep gray clouds building & billowing all morning, then the winds and rain in the afternoon. WAY cool--from this safe perch at least.

The "funny" of the day: some woman was being interviewed in one of the more Southern East TX towns, and she said, "The wind came by us -at us- just like, well, a hurricane!" LOL! Both she and the reporter realized her unintentional pun!

Susi

Oh yes, our power went out for most of the afternoon-early evening. We had ice in the ice chests, and even went to Lowe's to get another propane tank for our grill, but didn't need either. The power came on not long after we got home. I don't think our food was damaged. For a while as the power was trying to decide if it was going to be on or off, it was funny! The power went off, so I went in search of candles. Found one, found the matches, lit the candle, the lights came on. So I blew out the candle, and the lights went off. Lit it again, and the power came back on! This happened SEVERAL times in a five minute span, so I finally just left a few candles burning and then the power was out for good!

Susi
My brother lives on the Trinity River and he and his family had to evacuate yesterday because they thought the Livingston Lake dam mmay bust because of the hurricane damage when the huge rocks that are suppose to protect the dam, fell in and the dam was exposed. As of yet, it hasn't failed and all is ok. It was certainly a big scare for them getting as much as they could in their 2 vehicles and the boys show calves and getting out of there. My brother said if it broke, the deputy said it would be like a tidal wave coming down and make a new river.
Well we're off to church and then back out to my son-in-laws to stand up that 100 acres of trees. We worked 5 hours yesterday afternoon and I'm pretty tired. Those trees are heavy and everyone has to be clamped back on to the cables that hold them up. I'm glad you didn't have it too bad. Those folks in the path had it really bad.
My brother has it so bad in Shepherd that he said the only way to clean up is with a bulldozer. He has thousands of acres of River bottom to clean up. He runs this ranch for a man out of Houston. It is not his.

Later,

Rita

Rita, so glad to hear you and other webbers down there are safe now and the worst of that storm is over for you! Have to tell you that reading your pre-storm letter was the first to break me into tears since before my friends death from cancer a few weeks ago, Now I can cry both for my loss of her and or the losses that you folk down their have been and could have sustained! HEr death was a blessing after 2 years of bone cancer butI knew I needed to cry and couldn't. But imagining the loss of one's garden business, and all those PLANTS suffering...now that brought on the tears so easily!

I have just spent the last 4 days visiting Poochella's and Jeanne from Idaho's gardens. THe passion and work we all put into this would be not something insignificant if it were destroyed like most folk would think! Our gardens are living, breathing....if not human. THey are not just "Things" that can be easiy replaced.

SO glad that Rita is now past you and that you got that RAIN, Susi!!!

At least we know some of you with electricity are OK, thank the Lord. During these weeks, have thought about folks I've seen posting from the storm areas.

When Katrina finally came north, the rain skirted us. Don't know if we'll get any from the new system. We'd have been glad to take a couple inches off Louisiana's hands. Like Susi, we haven't had significant rain for a few weeks in this area. Summer storms are always variable, but it has been a dry one this summer coupled with pretty high temperatures. Wells and some springs are drying up.

I am amazed and disheartened to hear of people who didn't even prepare enough water to take them on their trips away from the coast. (I can understand some of the fuel problems with the long delays.) One TV broadcaster mentioned a family who'd been on the road for a few hours and had already run out of water. Gee, I have three-four days of drinking water on hand all the time and don't even live near a big stream, let alone an ocean. Guess it was several years in CA earthquake country that makes me think about those emergency things! (A kit for the house, one for the car and one at work.) Winter tends to be a risky time here. So much for the soap box. Hey, Susi, didn't you hear of hurricane lamps instead of candles??? Glad the folks who reported in are safe.

I am so discouraged. Normally I try not to post when I am this discouraged. Usually I try to wait until I can at least try to have a sense of humor and put a humorous spin on things. Usually I don't have the time to post. Unfortunately, now I have the time.

While I am greatful that the damage from Rita was not worse, and certainly greatful that lives were spared, and while I know that others suffered much more loss than us....I am nonetheless DISCOURAGED!

We had about 35,000 suns planted(all transplanted by hand) and it looks like we lost all of them due to wind damage. All of the plants that were ready to harvest are unquestionably lost. It's possible that some of the smallest plants will recover-time will tell. Everything is bent to the ground. Of course if the smallest plants do survive, we figure hell will ice over and we will go from our record breaking 100+ days to a record breaking early frost.

I can't begin to list all the records we've broken since we decided to try farming again a few yrs ago. This year we've had record breaking heat and drought. In July we had to pay 10,000+ for a well when our pond that we've irrigated from for over 15 yrs went dry.

All weekend I've been thinking about Steve's philosophy that farming is professional gambling. I think I've got to add that it's also a form of addiction. I don't know what else can explain the fact that we keep coming back for more when time after time mother nature keeps telling us how foolish we are.

O.K. pity party is over. Thanks for listening. I know I'll regret posting this, but it does help to talk about the frustration to people who understand.

I am sure everyone in Texas has noticed how awfully hot it is outside. You can't hardly breathe and stuff is just drying up. My allergies are so bad, I can hardly breathe. We need relief from the heat and dryness. We worked for two days to get all those trees stood up and back on irrigation and if we wouldn't have, they would die from lack of water. We pretty much finished and what we didn't , the regular crew will get tomorrow. Thanks to some hard working boys, I think most will be ok. I'm seriously considering getting a normal 40 hour , air conditioned job but I too believe I am addicted to farming. Sherril so sorry to hear about all your flowers. That is just heartbreaking. Hope you make it back somewhere else.

Rita

Sherri, I'm sorry to hear about your sunflowers. I'd have cried in that situation. I cried when I hurt my knee the second time this spring and knew I wouldn't be able to get any of my late-season flowers in. You lost way more sunflowers than I'd intended to plant in the first place. A glass of wine, a good cry, a night's sleep, then up and figure out the next move, seems to be my system when things go terribly wrong. Gambling is addictive, and gardening is definitely a form of gambling.

All together now: "Next year will be better!"

Jeanne

Yeh! Not flattened flowers from storms, not blighted tulips, not fried zinnias, or hail pelted roses shall stay these gardeners from their rounds!