It is amazing, isn't it, Lilo? If one put down every task they do in a day, many would be surprised at how busy they really are. My morning routines vary a little according to the season, and the winter routine is very different than the summer, as well. I was thinking of morning routines this week myself, and had to smile. For somebody who has switched gears a big part of their life, I find a comfort in the time I spend in little routines. In fall, I roll out of bed, when the animals insist...usually my old schnauzer, who thankfully still asks to be relieved. I switched over from my pot of hot tea to coffee about two or three years ago, when caring for my mother made me need to snap to attention with often little sleep. So, if I beat the dh up, I brew a pot. I usually check my email as I sip it..then medicate the dog. I use cheese too, lol. Feed the cats their morning meal, and let the Tom cat out. I always sweep the main downstairs rooms, and usually take a mop to them. No, I am not THAT clean, we are that dirty. LOL. I pull up the blinds, and make open the windows if it's warm enough to let the house air out. Put the clean dishes away, and load any errant ones I find out and dirty into the dishwasher. Then I scrub the kitchen counter on the isle. It never ceases to amaze me that after a day's use, it's filthy. I usually burn a scented candle in fall as I am working, and sometimes kick on the CD player and listen to music as I work. Since I am not working the g'houses from dawn to dusk this time of year, and tend to relax until the busy holiday season hits, I'll prolly switch over to my pot of tea or cocoa. My stomach revolts on even one cuppa coffee a day. I then usually go feed my flock and gather eggs and put them in cartons. When I'm out that way, I check the veggie garden and fruit trees out to see what needs gathered, and when. My trip back to the house usually includes a bag of something. Lately it's been apples or fresh lima beans. Then I make the beds. If there is nothing pressing, I go to my sewing room and work on some quilts for an hour or so until I feel motivated to tackle outside work. Lately, that means doing a little cleaning in the g'houses to make ready for the Christmas crop/or spring, depending on which house. By this time, it's noonish and I take my first meal of the day. I do not make my husband b'fast, and he seems ok with that. Then I start the shank of my day when I attend to the projects. Working at home, I am blessed in that I can sneak in to the kitchen any time through the day and take care of the cooking for supper, so that when my work day is ended, I don't have a full meal's prep to do.

Scott and Jay, You cannot even imagine what it was like here. I couldn't tell y'all about it last night because some combination of wind, hail and rain took out our internet service provider's Ringling and Marietta towers and we lost service. THE STATS: 70 mph wind, small hail here but up to baseball sized elsewhere in the area, 2.5" of rain in 25 minutes THE DETAILS: THE STORM BEGINS BUILDING: I had watched the clouds begin building around 7 p.m. and they kept getting taller and taller and taller until it was too dark to see them. At the time I was watching them, they might have been 40,000 to 50,000 tall. I have seen at least one storm build up as tall as last night's, and that storm caused an F-3 tornado to our southeast about 20 miles from us in Texas that night a couple of years ago. As I watched the clouds begin building, our sky took on that grayish-green cast that often accompanies hail. I secured all the lawn furniture, made sure all the animals were inside their housing and the doors were securely closed so they couldn't blow open, etc. I even got out flashlights and candles in case we lost power. BETWEEN ABOUT 7-8 PM: To our northwest, in the Lone Grove-Ardmore area, one cell reportedly had golf ball and larger sized hail, winds of at least 70 mph, and heavy rain that caused flash flooding. That storm also had a mid-level, non-rotating wall cloud. When it hit Love County, we had winds around 70 mph, non-stop lightning that gave a strobe-light effect for 2 or 3 hours (the lightning preceded the rain by a couple of hours), zero visability that caused drivers to stop in their tracks and sit there, unmoving in roadways because they couldn't see the road, trees down, hail, etc. During this storm our internet service went out because they "lost" the use of their towers in Ringling and Marietta. BETWEEN 7-9 PM: To our southwest, just over the river in Montague County, Texas, we had two separate storms about 1 hour apart with rotation that did not, as far as I know, result in a tornado touchdown. That hail was in the tennis ball to baseball size category. BETWEEN 7 PM AND MIDNIGHT: Here in the middle we had ugly skies and almost total stillness for a long, long time in between those two storm cells....the kind of stillness that scares you because you know it precedes a very violent storm. We had that strobe-light lightning (horizontal, not vertical) for a couple of hours and sporadic thunder. The air was totally still. We had storm chasers from other areas come into our county and stage themselves in various places. Some of them were feeding their own weather info to our undersherriff and he was passing it on to us on the fire/police radio channel. When the storm arrived, it was like someone flipped a switch. The wind went from almost 0 to at least 70 in just a few minutes. The wind just roared. The rain poured. We got 2.5" of rain in about 25 minutes. It was the heaviest, most rapid rainfall I've ever seen in my life. Luckily for us, the big hail had stayed on either side of us and our hail was only about pea-sized. The rain was heaviest in the northern and eastern parts of the county and I have no idea how much they received. Here at our house, though, we had that 2.5" fall in less than 1/2 hour. The good news is that it fell so fast that most of it ran off and didn't soak into the ground. (The ground is so wet I don't think it can absorb much, if any, more.) The Mesonet Station at Burneyville, which is several miles northwest of us, recorded just over an inch. I am sure that the Greenville, Overbrook, Lake Murray, and Enville areas recorded much more rainfall, and maybe the town of Marietta as well. The Oswalt Rd. area (fairly close to the Love-Carter County line) had larger hail than most of the rest of the county, and they had it earlier than everyone else. EIGHTEEN INCHES OF RAINFALL IN ELEVEN DAYS: For anyone who is counting, we have had over 18" of rain here at our house since Wednesday, April 29th. I don't think my tomato plants are going to survive this much moisture in our heavy clay soil. Even in raised beds with heavily amended soil, the moisture level is outrageously high. For a while, I thought the corn would survive, but now I am beginning to think it won't. The squash, zukes and cukes are dead. The broccoli is deliriously happy, the onions are mostly happy, the potatoes less so. Most of the herbs seem alright. And, for what it is worth, a scientist from the Ardmore-based Noble Foundation told local media that our particular soil can only hold about three weeks worth of moisture and that everything above that amount either runs off into the creeks, rivers and lakes, or soaks down into the aquifer. So, the way he phrased it was that we are always "only two to three weeks away from drought conditions" if the rain stops falling for a prolonged time. His words backed up what I have observed since moving here, but hearing it from a scientist made it sound worse than just observing it for yourself. I am happy the ponds and creeks are full and that the pastures will grow for the cattle and horses. For us veggie gardeners, though, it is shaping up to be a poor year. Most of my flowers are looking OK so far, but the poppies are yellowing and dying. They can't handle too much moisture. The zinnias aren't looking too good either. The lawn, trees, shrubs, vines and weeds all are growing like weeds. I can't even plant beans, okra, black-eyed peas, pumpkins, winter squash and melons because it is far too wet. The peppers all most likely will go into containers beginning today because it is too wet for them to go into the ground. And that's the report from southern OK where more rain is in the forecast for tonight, tomorrow and the next day. And, actually, rain is falling a few miles to our south so we may get hit by rain any minute now. Jay, I wish you were getting some of this rain (and that we were not getting so much). The ground here is starting to get that sour, yucky smell you get when slowly-draining clay is totally saturated. Once you start smelling that, you begin to see plant death. Dawn

Lisa, Well, the straight answer is yes, we got rain. But, here's the more complicated answer. It started raining here at about 4 o'clock Sunday afternoon, I think, (oh, it was so very long ago) and it has been "rainy" virtually ever since. So, you'd think our rain gauges would be full and overflowing and we'd have flash floods and all that. But, no, this is severely rain-challenged southcentral Love County.....the Bermuda Triangle of Oklahoma, where rainfall disappears before it hits the ground. Our "rain", and I use the term loosely, has been barely more than a fog or mist for 98% of the time. In the first 24 to 36 hours, we accumulated 3/10s of an inch. (sigh) However, now that it is on its' third day of misty, foggy, drizzly junk, we now have accumulated a whopping 3/4s of an inch. You know, Lisa, it makes me want to just stand and bang my head against the wall! What, oh what, does it take to make actual rain pour down from the sky?????? And, just to make it more fun, parts of Jefferson County, which is adjacent to and just west of Love County and is normally about as dry and miserable as us in times of drought, has had at least 10" of rain in the last day or so. Ten inches!! Not all over Jefferson County, I think, but at least in the Waurika and Ryan areas. Our stupid (normally I like it, but it isn't bringing us any good news) NWS weather radio went off and woke us up TWICE last night, once at midnight, and then again several hours later, to warn us of flash flooding in Jefferson County. THAT is a cruel thing to do to people who barely have any rain puddling in the yard! I have to laugh, or I would cry. I keep saying "This is the rain we've been eagerly anticipating for at least a week?" My rain gauge hasn't overflowed a single time this entire year, although it might have been half-full once in March or April. The skies ARE much darker today, so maybe this will be OUR day for rainfall. I'd truly love to have an overflowing raingauge. And, I'm not terribly greedy. We don't have to have 10" like parts of Jefferson County.....I'd be happy if another inch of rain fell, and ecstatic if 2 or 3 inches fell. Having said that, this week's rain plus the rain that fell earlier in the month almost has our August rainfall up to the "average" mark. So, maybe our drought is ending. Still, it will take 10" to 12" to get back to where we ought to be and to put substantial water into the almost-empty creeks and dried-up, or nearly dried-up, ponds. The cooler temperatures have been heavenly--when do we ever get a prolonged cool spell like this in August? A lot of my flowers are perking up and going back into bloom. If another inch of rain falls, I'll start planting fall veggies. Oooh, I hear thunder and that makes me hopeful. We're going to Durant to see Kristine and her dorm suite and take her to lunch....it is a tradition. She moved in on Sunday and we always go over to Southeastern a couple of days later to see how cute her suite is once she's moved in and has everything put away AND to go out to lunch AND to make a run to the store to pick up any vital necessities she finds herself without. Also, we have two boxes and two bags of stuff she "forgot" on Sunday. LOL I hope while we are in Durant that it pours like mad here in Marietta. And, if it does, I'll let y'all know. So, loving the cool weather, and appreciating the rain, but hoping God sends us more, more, more. I want overflowing rain gauges too! Dawn

As promised :-) First the complete parcel: Dawn's Early Light, Color Festival, Chiemsee Blaue Taube, Blaue Venus, High Society, Roller Coaster Ride, Schätzchen, Chiemsee Glimmer, Chiemsee Eisvogel, Dream Weaver, Midnight at the Oasis Dawn's Early Light The colour might be different when outside. But it is really bright and neon like... Karin