It's always good hearing from you and thanks for the heads up..so to speak. We are having below zero temps with the wind chill and as much as I love going out and watching the night sky,I may just skip it this time around.We have a big corn field next door and I really should just haul my lawn chair out there and watch the shows in the fall and winter after the corn has been harvested...or squish some soy beans when it's a soy bean year.

Hey Mike.. The day is dark..where's the sun? lol..Wonder if it's going to snow..Has it snowed up east yet, or too early? One thing about snow...it brightens up a home..ever notice? Snow reflects off walls (I only use Semi-Gloss White paint) and other bright objects.. Mike, the things we do for our plants! I've placed aluminum foil behind plants so when we do have sun, it reflects off the foil..lol.. One time, I tried collecting snow for plants..lol...Don't bother. One year, I placed containers outside while it was snowing, blizard-like. The containers collected snow, filled, 'which took forever,' then brought inside to melt..I wanted to cry. There was about 2" of water..lol..All that work for nothing.. Here's another thing I do, but am not recommending. When snow is fresh, I grab a handful and place directly on soil. Most of you reading this are shaking your head, thinking, she's NUTS, lol, but fresh snow, although cold, is pure. The problem doing this is it can chill roots..So, when I add snow, it has to be sunny and early in the morning. Never at night. So far, Thank God, snow has never harmed a plant. Again, I'm NOT telling anyone to do this.. BTW, I don't add snow to cactus and succulents. I agree about caring for our plants like children, with one exception..What's the number one plant killer? OVERWATERING. Sometimes, people kill plants because they're too caring, and continue adding more and more water..Leaves droop, so they think, oh oh it needs more water or fertilizer..then the plant dies.. So, yes, I agree, we need to be alert, (especially when a plant shows signs of distress,) inspect, mist, shower, water when needed, fertilize at the proper time, etc, but never in excess.. BTW, if I'm not mistaken, the number 2 killer is over-fertiliizing. 3 is underwatering. Then there's the INSECT problem..sheesh..in some cases, insects are beyond our control. Especially for those starting out..they go shopping, find a pretty plant, unaware it's loaded with mites, bring home, and a wk later the plant is dead. But never neglect plants either. Heck, I talk and sing to them..lol..you should see my birds when they see me talking, especially singing to a plant..lol..it's hilarious. I found the variegated CC on Ebay..Ebay is the BEST..I wouldnt have half the plants I do if it wasn't for Ebay or the internet in general. Most stores and nurseries here sell the same, old, common plants. When they get something they deem rare, prices are hiked up 100%. Terrible. Oh, I agree, 'playing' with plants is more 'funner' than cooking or cleaning..lol. Oh you do have a MOO??? GReat..Flowers don't last long like you say, similar to tropical Hibiscus. Speaking of which, my Hib tree had several buds and one opened flower..it opened 3 days ago and still going, but starting to look crinkly..I snapped a pic last night, but haven't put it on Flickr yet.. What I'd love to find is a variegated MOO..lol..now that be sometehing..I'd also like to find a variegated Stephanotis..ohhh, wonder if any exist..lol.. Have a wonderful day..hugs, Toni

Hi Everyone! We have had 7.6" of rainfall at our house since 11 a.m. Our local Emergency Manager just declared a state of emergency here. Randy, I am beyond wet and have made it all the way to soggy. : ) Scott, I know all the ranchers are breathing a big sigh of relief. Now, at least, they'll have water for all the cattle for at least the next few months. One told me the other day that if rain didn't fall he wouldn't have enough growth in the pastures to feed all the calves born this spring, so I'm guessing he'll be OK now. This rain can't hurt the winter wheat because most of it froze when we had that late freeze down to 19 degrees. Unfortunately, some of the pastures are flooded and now some fire depts. and sherriff's deputies are out helping ranchers move cattle out of flooded pastures and onto higher ground. It is crazy how quickly you can lurch from one type of disaster to another. I haven't looked at the radar loop lately, but I think DH is still dry in Dallas. The storm that has arrived here after pounding St. Jo in Montague County has heavy lightning. I think that I may have to start over from scratch with the garden. I may be able to save the tomatoes by digging them up and putting them in pots, but am wondering about the onions, broccoli, cabbage, herbs and potatoes. They're in raised beds, but this rain and the underground "stream" of water from the neighbor's woodland that sits higher than the garden probably will nullify the raised beds. I am sitting in the middle of a 3-acre lake at this point. I am hoping our rainfall will recharge the aquifer and that will somehow benefit the springs, Scott. Often, when it rains this much here, the aquifer gains water for days and days afterward. I wish we could send some of this water up north to them there. I need to go look at the radar and see how much longer this will last. Moni, Two inches is nice and will make your landscape green and lovely. Lisa, If I hadn't emptied out the rain gauge so it wouldn't overflow, it'd be overflowing now. I hope yours is nice and full. OK, y'all, Conditions area deteriorating right and left and numerous fire depts. and sherriff's deputies and city police officers and OHP and tow truck drivers are running all over the county doing rescues, working accidents, pulling people out of flooded areas, moving cattle to higher ground, etc. It is a zoo here. The satellite TV has been out since the rain started and the power keeps coming and going. Somewhere I lost my house keys while putting up all the animals as the rain began. DS said that if I dropped them outside, they're in Lake Texoma by now. : ) Will report on additional rainfall later. I don't understand why everything here is at such extremes--from no rain for months to probably 8" in 1/4 of a day. It is crazy. Dawn

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