It's a good time to brush & clean the bottom dirt & slime out of them. I have 7 barrels & I empty them! Last winter, I had a hard time getting the hoses off the fittings - (the hoses harden up on the fitting barbs and when I mess with the fittings trying to get the hoses off, the fittings start to leak) This year, I emptied them, cut the hoses between each barrel, then installed a male and female hose mender on the hose between each barrel, so that I can just unscrew the hose coupling and move the barrel for cleaning and/or storage. Don't leave the water in them! It can crack the barrels and it is not worth it! It is also nice to start out the season with nice clean barrels! Paul

I like to know my own rain, one day the airport said we only had a certain amount yet here on the opposite side of town we had a quarter inch more:) I even have two weather station temps set up one on the front porch and one on the back porch just to let me know what the day holds. Front porch is 10o warmer, LOL* Delivery people especially like it when they walk up and find it says 120o. Weather is usually wrong because they do it from 45 miles away. Something fun that was a better forcaster of storms were the water barometers. Pegged a snow storm every time when the forest service didn't. Here is a link that might be useful: Water barometer

We've had about three quarters of an inch in the last two days. We didn't have any ice at all here, but I've been driving to Weatherford every morning this week to work and I got about halfway there this morning and had to turn around because the roads got icy. My car was never meant to handle ice and I'm not about to test it. It's pretty crazy how the road can go from fine to horrible in just a few feet. It's very dangerous. I love the rain but I'm ready for it to be nice out. I have a lot to do before it's time to plant and I'm running out of time. I'd like it to be dry and warm long enough to get everything done and then it can rain as much as it wants. I'd add "but not too much!" to the end of that, but it's not like it would ever do that here anyway. lol Leslie

Carol, During the Red River flooding of 2007, parts of our Mesonet station were disabled for days and days. I think the issue lasted until the worst of the flooding subsided. At some point they went back and manually corrected what records they could, but much data for the Burneyville station for that month is incomplete and considered somewhat unreliable. It drove me nuts. I had to rely only on my own observations! LOL I need a rain gauge that measures 10 or 12" of rain. I don't need it often (hee hee) but once every 2 or 3 years we get 25-35% of our annual rainfall in one day. When that happens, depending on how fast the rain is falling, I have to put on my muck boots, grab an umbrella and run outside and empty the rain gauge when it gets close to the 6" mark so it won't overflow and give an incorrect measurement. In April 2006, we had 9.25" in one day and most of that fell in about 4 hours. I went out and emptied out the gauge when it hit 5", and then I went out and emptied it out again when it hit 4". Shortly after that, the rain pretty much stopped. This year, the 12.4" fell over a longer period of time--maybe 8 hours or so--and I dumped the rain gauge 2 or 3 times so it wouldn't overflow. Based on statistics, we shouldn't have a massive rainfall for another 2 or 3 years, but sometimes statistics lie. "Christmas Day maybe?" LOL LOL LOL Here is what I am thinking. I am about to catch up and I will have one of those days really, really soon. I have two large bowls of tomatoes on my counter to process, so I think I'll roast them and a few other veggies at the same time and maybe make roasted tomato-garlic soup. That takes care of them. Then, I'll pick tiny tomatoes this evening (too hot already this a.m.) and dehydrate them. Then, I shouldn't have to process tomatoes again for 2 to 4 days, although I pick daily. I'll pick okra at the same time I pick little tomatoes, add it to what I picked yesterday, and blanch and freeze that. That's another veggie I shouldn't have to harvest again until tomorrow evening then, and I usually wait until I have two days' worth before I blanch/freeze. I also should have enough purple hull pinkeyes tonight to either cook a batch or freeze one, and then I should be able to skip picking for a day or two because they are slowing down. So, if I can get black-eyed pes, okra and tomatoes all done today/this evening, I shouldn't have to process them again for about three days. LOL It isn't much, but it is the best I can do. That only leaves hot peppers and sweet peppers. OK, so I have a lot of sweet peppers coloring up and I can pick them and freeze them for future use any time. I might do that tomorrow. If I do, it will take me just a couple of hours to pick 'em, wash 'em, slice 'em or chop 'em and get them into the freezer. That, then would leave only hot peppers. I've done a very heavy picking of hot peppers at least every other week since mid-July. At the present time, it has been about 10 days since I did a heavy picking, although I run out to the garden and pick as needed for cooking or canning recipes. So, I might be able to go 5-7 days before I pick hots again since rainfall is low and growth is relatively slow. So, where this is leading to is here: if I pick and process okra, peas and tomatoes tonight (Thurs.) and sweet peppers on Friday, and postpone hots until Mon. or Tues., then I should have Saturday off! Well, I'll have to pick okra, but I can stick it in the fridge and blanch/freeze it on Sunday. So, you see, I might get a day off. Unfortunately, Saturday is our best chance of rain here (about a 70% chance of rain and they are saying it may be heavy) so it probably would be a good day to be inside canning. It is hard to make the 'day off' fall where you want it to fall. I might do all I can on Saturday if it is raining, and try to make Sunday the day off because I love to cook a big family lunch and spend the afternoon watching NFL football. We still need and want rain here, and I think that by the end of the weekend, maybe I'll be able to say we finally got some. And, all my food processing predictions assume the plants will ripen produce as I expect it to. Every now and then, you walk out in to the garden and discover that blackeyed peas are suddenly purple earlier than expected, or the okra grew especially fast overnight or whatever. At this point, I'm just grateful the fall beans, corn, cukes and peas aren't producing finished products yet. As long as I keep up with the still-producing summer plants, I will be putting up a little food regularly, but not huge amounts on any given day. I will have a big green bean and big corn day or two in October if all goes well. I really think the heavy food processing load is lessening though. I'm still doing frequent batches, but smaller ones. When the fall broccoli is ready, that will be a big day or two, but that's some time off. Dawn