Why on Earth does anyone need a rain gauge (other than a cup or bucket)? Are you going to keep historic documentation on rainfall or do you just like to know exactly how much rain fell at your house for conversational purposes? My rule is: If it rains, don't water. If it doesn't rain and plants look thirsty, water! I never lose plants from over or under watering. Keeping historic records on rainfall seems meaningless as patterns vary from month to month and year to year. While one year July may have little or no rain fall, the following year July may produce one half of all rain for the year. Go figure! One cannot calculate rainfall based on historical data and even averages seem to have a great deal of difference to actual amounts most of the time. For instance, in January, our average rainfall is 4 inches yet, in 2002 we had over 6½" and we are lucky to have gotten even 2" in 2003, 2004, and 2005. So if averages have a difference of 50% or more, what good are they? Therefore, I have given up depending on rain entirely! I wish I could just turn my entire property into a giant greenhouse and forget about weather. Everyone complains about the weather but, noone ever does anything about it.

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

Last winter we emptied the rainbarrel more than halfway, figuring there was plenty of room for expansion even if it did freeze. Problem was, the expansion went downwards as well as upwards, resulting in a bowed bottom when it froze. Come spring, the rainbarrel was shot because it no longer holds water. Best to empty it and prevent it from filling again before hard freeze sets in.

Well, it got colder than predicted last night at my house, I should have covered more! Luckily all my potted stuff was in the heated greenhouse. I've had my weather station so long, that that particular model is discontinued. I liked it because it was wireless and battery AND solar powered. There are several really good models out there now. For maintenance on mine, all I have to do is change the batteries once a year and while I'm up there I clean out the rain gauge. The hard part really is just the initial setup and getting it connected to your computer. There's software you have to install too, which connects to WUNDERGROUND and you can get that off the WUHU Yahoo groups page. A good place to start looking for a station is ambientweather dot com, once you find what you like you can google the brand and see if you can find it cheaper elsewhere... Kevin