I am in OKC and we are still snowed in the house, but thankfully we never lost power. But man, what a mess this is..I don't think I will be able to get out of the house today or tomorrow, but it does give me time to plan my garden!

Thank you for your concern, truely this is a nice board to belong to!

Here in Tahlequah we had at least 1/2" of ice and perhaps 7" of snow. But I don't believe any limbs came down at our place. I know they did at a friend's house. Power stayed on too. We always pray for our line men and road crews when the weather is inclement. Theirs is a tough job.

It's really cold, perhaps 18 F. So caring for our animals is a challenge. Apparently, yesterday morning, our Great Pyrenees got out on the road and hit by a car. I think he's going to be alright. But he's very stiff. Before I could figure out what was the matter, I thought that, perhaps, he had taken a chill (no way!). So I "drug" him in the house and had him lay down next to the wood stove so we could towel him off. It looked like we had brought a bona fide polar bear into the house, he's so big!

George

Well, my husband got out. He left about 10 minutes ago, to drive to the gym. I wish, his work out would have been clearing the driveway. LOL

Moni in Edmond, with snow on everything

is it spring yet? im ready to start planting seeds!!
atleast its nice and warm in the house!!

We're fine here in OKC. My aunt and uncle live near Lawton and their power went out so the whole family is here at our house. In total we have 6 humans, 2 large dogs, 1 small dog, 1 rabbit, 1 turtle, and two very grumpy cats at our house!

Two inches of ice on the ground with anywhere from 4 to 6 inches of snow on top of it here in Goldsby. Gary England says more moisture possible within the next week. My concern for now is how I can I get the garden ready for the onion and leeks sets that will be arriving in about 2 weeks. The garden will be so wet that I won't be able to walk in it much less get it pre-fertilized and hilled up to set onions. This time last year, it was all done and waiting for the onions to get punched into the ground. I wonder what size bundles Dixondale will send us this year?

Bob

Safe and warm in Grove and the snow has finally stopped. I don't know what the actual total is but I have a platform where I use my dutch ovens outside made of concrete blocks with a cap on top, and I can't see the bottom two blocks at all. The picnic table has at least a 10 inch build up and even vehicles under the carport are snow covered. I am going to guess that we had 10-12 inches.

We are fine in northwestern Greene Co., Mo. We ended up with 7 inches of snow but no ice.

We've got about 8 inches here. Didn't lose power but did lose the TV signal last night. DH got out this morning in his 4 wheel but I'm not going anywhere yet in my van.

Glad to hear everyone's warm and inside.

Mandy

ezirrah011, I agree. This is a wonderful bunch of people we have here. Being snowed in isn't so bad, you know, 'cause it is just to cold to be outside there anyway.

George, So sorry to hear about the dog. I hope it makes a full recovery.

Feeding/watering the animals was slow and time-consuming this morning, and it was just a relief to finish it and get back inside the house before my fingers froze.

Moni, I agree with you. My DH has the idea that if he just ignores the snow it will melt away on its own....eventually.

Jeff, No it is not spring yet! LOL It isn't even Groundhog Day yet, and I'm pretty sure the groundhogs will predict 6 more weeks of winter. I am SO ready to start seeds too. For me, the first round of indoor seed starting is 8 days away--Super Bowl Sunday--and I can hardly wait.

Tigerdawn, What a houseful you have today! Tell the grumpy cats to just get over it. I don't know why cats pout and sulk so much, but they surely do. My cats are mad the whole time that snow/sleet/ice are on the ground.

Bob, Y'all got a lot of ice and snow both there. My onion bed is ready, but it is so wet now and I don't know how it can dry up enough before Dixondale ships in mid-Feb. We have the same type of moisture in our forecast that y'all have there, although I think you probably have a higher percentage chance of actually getting the rain.

Based on the winter weather thus far, I'm expecting a very rainy spring and early summer, and that's not necessarily a good thing. Although summer moisture is wonderful, it is hard to plant and get things off to a good start with too much moisture at planting time.

I've been wondering about the size of Dixondale's bundles too. If they 'supersize' their bundles like they did last year, I'll have a lot of onions to give away because I'm not going to plant 6 or 8 times as many as we need just because they overpack their bundles. I guess we'll know in a couple of weeks, won't we?

Carol, All that snow must look beautiful. I am amazed at how hard and fast the snow fell there at your house once it finally arrived.

Have y'all watched this storm as it has moved on across the country? I still think the Texas panhandle and western/southwestern OK really took the worst of the storm damage, although there is a whole lot of damage as far east as Paul's Valley, Lindsey, Purcell and Ada. They are showing lots of snow/sleet/ice on the news today from Arkansas through the Carolinas, Virginia and Washington D.C., but so far I haven't seen the same type of massive power pole/line and tree damage that parts of OK and TX have.

Dawn

Hi all, been staying with my daughter and GD cuz my heat is not working. Having to replace the entire unit on Monday. Right now it is 44.7 degrees sitting right smack dab in front of the electric heater. Got the electric oven on in the kitchen, but it is definitely cold. Will go back to my DD's house sometime this afternoon.

Cats are okay fed them each a can of wet food, and put out 3 big bowls of dry food and 2 huge bowls of water. Got home and fed them wet food again. My old boy, George, is sitting right at my feet in front of the heater. He has arthritis and does not appreciate the cold at all. Hate to leave them, But Jess cannot have cats at her house due to her asthma.

We did not lose electricity so that is a huge plus.

Glad to hear all are okay, and George, so glad to hear your Pyranees is okay, too, and am sure the warmth of a wood stove is just what he needs. They don't always know what is good for them. I am such an animal lover I hate to see an animal in pain.

Haven't seen our outdoor strays yet, and hope they are okay, too.

Susan

Beautiful here today. Bright sun and no wind. Snow is melting. Already 33 and rising fast. NWS had said 6 above for last night. It got down to 12 briefly at 4 am and then the W/SW light winds started and by 7 was up to 18. I've been out and about this morning. Took the yard stick along and never found any snow over 6 inches deep except for a few drifts. Most 4-5. But as much as 13 inches not far from us. We were on the northern and western edges. Did get a few inches on the garden. So should get at least a little moisture as it melt. Streets aren't bad here and melting. I think by tonight there will be lots of melting.

I'm hoping for rain is a few weeks.

I'll be waiting for the report on the size of Dixondale's bundles as most of you will get them 3-4 weeks before I do. Mine are supposed to arrive the middle of March. The ground is ready. Just have to shove them in. If this week gets as warm as they say and I don't see something real cold in the near future will pull back some of the mulch over the garlic.

Most of the ice damage I've heard about has been south and east of here. Fortunately this area escaped that. And I hope those affected by it get power back soon.

Hope everyone has a great weekend with beautiful weather like we are enjoying. I'm going to try to catch up packing seeds. A nice job while looking out the window. Jay

I thought we were going to drown - it rained more than anything here at the Lake . . . I had water just standing out here on the ground; then yesterday about noon it turned to snow.

Hope every one stays warm.
Melissia

Here in south Tulsa county, we got about a half inch of ice and 6 inches of snow. Heat stayed on. It's a beautiful day--though cold. I've been watching the birds feed just outside. The cardinals are so beautiful against the snowy background.

I planted asclepias currassavica seeds today. Got the herbs started earlier this week. I now wish I had done more winter sowing as this is a great winter for growing seeds outside. We don't always get enough cold, moist weather.

I won't leave the house until tomorrow.

Take care--no falls on the ice!

Sandy

We got about an inch of ice Thursday, then maybe four - five inches of snow on top of the ice Friday. We have MAJOR damage to all of our trees. I think every pine tree (over 100) has lost most of their limbs, except for the Scotch pines and Austrian pines. The Black Japanese pines got hit extremely hard and I figure we will lose most of them. I would be more devastated about it than I am, except they got hit by pine wilt nematodes last summer and we lost seven trees to that. I'm sure what the ice storm doesn't kill, the nematodes this coming summer will finish off. Such a heartbreaker as the pines were one of the main reasons we bought this house/property in the first place...

We lost electricity for twenty four hours, but had a generator and were able to keep the house heated and have TV, the refrigerator cooled, and the aquarium pump running. We've been having power bumps all day today and hope the power stays on. Our animals survived the ice storm pretty well.

George, I hate to hear about your dog. Hope he makes a rapid recovery. Susan, hope you get your heater fixed soon. What a time for it to go out!

Almost an inch of ice and I'm guessing at least 4 to 6 inches of snow here in the yard. Lots of drooping and broken branches. The Cedars are almost comically bent over, like Dr Seuss drawings. The Mulberry dropped a huge limb on the conservatory, but I'd already pulled the tender plants out the night before, so I didn't loose anything but a couple of fiberglass roof panels. The poor Elms took it especially hard; the older the tree, the more of the crown that was lost. I don't see how I'm going to be able to save some of them. :^(

This section has lost electricity three times, but the gallant CVEC linemen have managed to get power restored within a few hours each time, even in the middle of the night. My DD got a picture of them Thursday evening, before the ground had even frozen; the trees had started to ice over and drop limbs, and they were on it.

We heat with a wood stove, and have plenty of coal oil lamps and lanterns and a favorite board game, so we were fine. Last night we cooked supper on top of the stove, which went great once we got the hang of poking the fire to keep a hot spot under the pan. Still, it was nice to be able to turn on the hot water (electric water heater) to wash with instead of heating a big pot on the stove.

Now I'm off to finish chores while the light is still good.

Wolflover,

I am so sorry to hear about the trees. I knew your county got hit pretty hard, but was hoping that it somehow missed y'all....or at least didn't do too much damage. I cannot imagine having all the tree damage to clean up once everything thaws out.

Have you chosen a type of tree to replace all the pines lost to the pine wilt nematodes? I love Austrian pine but we lost a lot of the limbs from ours in a bad ice storm in Fort Worth in the mid-1990s, so I haven't been brave enough to plant one here where the ice storms are more frequent.

I'm glad you had the generator to maintain some semblance of normalcy, and hope the power stays on. Our power flickered on and off all day yesterday, but they were only momentary outages that lasted mere seconds. I assumed that was occuring because our power company's power comes in on large transmission lines from the west, and I am sure those lines had icing issues out there in western OK.

Melissia, Your mention of drowning made me stop and think. How much more water can all the creeks, ponds, rivers and lakes handle? It was a pretty wet autumn in most of OK and now we're having a pretty wet winter. I sure hope this isn't going to lead to a flooding type of spring. The list thing we need here in this state is a repeat of the spring/summer of 2007.

Sandy, Staying home is smart! The farthest I've gone from the house today was just to walk down the driveway to the mailbox.

Jay, We'll be sure to post about the onion bundles. I just have no idea what they were thinking last year!

Dawn

Dawn,
You are so sweet to check on everyone!! You have a good heart. I am close to Grove so we also got quite a bit of snow. We never lost our power (thank goodness) but my husbands parents and grandmother did along with my mom. It was out thru the night so it wasn't so bad. My husband's grandmother said it got down to 60 degrees in her house yesterday am. But power came on for them and warmed back up.

I noticed today when I went to check the mail that the snow had melted considerably. I am glad to hear that all of you are doing well.

George, I hope your dog is doing good. Those dogs are so big!! I've thought about getting a puppy for my kids bcz I heard they are good with kids and good protectors. Anyway, hope yours is ok.

The snow was just beautiful though!! Ready to get my seeds going indoors under lights.

Dawn, our pond has been FULL for a while now - so full that ANY time it rains, it flows over our road. We dug it a little deeper last year because it had dried up a couple of times. So it's deeper and still over flowing - The lake is normal elevation, I try and watch it on the news pretty regular, but it wouldn't take much to flood, I wouldn't think, since every thing else is full. I hope we don't get the 12" in one month like we did last year - or a flood like 2007.

George, I sure hope your dog is okay. . . we had an English Mastiff (he died last Thanksgiving) - he weighed 220 lbs and DROOLED like you've never seen, but we loved that dog.

In Lawton, power seems to be gone on 1/2 of the westside of town. They are now saying Wed before power is back on @ most of our friends. DH spent the whole day out cutting frozen trees & will be at it again in the AM. Lots of people who have husbands deployed & such, he is trying his hardest to help as many as he can. For the most part I think we are making out pretty well. DH even managed to get all the sides of my greenhouse put together!
Everything being sold out is a HUGE pain. I am sure it will be several weeks before the stores are stocked back up. We were able to get a generator, but we can't get lots of basics. No one in town even has bar oil for the chainsaw!
Christina

I was out of power from 6 pm Thurs to 1 pm Fri. I have major tree damage.
Lots of people still without power. I feel fortunate to have it, but sad for my trees. Had freezing rain on Thurs and most all day on Fri. I don't think it will EVER be dry enough to plant a garden. sick of it. I will have a generator before next year.!
Mo

We got 3/4 in of ice Thursday eve and overnight, which bowed down lots of branches, but only broke one major limb on an old redbud tree with a rotten crotch. Then Friday got 6in of snow and went to 14 F overnight. DH and I went for a walk today and found small bare spots in our south facing block long driveway despite the fact that there was no sun at all today and the temp only got to 26 F. But the ground was still warm from our two weeks of above average temps.

After all the damage last year we were so apprehensivefor our trees. Many old oak trees lost half of their branches and several trees broke in half. One hackberry at least 40 inches in circumference broke in two and just grazed the porch and broke out a redbud and half of a dogwood. We were without power for 9 days and phone for 6. But this year we escaped, to our great relief because we still have hundreds of limbs on the ground and trees with their tops laying on the ground.

DH and I walked the road looking for deer tracks crossing but saw nothing. Only saw bird tracks, nothing else. Well except the dog tracks. They went for a run with us. Except for that brief excursion out, we stayed in the house, ate beef stew cooked on the woodstove and 18 hr no knead bread, and then took a midafternoon nap.

Fed the birds twice. Saw a flock of about 12-15 juncos for the first time this winter, along with 16 Cardinals.

Checking in from N. OKC, I'm here!!! I had to work Thursday and Friday, so I've been out on the roads every day. I'm sure I got at least 6 inches of snow here.

We went to the movies this afternoon and then I headed up to the church bldg to help clear the parking lot. Fortunately men with plows and a tractor were found before I had to spend too long doing that :)

Then I headed to a friend's house to fix her internet....and then finally made it home.

The roads aren't great, but they aren't horrible horrible either.

Lisa

Not bad in the Bartlesville/Dewey area, mid-Washington County. Thin layer of ice under about 7" of snow at our place. People are getting out and about. Trees are all ok. We are grateful that we missed the worst part of the storm.

George, I hope the dog's ok.

We're all staying in, no need for us to be out. Been trying to keep food out for the birds, but out of little sunflower seed now. I put some suet out I had in the freezer, made from Glenda's recipe. Got a huge crowd of some kind of black bird -- I thought grackles but they seem to be not as big or as shiny black as I thought grackles are supposed to be. They stayed right at it and ate the suet completely gone, wouldn't let any of the cardinals or sparrows feed. And they were really noisy. I hear that same chirping noise on summer nights, coming from the evergreen trees in the park so that's where they nest I guess. I don't seem to be able to attract much here but those and sparrows, except for one cardinal and his mate and then there's a house wren and the hummingbirds that come in the spring.

Looks like warmer weather expected next week, hopefully will melt all the white stuff. I'm not much of a winter person and this weather kind of gets me down.

There IS still time to wintersow. I put another jug out yesterday. Packed snow inside it to give it a jump-start.

So sorry to hear about possible flooding and all the icing over and power loss. Hope everyone will be extra careful and able to stay warm and safe.

Melissa,

We always have a storm check-in thread after tornadoes, ice and snow storms and massive wildfires. If I hadn't started a check-in thread, someone else would have. I think we all like to know how everyone else made it through the weather madness.

Melissia,

Did you have to mention the miserable 12" rainfall day (LOL)....really, almost 13" here.....12.84" officially. I hope we never have a day like that again. As happy as I was to see enough rain all to stop the wildfires and refill the ponds, there was a point where I just started wanting the rain to end before people's homes flooded. We had very little flooding here because most people's homes are on higher ground....the places closest to the river are pecan groves or bottomland wheat farms or cattle pastures. Who would have thought enough rain would fall in 1 day to refill empty ponds?

After 53" of rainfall in 2009, I was hoping for a drier 2010 (though not a droughty one!) but the weather patterns are setting us up for an El Nino spring and possibly summer before El Nino retreats enough into a neutral phase that the rainfall will settle down. That's why I think we might see 2007-style flooding again.

I'm not as worried about the onions because they'll be fairly high in a raised bed. The potatoes, though, go into a trench 8" deep, so a very rainy year could be hard on them. Last year I lost my potatoes three times to either a late freeze or heavy rains. I replanted and replanted and replanced. Even so, I still have potatoes from the 2009 harvest in the root cellar, though not many at this point.

Mo, Sorry to hear about the tree damage. It is so discouraging to see ice storms bring down trees that have taken years to attain their height and size. That reminds me....after the bad ice storm a couple of years ago, one of the columnists in The Oklahoman compiled a list of trees that handled the ice best. I'll try to find it in my clipping file and post the list on this forum in case anyone is having to plant replacement trees.

Dorothy, Our deer didn't come out to feed until about 3 p.m. yesterday afternoon. Coyotes have been hanging around the feeding area at night, so the deer have shifted to eating in the afternoon here.

Lisa, Glad you made it home. I would have hated to drive on those roads after the ice, sleet, freezing rain and snow fell. Good timing on the parking lot clearing too!

Christina, I can tell your DH is a great guy! Assembling his DW's greenhouse and also finding time to go out and help others.

By the way, please tell him we appreciate him and his service to our nation.

I never thought about chain bar oil being 'sold out' but, of course, in these circumstances, I guess it would be. We almost always have a big container of it in the garage, but I'm going to check it today and make sure it is full and buy more if it isn't full. It is the little things like chain bar oil that we all don't think about before an ice storm. I hope the stores there get an 'emergency' shipment of it in soon just like they did with the generators.

Ilene, I agree there's no reason to get out if you don't have to.

We bought a 50-lb. bag of BOSS right before the storm and it is going quickly because we have hundreds of birds here eating nonstop all day long. I hope they don't get too spoiled during this storm, because we are not going to put out an all-you-can-eat BOSS buffet every day.

There are lots of birds that we generally don't see around here too much (Grackles, crows, redwing blackbirds, starlings and brown-headed cowbirds(their bodies are black) plus all the usual winter songbirds, including tons or American Goldfinches at the finch feeders and the usual 2 or 3 dozen cardinals that visit us daily all winter long. We've also had huge flocks of robins....more than just the overwintering ones, so I think the migrating ones may have decided to stop and hang out here a while before heading further north.

While the birds are eating heartily, they are not consuming birdseed at nearly the rate they did during the colder Christmas Even storm period. Of course, we went down to 6 degrees during that time and here our low has been in the 20s since the storm hit, and that's quite a difference.

The Weather Channel shows a Mon-Tues storm system (small one) moving across the Great Plains and coming dangerously close to your corner of the state, with a little rain and/or snow possible. Hopefully it will stay further north!

This morning, we have freezing fog. Tim just arrived home from work a few minutes ago and insisted it was 'snow' even though I had told him we had freezing fog. He thought it was too heavy to be freezing fog. THEN, a few minutes after he got home, we heard a conversation between a couple of police officers on the emergency scanner saying that snow was falling north of Marietta. I still think it is only freezing fog, but guess I might feel differently if I was out driving in it. Freezing fog does stick to everything it touches...just like freezing rain.

Dawn

Ilene, this am after I put out the birdfeed, I heard a flock of birds chirping and saw at least 100 blackbirds flocking the feeders and the suet cake. They ran all the other birds off. I usually see cardinals, sparrows, titmice, blackcaps, wrens, and downy and redbellied woodpeckers. I guess they have to eat to, but I can't afford to feed them.

Yeah, they put that suet away in a matter of minutes! I broadcast the last of the sunflower seed yesterday out on the yard and now I'm throwing out the small stuff I had bought to attract finches last year. After that, I guess we're down to bread crumbs because I'm not going to buy any more. The way those black birds eat, I just hesitate to put the last of the suet there. Like you, I guess they have to eat, but they looked plenty fat to me. I can't think of any way to rig something up so the other birds can get to it without the grackles or whatever they are hogging everything. Broadcasting seems to help but I'll have to thaw out the suet cake and crumble it to make that work.

We're still doing fine here in NE Ark! I'm so relieved! :) Last night the temps got down very low, 4 degrees at it's lowest. But today is sunny and bright and everything is melting nicely (at 30 degrees, even!). The highway looks clear from where I can see it, now we just need the secondary roads to melt off alot today before the temp drops again tonight.
From now on I'm just going to check with you guys when bad weather hits. Our weather channel (not THE Weather Channel) is stuck and STILL showing that snow is coming! You'd think they'd fix that... LOL! Ya'll have more accurate information, anyway. :)
Hope all is well with everyone!

Beth

Hi Beth,

Maybe they are having technical difficulties at your weather station?

Stay tuned for more weather later this week....I think all gardeners watch the weather more than non-gardeners do.

We're expecting rain in many parts of OK this week and it could turn into snow for parts of northern OK. More freezing fog is expected in many areas tonight.

You know, one hot and dry day in July or August we'll be wishing for some moisture, but right now, enough is enough....except up in the NW, Jay and Jan still need for more rain to fall in their areas.

Dawn

Dawn,
Yeah, I think they are... and we're thinking they had the same problems after last year's ice storms too. Memphis is saying that we only got one inch of snow too! Very wrong! They're saying we're only getting rain, with temps close to fifty near the end of the week... we'll see what actually happens. :)

Beth

The OK Mesonet is a great system but sometimes it has glitches too. Within the last month or so I was looking at the temperature map and you could tell one station was having issues with their temperature sensor because a county in NW OK was showing a ridiculous high temperature for the day of something like 137 degrees or 153 degrees while the rest of us were in the 40s or 50s. They later go back and hand-correct bad data like that.

I bet after our county had the 12.84" of rain in one 24-hour period last April that there were some people looking at our rainfall total online and thinking it was an error too, but it wasn't. During the extensive flooding along the Red River here in our county in 2007, our mesonet station was out of service for a couple of weeks. I assume it was at least partially under water. It was irritating to not have instant access to weather data because I am so spoiled and so used to having it.

With all these automated weather stations and their data available online at our fingertips, we expect to always 'know' what is going on with the weather, and sometimes those automated systems fail and leave us hanging.

I know my grandmother and grandfather kept a weather diary for many years (decades!) where they carefully recorded their high and low temperatures from an actual thermometer on their porch and also recorded their precipitation and wrote brief notes about the weather and the garden crops. They used all that info to help them make planting decisions in future years.

I do take the mesonet station data with a grain of salt because it is several miles northwest of us and sometimes differs quite a bit from the weather we have here. Our NWS co-operative weather observer is just a mile or two from our house as the crow flies and his weather readings are virtually the same as ours most of the time.

By the way, we have sunshine here this morning and I am so thrilled to see it!

Dawn

Well it's not Sat. but I'm here and warm we never lost power and ate way to much, being snowed in got me in the baking mood. Hubby did break his ankle on his mail route Fri. a dog was loose and was growling and barking at him so he was walking backwards so he could keep his eyes on the dog and he walked right into a water meter hole that the lid wasn't covering all the way. That ole dog laid by my husband until I got there to take him to the ER. Then when we got done in the ER he wanted to go find the dog to make sure he wasn't left in the cold so now we have a new dog.

Jeana2009,

You husband certainly had an eventful Friday and the dog is so lucky that y'all adopted it and brought it home instead of leaving it there in the cold.

At least y'all are warm and safe (and well-fed LOL).

Does the new dog have a name?

Dawn

I have been calling him Stormy.

Cute name and very appropriate! LOL

Finally back home after a temporary fix on my heater has it running again. Hope to get seeds out now to everyone promised. Sorry for the setback here.

Got my seeds from Remy (Sample Seeds), of Salvia subrotunda, a red flowering subshrub Salvia, that is supposed to reseed here, Frank's Extra Large Dill, a dill that is supposed to be super tall, about 6-10', so wanted to try it. Dill doesn't generally like our hot summers, so usually wilts when it gets hot, so will let you know on this one, Salvia coccinea 'Lady in Red', Nicotiana sylvestris, Phlox paniculata New Hybrids, and Victorian Dwarf tomatoe. Will start seeds this week.

On Austrian pines, I have two. One is about 20-25' tall, but very fat and squat, the other is about 12-15' tall. They have never lost any branches to ice or other elements so far. But they are so thick, the branches are so heavy and thick, and none of the lower branches have been removed either. I can't foresee them ever going down in a storm because of their sturdiness.

Tiny Mama Wild Kitty came up for food yesterday finally. She is so precious. Very small, predominantly white with black spots. We hope to get her spayed this spring or summer (an effort of us neighbors) as she has become more used to contact with humans now and will come to us and let us pet her. Took a very long time. Wish someone would adopt her and Zena, the male Manx, who is very friendly and sweet.

Kenna has been very sick with diarrhea, vomiting and chest congestion. I've never seen her down this long. She usually springs back after a couple of days, and it has been 4 or 5 now.

The black birds discussed are probably Starlings. They love suet. I have had them on my suet feeder quite a lot, and of course, they tend to scare the other birds away. I have never seen the Cowbirds which don't come to my feeder or suet. They scrounge on the ground for food. especially food dropped by us humans. We had tons of them at Leadership Square when I worked there, because people would drop scraps of their lunch, etc.

The grackles don't come to the feeders either. However, the Eurasian Collard Doves will come to scrounge on the ground for seeds or pieces of suet dropped by other birds.

I wish I had my little white-breasted nuthatches back, but think all those sparrows scared them off, too.

Have a nice day everyone!

Susan

Susan

Glad you got the heat back on. So, if this is a temporary fix, I assume a more major repair lies somewhere down the road? I just hate it when HVAC systems act up because they usually turn into a major expense.

Your seed varieties sound interesting. My dill doesn't routinely wilt here even in very hot weather, and perhaps that is because my clay soil holds a lot of moisture.

Mama Wild Kitty sounds adorable. It once took me about 3 years to tame a feral cat enough that he would let us pick him up and carry him. We had him neutered and adopted him and he lived happily ever after with us until he passed away at the age of 18. We now have two younger cats that used to be feral. One is our Maine Coon Cat, Fluffy, and he is beautiful and just so sweet and loving. The other is Yellow Cat (or, as my old rancher friend calls him 'Old Yeller Cat') and he is not exactly feral anymore but not exactly tame. He is tame with humans and loves to sit in your lap and be petted etc. However, he pretty much hates our male cats and tries to kill them every chance he gets. (On the other hand he adores the females and doesn't bother them.) To keep our cats from warring constantly, Yellow Cat has a nice fully-enclosed 'cat yard' that is about 4' wide and 12' long and he stays in that all day while the other cats are out. When the other cats comes in at mid-afternoon, he's allowed out of his cage to roam snd play for a few hours. Yellow Cat comes inside at dark and sleeps in the weight room which is kept closed and cat-free (except for him). I think Yellow Cat would be a great cat in a one-cat family, but he does OK with us as long as we don't let him out with the other males.

Has Kenna been to the doctor? With many people here who have had swine flu, it has started out with the diarrhea followed by the severe chest congestion, etc. I've never seen our adult son as sick as he was with the swine flu last summer. Tim is just now starting to show the same symptoms as Kenna and I think he is coming down with the flu.

Have a good day too. I hope Jess is feeling better this week!

Dawn

Susan, Glad your home and hope you get a permanent fix for your heater. We have a vet here that spays and neuters dogs and cats on certain days of the month for free, you might have a vet around there that does that or half price.
I ordered some vegetable seeds from Sample Seeds and I got them fast and a free pack of sweet banana peppers.

Jeana

Jeana, yep, I got a free pack of Verbena tenuisecta, or Moss Verbena, which looks lovely on the Internet. Had to check them out and have a looksee.

We are having her spayed by a local vet that charges a minimal fee and we are sharing that expense so it's not a lot of money. Our concern is about keeping inside somewhere until she heals and before she can roam the streets again. I already have 4 cats which is the maximum by law in OKC. Our newbie baby, Cuddles, has been so onery today! He jabbed a claw into the Chlorox bottle sitting on the counter, and it began leaking everywhere. I was frantically trying to pour the remains into another empty bottle and wiping up the floor at the same time so he wouldn't get into it. He just sat there about 2' away and was mesmerized by the slowly dripping liquid, like he thought he had done a way cool thing! Brat!!

Dawn, I was thinking the same thing and if she is not significantly better tomorrow, I may just go get her and take her to the ER myself! She doesn't have a regular MD - oh, these kids!

Susan

Susan

I hope y'all figure out what to do with the feral cat after the surgery. I bet you could get away with keeping it at your house (if you have a dog crate or cage to keep it in so it won't wreck the house....some formerly feral cats aren't very good at behaving themselves inside).

I didn't want to scare you by mentioning the swine flu, but her symptoms fit it and kids have been hit extra hard by this type of flu. A member of another forum mentioned a couple of days ago that his adult cousin (no pre-existing medical conditions) passed away unexpectedly after contracting swine flu and showing symptoms last week, and that kind of reminded me how quickly this kind of flu can kill someone. It is scarey.

Dawn

Dawn, if she's not better today, she's going to the doc. I has spoken! Jess said she was better last night, so let's pray that she continues to improve. My concern with it possibly being H1N1, is that Jess is pregnant and they have been really hit hard by that flu as well.

I heard at one time that the regular flu shot may offer a small amount of protection against H1N1, and we never did get the H1N1 immunizations because they were so limited at first and it took awhile for them to become available to the general population. You had to have a chronic disease, be pregnant, or child to be eligible for the doses first distributed in limited supply, and that seemed to go on for weeks and weeks. I think Kenna probably picked it up from one of our hospital ER trips, even tho she is exceptional at washing her hands and using the hand cleansers. She learned it between home and school, where they actually were required to purchase hand cleanser to keep in their desks in the classroom.

Wild Kitty is not really "feral" in the true sense of the word, but it would probably be difficult for her to suddenly be thrust into an indoor situation for sure. Hopefully she would only be confined for a couple of days before releasing her to the outdoors again. Are we saps or what???

Thanks for the input and will keep you posted on Kenna's progress.

Susan

Susan,

I hope Kenna is feeling evern better today than she was last night. I was worried about Kenna being sick while Jess was pregnant just as you are. (But, don't you remember being Jess's age and feeling like you were bulletproof? I know I felt that way at that age.)

DS and I had swine flu in May or June 2009 and it was awful. He had it first, and then his fiance' and I came down with it at the same time. Tim never caught it from us or at work but I think he has been fighting it off (perhaps successfully) for the last three days. There was a point where it seemed like every single officer in Tim's dept. either had swine flu or was coming down with it (and their kids and spouses had it too) and he expected to get it too, but he never did. I guess all those years of running marathons and 10Ks have helped keep him in near-perfect health.

We are saps. Every cat and dog (except one) we have is a 'rescue' animal and it is hard for me to turn my back on a dog or cat that has been abandoned. Most dogs that get dumped 'in the country' die of starvation or after being hit by a car or they are shot by a farmer/rancher when they team up in packs and start killing chickens, goats, colts or calves. Most abandoned cats don't fare much better. We and all of our neighbors each have more cats and dogs than we need and no one has the capacity to take in one more, but people continue dumping them in the country and the poor things continue to die. It makes me so sad. Our county doesn't even have an animal shelter and you have to pay $50 to leave an animal at the nearest shelter in the next county, so people just drive out into the country and dump them. (Those people deserve to be caught and punished!)

Keep us posted on sweet Kenna's health.

Dawn