George, Like Carol, I heard that Cherokee County was extremely hard hit. I was trying to type a response to you last night and our internet service went down in the middle of the heaviest sleet of the day, which fell here after 7 p.m. Miraculously, our internet service is back up early this morning, and so am I. I feel really bad for Jerreth, having to hold down the fort alone in this mess, but you know that she is a very strong, capable and self-reliant woman and she will be fine. (Would you expect any less from your better half?) You, on the other hand, may be in the doghouse when you arrive home from warm and sunny Mexico. LOL (You probably shouldn't say much to her about this trip, except to talk about how very, very, very hard you worked down there while she was home in "a winter wonderland". It wouldn't hurt to mention you were thoroughly miserable about being away from her at such a time and that you wished you'd been home to help her deal with the weather situation.) All I can say is that the timing of this trip worked out well for you, if not for her. If there is anything that we can do from here to try to make contact with your family or to find out further news for you, let us know. You know that we are your gardening family and we'd help in any way we could. I am praying that Jerreth, the home place and all the family are fine in your absence and that you remain safe and well also. I don't think Ilene has been online since the ice started falling, so I suspect either her internet service is down or the power is out. I hope she and the rest of our gardening family are doing OK in this horrid ice storm. George, this is the absolute worst ice storm I've ever seen. I know that EMSA responded to almost 500 calls for medical assistance, and hundreds of those were for people who slipped and fell on the ice. In many places, freezing rain and snow fell first and made the outdoors a vast skating rink. Luckily, many of us then received either sleet or snow on top of the ice, which actually helped by covering the slick surfaces with something that gives feet and tires a little traction. DS was at work at D-FW Airport last night and was responding to a report of a vehicle hitting a pedestrian when his ambulance slid and crashed on a bridge. Then, a city of Grapevine Fire Truck responding to the same accident crashed on the same bridge and then 2 more vehicles crashed. Thankfully, no one was hurt, except (I presume) the pedestrian hit by the original vehicle. I am just glad DS was not driving the ambulance, because the airport is never happy when someone wrecks a vehicle that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Of course, when you have to work in the worst of weather, things like that happen. Busy1, We have containers of water stored, although now that the stuff has stopped falling from the sky, I am hopeful we will not lose power. Last night, I thought it was about to go out, but it didn't. I feel lucky to still have power when so many others do not. I think it is marketing genius to raise green tomatoes for the "frying" market. It wouldn't surprise me to hear that people specifically request them all summer long. That could be a very special market niche that is great for business. I hope y'all come through the storm OK too. Our roads are a disaster here, and we won't get over freezing until this afternoon, but no one, to my knowledge, has lost power in our county and all the accidents have been minor ones of the sliding off the road type, so we're truly blessed here in Love County. And, only 0.07" of stuff fell here, officially, so it really wasn't enough to break the drought, but then I didn't think it would be. Stay safe and warm everyone. I'm gonna go start a "check in" thread so we can keep track of everyone and know that they are OK. Dawn

Moni, It was one of those on-and-off warnings. One day they thought it would hit us hard, and then another day they said it would go farther south and then they came back and said we 'might' get 1" to 4" but they were leaning more toward the 1". So, here we sit with over 6" on the ground (I haven't measured it lately) and more falling. The problem is that the forecast models were all over the place, and the meteorologists had to decide which model or models they had the most confidence in. A lot of them chose the wrong one! LOL It is a wet snow and our temps have hovered between 29 and 32 degrees all afternoon, so some of it has melted even as more has fallen. It is quite lovely but I hope it goes away soon. My Dixondale onions ship next week. All the birds in southern OK are currently eating out in the yard.....we're having a wild bird convention with everything from goldfinches (several dozen of them at three finch feeders) to cardinals, blue jays, blue birds, starlings, black-capped chickadees, doves, sparrows, crows, grackles, etc. There are birds everywhere. I need to go outside and let the 'garage dogs' out to run and play. I've been letting them out for about 15 minutes every couple of hours all day long. They like the snow, but they don't like it for long. I'll measure the snow while I'm out. Down in the D-FW area, I believe today's snowfall makes this the snowiest year since sometime in the 1970s. I know sleet and snow flurries have fallen in the College Station, TX, area and than across parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and into northern Florida. They should have real snow in some of those places tonight and tomorrow. Every day it seems like someone in the USA is having snow, and I guess this is the southern states' turn. Dawn

Diane, Poor little Nellie. Glad she's recovering from the heat exhaustion and so sorry to hear about the tonsillitis. It's not easy being 4 years old. The cure for anything at that age? Popsicles! Ice cream! Jello! Pudding! (Well, if I was an overheated 4-year-old OR a 4-year-old with tonsillitis, that's what I would want!) Your hubby is able to tinker and fix and build anything, I think, which is great! The folks at the electric company are already hard at work calculating how much their profit is going to rise....and it is all coming from your pockets! I don't know what's worse in the summer: watching the electric bill skyrocket when the heat arrives or watching the water bill creep higher and higher when the rains don't fall. Plants are just going to burn up in this heat. What are you going to do? (sigh) Sometimes you can't water them enough to save them (even if you try). Last year I lost one shrub in a row of shrubs. Undoubtedly it was because of the drought, but I'd watered them all the same. The others made it and that one didn't. I guess I probably should be grateful only 1 shrub died. At least a cold front is coming although, of course, the use of the word "cold" is relative. For us, it will mean perhaps an 8-10 drop in the temperature on Sunday from Saturday and, of course, if that happens we'll be thrilled....but we'll be plenty hot even with the 8-10 degree drop. Dawn

The NWS has updated the New Ice Storm Warning, as of 2:22 p.m., to include 7 more counties. The areas added include Lawton, Chickasha, Seminole, Shawnee, Purcell and Norman. At the rate things are deteriorating, I'm starting to wonder if it eventually will reach us way down here in south-central OK, where our forecast still only includes rain. Y'all stay safe and be careful. It seems like the impact could be severe if too much freezing rain falls before the snow arrives. News9 is forecasting higher ice accumulations at this time than other central OK stations are forecasting. That worries me a bit on behalf of all of y'all. I assume everyone in the area is making the last minute grocery trip for supplies. Here is a link that might be useful: Expanded Ice Storm Warning