Dawn

I'll believe it when it happens. I think itÂs too cloudy, the humidity is too high, and the wind will not lay down enough for it to hit mid 30Âs my morning.

But what do I know. I just use my ears, nose, eyeballs and a little common sense instead of million-dollar equipment.

randy
An unprofessional guesser

Oh please, not again.......my forcast calls for 33.
I sure hope you are right Randy.

WindsurfGirl

Randy,

I do agree with you. You know how I feel about us knowing "our" weather better than they do....but I just wanted everyone to know what the guessers were saying!

If I was really worried, you know I would be out throwing sheets and buckets and stuff over what I can.

Our humidity is really high, we've had a nice sort of misty rain falling (yippee!), the wind is still blowing hard and we have heavy, low clouds, so I'm guessing we won't go much below 40, even in my cool microclimate.

And, we're going to miss your presence at the swap tomorrow. I hope Daddy's little gymnast has a great day!

WindsurfGirl,

Doesn't seem fair to have to go through it all over again, does it?

I'm more worried about you out there in western OK as the cold is coming out of the west/northwest I think. I hope your 33 ends up being more like 38 or 39!

See you at the swap tomorrow!

Dawn

Thanks Dawn

The top 12 teams in the state competed tonight. She was chosen to compete on 3 events. All three of her scores counted toward the team score. She had the 2nd highest score on bars out of about 150 girls in the level 4 competition. The top three scorers on each event made the all-state team.

Her team is the 2004-2005 Oklahoma State Champions.
Now that sheÂs got that over with, she can compete tomorrow as an individual in all four events and have all the pressure off.

Everybody travel safe and have fun at the swap!

randy

Randy,

It didn't even come close to being "too cold" here last night! It is 44 degrees at 6:30 a.m., the wind blew all night and the low cloud ceiling stayed. In fact, it is thundering right now, so maybe it will rain. Our professional weather guessers were way off here, and I hope you all were as lucky!

Well, it sounds like all the practice and hard work paid off for your daughter and her team members. I am so happy for them and proud of them! I know y'all must be thrilled with how well they did on Friday. I hope she enjoys herself today and does well in her 4 events. You'll have to let us know how it goes. : )

We'll eat a hot dog for you at the swap!

Dawn

Dawn

It bottomed out at 38 here, so that means the surrounding area was low 40Âs. IÂm glad they missed it this time.

I donÂt mean to dog them too much. They do a great job most of the time. Without there initial guessing, I would really be in the dark about what to expect here.

Last night was the hard part of the competition. She competed against the best in all of the age groups of level 4 on someone elseÂs equipment. Beams, bars, and even the floor have a different feel from gym to gym.

Today she will only compete against the girls in her own age bracket. Last night she got the cake. Today she goes for the icing

randy

Well, it got to 34 with patchy frost. I stepped out just at dawn and there was frost on the sheets covering my front flower beds. I'm glad I went ahead and covered everything I could. My DH helped me and it took about 2 hours. I finished just about dark.....Please let this be the last one! Well, I better get going. Gotta go uncover things and pack for the swap!

WindsurfGirl

Doesn't appear to have gotten as low as they predicted here either. At 2 a.m. it was still 46 degrees. Whew. Ok, gotta go lug the citrus trees back outside.

Randy-congrats to your daughter! What a wonderful accomplishment!

WSG-glad you got everything covered and safe.

Everyone have a great day at the swap!

~Heidi

For anyone who cares, according to my weather radio's daily trivia posting for today, the latest it has ever snowed in Oklahoma City is April 30th, so I guess we're "safe" now from snow anyway!

Maybe last night was our last brush with temps in the 30s??? So, now it is spring and all we have to worry about would be: severe thunderstorms, hail, tornadoes, straight-line wind damage, flash flooding, drought, heat waves, insects, poisonous snakes and other wildlife, and prairie wildfire. Did I leave anything out?

Dawn

Dawn

I never worried much about straight-line winds until July 2003. We had some well over 100 miles per hour according to the television. I stood in the garage and watched my greenhouse the whole time. Had a bad scare when lightening hit a tree on the other side of the greenhouse. From my vantage point it looked like a direct hit on my vent for the heater.

The wind was howling so much and I was so freaked out about the lightening that I never heard or felt this Shumard Oak drop onto our circle drive out front not 100Â away.

You getting any of this rain? There is a 1/4" in the gauge so far here.

A little footnote. Daddies Girl wrapped up the season on a very good note. She received silver on bars, silver on beam, and bronze for All Round.

randy

Randy,
Congratulations to your daughter for her big wins. When she's in the Olympics we'll be able to say "we knew her when"!

We had 94 mph straight line winds on the night of Memorial Day 2001. They caused us considerable damage including two trees down in our Koi pond. The storm hit so fast we didn't have time to get to the cellar. We learned the real meaning of "Rock n Roll" that night! This also followed only five months after the "Ice Storm of the Century". I really believed it was time to move, because who knew what Mother Nature was going to throw at us next!

Wolflover,

So do y'all still live the same location, or did you move after that?

Randy,

Congratulations to your daughter on her outstanding performance this past weekend! AND congratulations to the parents who are nurturing her talent! I was hoping you'd report back to us on how she did on Saturday!

Ouch! I hate to see a tree that size brought down by the weather. Especially since Shumard is one of my faves.
I have learned to fear straight line winds after seeing the damage they can do!!! The worst winds I can think of that we have been hit with since moving here in 1999 were in the 60 to 80 m.p.h. range. Try walking in wind that is blowing that hard!

One night the wind hit our house so suddenly and so hard that it felt like a truck had hit the house! Woke us right up. I know it was in the springtime, because we had to get up in the middle of the night and move all the garden transplants from the screened-in porch to the house, as the temps. dropped rapidly.

The second time it happened, we had a derecho expected, according to the weather guy on t.v., who was right for once. At about the time we were expecting it, we went outside and walked down the driveway to the street, so there wouldn't be any trees to block our view. It was so strange. Everything was deadly still and quiet...and then here it came. You could hear/see it coming. Within a few seconds the far-away howl of the wind and the intense rustling of the trees hit us. It was amazing. I guess we've had derechos since, but that was our first, and was so dramatic. That wind came rushing down to us and past us like a freight train.

I had never heard of derecho winds until we moved to Oklahoma, and I lived my whole life in the Fort Worth area, so its not like I lived in a place that didn't have severe weather.

Yes, it is raining VERY LIGHTLY here and I am so glad!! We need it desperately, and they say it will rain lightly most of the day. I checked the rain gauge just now and it appears that we have received a whole 3 or 4 one-hundredths of an inch. Isn't that pathetic? I don't know when we last had a good rain at our house. All we're getting this year is light, drizzly stuff that doesn't amount to much. But maybe if it rains all day long, we'll end up with a tenth of an inch or two. I feel like we live in a bizarre Bermuda-triangle area when it comes to the weather!

Dawn

Thanks Dawna

The Olympics in 2012 is her goal. She understands itÂs also the goal of 10,000 other girls and it will remain only a dream unless dedication and hard work are a part of the goal.

IÂve been very supportive, but also down to earth about it. ItÂs something she has the talent to do, but it takes more than talent. Good coaching, support at home, good work ethic, and a lot of luck play major roles in this goal of hers.

The parent in me worries a lot when you listen to the elite gymnasts talk about what it takes and the injuries they "all" have to suffer through. I do my best to hide it and try to play the tough guy, but it melts away pretty quick when you see your baby laying on the mat after a hard fall on an apparatus. SheÂs had her share of twisted ankles and bruised thighs.

When the active participation part of her life is done, she wants to coach.

It seems like you have had more than your fair share of weird weather.

Dawn

Shumard is one of the best performing oaks in central Oklahoma in my opinion.

My neighbor planted that row of trees 38 years ago. That one will be sorely missed. It shaded part of our house from the afternoon sun. Hopefully the two on either side will fill in the hole some.

Hope you get more rain. The gauge here has about .55 - .6 " in it right now.

ItÂs 42 degrees here. That worries me with most of my tropicals outdoors now. Extended periods of cool wet weather is something they donÂt like.

randy

Randy,

Well, then, I must be a "tropical" as I don't care for extended periods of cool wet weather either! How bad would the weather have to get before you would decide to move the plants back inside, or, would you even do that? (It snowed in Amarillo last night or today! Not that we have to worry about that happening here!)

I love, love, love Shumards. I think they are the best looking trees on our property, but most are still fairly small. I do have one huge one on the edge of the woods and it has fall color that is so wonderful. I have transplanted tiny Shumard saplings in the fall from the edge of our woods to the lawn area around our home. I moved them when they were 12" or 18" tall. That was 4 years old. Now one of them is 12' tall (in sandy-clay soil) and the other is about 7' tall (in heavier clay).

BTW, sounds like your little gymnast has a good head on her shoulders and good guidance from her folks. You'll have to keep us posted on her progress over the years. Maybe one day we'll be watching her on TV.

Has rained all day in its own sad misty way, and the rain gauge still is sadly almost-empty. The professional guesser on my favorite local station assures us we will have heavier rainfall tomorrow. Well, I'll believe it when I see it.

Dawn

Dawn

It would take about three days to move my tropicals back into the greenhouse. Once they are out, thatÂs it till fall :-).

Most tropicals can live through a dip as low as 30 degrees that doesnÂt last more than two to three hours. It takes a while to do massive tissue disruption in the branches and stalks. You can extend that time another hour or two if they are misted down heavily right before it hits 32. Ice is an excellent insulator. I remember seeing nature shows of native people living in the artic in igloos. The temps were 50-150 degrees below zero outside, but right around freezing in their icehouse.

Although I have permanent benches built in the shade house, I have to tear down benches in the greenhouse and put them up outside for the plants out there.

I ended up with about .7. I would like more, who wouldnÂt

randy

Randy,

Thanks for the explanation on how much cold your tropicals can take. I didn't know how much, if any, cold weather they could tolerate without tissue damage.

I know I have seen people in Florida and California turn on sprinklers in their orchards when freezing weather is expected, as even the ice that forms from the sprinkler water will help protect the fruit. But I wasn't sure if they were salvaging only the fruit by doing that, or the trees too.

Well, if you ended up with .7, that is about .55 more than we ended up with. Maybe tomorrow will be a rainier day for both of us. If it is going to be cold and cloudy and gloomy I'd like to at least get some real rain out of it.

Dawn

Dawn

Some of that is personal experience, but a lot of it is from conversations with commercial growers in the Rio Grande Valley. Some have unheated greenhouses they use for propagation, but a lot of them field grow tropicals for landscape plants in that area and pot grow for wholesale in temperate climates.

ItÂs going to get cold here tonight unless the cloud cover returns. IÂll probably be wetting things down about 4:00am.

randy