Still raining and thundering LOUDLY and lightening strikes all around the house. This hill is like a lightening rod. It's dark outside, like twilight. Very noisy thunder. I still haven't gone outside. Raining too much and the lightening is dangerous. I was out one time when lightening hit a tree about 15 ft away. I was watering a rose with the garden hose. My hair stuck straight out in every direction and the boom knocked me on my rump. My dog Benny a half Dalmatian - half Great Dane, was in his pen just on the pother side of the wire fen where I was standing. His pen was where my potager-rose garden is now. The lightening split the tree and it died. I dropped the garden hose, grabbed Benny and we went inside as fast as we could. I left the water running. DH did not believe that it was lightening. He did not really believe my story until the tree died. When the bark started falling off, you could see the burned area all down the tree trunk where it split. WHen he cut it down we found the core was fried. The odd thing about the whole thing was it was not storming or raining. There were a few rain clouds, but no thunder and there was not another lightening strike. I have been told by many of the old locals that this hill has always been a place where lightening hits are abnormally high. One old feller said, "It's that old Iron rock in the soil. A'tracks the light'nin like a light'nin' rod." He was right. It does. We have lost 6 Elms since we moved here in 1996 to lightening strikes alone, and one old gigantic Elm had scars where it had been struck repeatedly. My neighbor told me that tree had been struck over and over and scared the bejeezes out of the former owner lady. A heavy ice storm finally brought it down,...right on top of my car. Swell. Annie's refrain: Here I sit on Lightening Hill Who could blame me cry my fill; Every strike a tree will kill; Johnny's gone and it's stormin'. - A.D.S. ,June 2010 ~Annie

I am getting things potted up for the swap. I am focusing on bringing a smaller number of larger trades this year. I stopped by a nursery to find some cheap pots and talked them into selling me some of their 6" square pots (probably about 1/2 gallon ones) for $.20 each. Last year Oakland Park had nice 4" ones for $.09 each, but they didn't carry them this year. So far I have rhubarb, chocolate mint, lemon balm, spiderwort, lamb's ear, evening primrose, Golden Tiara hosta, misc. var. hosta, and Michaelinsis daisy potted up into 1/2 gallon or larger pots. I also have quite a few small starts of Penny's Worth daylily, a nice little daylily with yellow flowers. It kind of looks like a miniature version of Happy Returns. I also have plenty of tomatoes. I have about 60 varieties started this year. Some I only have a few of, but many of them I will have extras of to bring to the swap. We will be potting up some other things to bring as well. We usually bring the dogs into Columbus with us when we visit. But I don't see how they will fit in the van with all of the plants. It looks like we will have to leave them with friends for the weekend. We are looking forward to seeing everyone on the 15th. James

Probably in August I will pay someone to push them into piles, or cut them into pieces and use my tractor to grapple them into piles for winter burning. The ground will not be dry enough to support large equipment for many weeks. Thirty were uprooted and the rest snapped off 2 to 20 feet high. These are all old native trees that we recently had thinned around and just got ready to manage this year. That's the way it goes. I don't feel to bad about it because before I got down there to see it I had been under the impression that the damage was widespread. I guess it all depends on how it compares to expectations. I admit to having tears in my eyes when I first found out. I have invested so much time and money into that place. The wood is almost worthless. Pecan in this area has almost no value. This might be one of the highest density pecan tree areas in the country.

George, That sounds like Tim and I. We usually try to fix things with duct tape until it cannot be fixed any more. stockergal, We have sunshine this afternoon and it is gorgeous....kinda hurts your eyes though as they haven't seen it in so long. The photos of the storm damage are astounding. One of the things that is so bad is that damage just keeps happening week after week after week, with cities, counties, companies and individuals having to repair first one thing and then another, and you never catch up because as soon as you repair the damage from one storm (or, even before you get a chance to make the repairs), here comes another storm with more damage. This week on our evening news they kept showing the rising water at Lake Texoma as it began to flood buildings...the same ones it flooded in 2007. Deja vu. My only comment on that is that if I had a building that flooded, I'd rebuild it higher afterwards, in case another flood comes along in, oh, another 8 years. I guess lakeside businesses think that they won't get flooded again, but they have....and not even a decade later. Molly, I'm glad that one missed yall. That is too close for comfort. I think we have had more tornado warnings in our county (which, historically, hasn't had a lot of tornadoes compared to most other parts of OK) this spring than we've had in any other year since we moved here in 1999. I'd like to have a year where we don't have to go to the shelter a single time, just to make up for having to run to it so many times this year. Dawn