#%&*@#!!!!!

DRATZ!!!

Ezzirah,

Your reaction may me laugh.

I know that none of us want this kind of weather, but we sure as heck need to know when it is in the forecast. I think one reason that so few people died in last week's tornadoes is because the forecasters had warned us for a week that it was coming.

I do think early warnings save lives.

One of the old-timers we met after moving here told me about looking up once and seeing his then-teen-aged-son (a man who is now in his mid-70s, so this was long ago) running across a pasture with a tornado looming in the distance behind him. The whole family barely made it into the shelter and pulled the door closed before the tornado passed over them. I think that we, by comparison, are so lucky to have the watches and warnings instead of being 'surprised' by the sudden appearance of a tornado like they were way back then.

Dawn

Yes Dawn it looks like today, tonight and tomorrow are our best shots. Last night wast the best all week and we just missed it by a couple of miles. We had one of those 10 and 1/10th storms last night. 10 inches of lightning and one tenth of rain. Hopefully more in on it's way. We've been getting enough to keep things wet. My sinuses and allergies have been ok for this time of year. An I escaped all winter without the flu. But came down with a spring cold or something yesterday. Being in the doughnut hole does have it's advantages. Campo, CO to the west had 4-5 inches of hail on the ground over the weekend. Hoping everyone can escape the bad weather the next few day. Jay

We have been fortunate in the past to miss damaging spring weather, but we took a large hit last week. We lost between 40 and 50 trees in a long strip through the orchard. Most of these trees were 80 years old and very productive, but about 2/3 of the trees in this "strip" of damage are still standing with little damage.

The good news is that all of the downed trees had very good loads of pecans, so that means the standing ones will hopefully give us a good year. 40 trees is significant (especially cleanup work) but when you have about 500 to start with it is not as big a deal as it would seem.

A lot of people have had worse recently so I can't complain much. Hopefully we all get through these next few days intact and then summer weather gets here and we can dry out and get on with our work.

Scott,

I am sorry to hear about the tree damage. I know that 40 or 50 might not sound like a lot to someone who has over 500, but it sounds like a whole, whole lot of trees to me.

Did the trees come down completely? I mean, you know, were they blown over, uprooted or broken off? Or, did they just lose most of their canopy?

I would absolutely dread having to do that much clean up.

Dawn

scottokla
"The good news is that all of the downed trees had very good loads of pecans, so that means the standing ones will hopefully give us a good year. 40 trees is significant (especially cleanup work) but when you have about 500 to start with it is not as big a deal as it would seem."

Kudos to you for seeing the glass half full!

Scott, what do you do with wood from 40 trees???? That part boggles my mind.

I'm sorry about the loss, but I hope you have a fantastic pecan crop!

Lisa

Isn't pecan wood great for smoking meat or for barbecuing? I think it is!

By the way, I said I'd come back here and update the TorCon after Dr. Forbes did his afternoon forecast, and he has, so I will.

For southern and central OK, the TorCon forecast is an "8". That's the same number he gave northern/northcentral OK last Monday and y'all know what happened that day.

I expect tomorrow might be another bad day.

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.

Scott, Too bad the wood isn't worth something.

Our soil, like yours, is very wet and mucky. Being clay, though, it can dry up in only 2 or 3 weeks if no more rain falls. Right now we have ponds that normally don't exist but they're drying up a little bit every day. The Red River is running pretty high right now.

I hate seeing big trees of any type come down....it is hard to see decades worth of growth just wiped out.

I am really sorry to hear about your trees. I guess what I was wondering was if there was enough of a tree left to do some grafting to rework the tops. I suppose since they're old natives, they wouldn't be worth that much work and effort.

Dawn

The only good news is that the remaining trees will do even better now with the extra space, and I will probably let some new trees start growing if the open spaces are large enough. In just (LOL) 15 years I might start getting a few pecans from the new trees.

I was thinking that if you let new native pecans come up in the newly opened areas, that at least some day your kids or grandkids will be walking under those trees. We have some young native pecan trees on the north side of our house that are about ten years old. So, I guess in about 5 more years, they might start thinking about bearing pecans?