Hi Dawn

I got a lot of twigs and branches picked up. Mowed, and weeded. Never got around to digging more bermuda, thus the plants I bought in New Mexico will have to be in pots for a few more days.

Just looked at local radar, and figure, we have about another hour before it hits our area.

Just wish, our airconditioner would have come on today (guess we need a repairman). We miss the dry climate from New Mexico. :)

Moni

Moni,

I hope tonight's storms don't hit y'all too hard.

I know you miss the dry climate in New Mexico, and I bet you're missing a certain tiny little granddaughter too.

The humidity here has been rough lately, but I think it will get better for all of us after tonight's/tommorrow's storms pass.

They told us to expect the storms after midnight here, but if you aren't going to get it for another hour yet, then we may not get hit until quite a bit after midnight. I suppose it is wishful thinking to hope the storms will miss us.

Stay safe!

Dawn

It's raining, it's pouring....there's white water rapids outside my door....

I've got the front door propped open trying to capture some of that rain cooled air.

I had a thought about us earlier, do you think we are the only state forum that has this many weather threads? lol.

Lisa

Thank goodness I cut all the flowers for tomorrow's graduation bouquet a few hours ago, nothing will be worth cutting tomorrow. However, my kitchen is full of ants now!!

The graduation is for a small homeschool group, two boys I think. Poor things, mostly what I had was baby pink peonies! I threw in some baptisia, but it really looks like a baby shower bouquet!

Lisa...who never misses a chance to post a pic :)

Lisa,

When I was reading the "White Water" thread, I was wondering if your gorgeous peonies were floating downstream, petal by petal, so I am glad to see you cut them before the rain arrived.

Your flowers are so gorgeous, as always! I love seeing your photos. The boys won't care about the flowers being pink--they're graduating!

We might be the state gardening forum with the most weather threads---but is it any wonder? Surely we are the state with the most volatile weather? It is hard to be a gardener in every region---we know every region has various weather and climate challenges. Honestly, though, does anyone else live in a state that has baseball-sized hail and tornadoes in their forecast 5 out of 7 days all spring long?

If you listen to the daily weather forecasts in Oklahoma during severe weather season, you'd be tempted to give up on the ideal of even trying to garden here. Luckily, a lot of us are hard-headed and go ahead and try to garden any way. You can't let a few little things like huge hail; high winds; tornadoes; severe thunderstorms; destroyed plants, buildings, trees and power lines; recurring flooding (day after day after day); washed-out bridges and roads; etc. stop you from having a beautiful yard and garden. LOL Of course, we all know what follows rain in our gardens.....mosquitoes and other pests, fungal and bacterial diseases, and mounds of fire ants popping up all over.

And, sadly, once summer arrives, the weather will be a lot more boring.....sunshine and heat, sunshine and heat, sunshine and heat for days and weeks and months on end. That's why my favorite months in Oklahoma usually are April and October because they are fairly mild (and warm--not hot and not cold). Of course, the rain started in earnest here on April 29th, but we won't hold that against April.

Finally, it isn't just the gardeners who are being driven crazy by the weather. Down here in southern OK, the poor marina owners and other business people located on the shores of Lake Texoma must be pulling out their hair.

After the epic flood damage that occurred in 2007 when the lake reached 640' and water began flowing over the top of the Denison Dam, they have spent so much money to rebuild and remodel businesses destroyed in 2007.

The new Highpoint Marina Cafe is a case in point, and the name "cafe" might be misleading because it is a large restaurant. Anyway, they just opened in a brand new building built to withstand flooding (to a certain extent) a couple of months ago. This week, though, they began moving out all their furnishings and equipment, hoping to save it from the impending flood. One of the managers said "yes", they did build it to withstand flooding, but they didn't expect to be flooded the first year.....they figured the eventual flooding was way out there down the road some year. Instead, here it is. And, of course, while they are closed down, they're not making any money.

And it isn't just the business owners. The parks and campgrounds are flooding and damaged and we taxpayers pay to repair those, year after year after year. Well, all those Texans who spend their summers at Texoma (on our side of the lake too!) help pay for the campground repairs with their entrance fees and tax money too. At least at both our area lakes (Lake Murray in Carter County and Lake Texoma), the Texans outnumber the Okies 10 to 1, but that's all right--we'll take their tourism dollars !

Dawn

That was pretty much the last of the peonies. I left a few on their bushes, but they are all in the mud now!

Actually, everything looks pretty good. I figured I'd see more damage, the rain was so hard last night.

Lisa