Yesterday was my father's 83rd bday. One year ago on his bday, our ice storm hit and by this time of the day, hundreds of limbs were down,(One through the thin tin of our mobile into the living room), the electricity was out and a huge limb bigger than my waist fell into the field where we had parked the cars, just brushing the rear bumper of our son's van. This year it can't possibly be as bad for us as we had a metal roof built over the trailer and a carport built, and there just aren't that many limbs left to fall. We also bought a generator and a couple battery operated lanterns to go with the candles and oil lamp. We survived 9 days in our home because we have a wood stove and propane cookstove, but no electricity because the small generator that we borrowed was only big enough to keep the freezers cold, although DH did disconnect the freezers each evening long enough to pump hot water into the house for showers. I've prepared though. Filled several gallon jugs full of drinking water and brought in 2 five gallon buckets of rainwater to flush toilets if need be. Done laundry, charged cell phone, filled woodboxes. Now need to take a shower and I'll be prepared. Right now here in extreme eastern Ok, it is either 27, 30 or 33 depending on which of the outdoor thermometers is right. There is a thin coating of ice on the porch railing and 3" icicles hanging from the roof, although the sidewalk is still just wet. So far we have only had light rain and right now it has stopped. I pray it stays stopped until DH gets home this evening. George, we also cook on our woodstove a lot in the winter, soups, stews and beans mostly. Thanks for the idea of making bread. I ground the last of my wheat yesterday and will make 18 hr no-knead bread for tomorrow. The recipe is simplicity itself. 4 cups flour (I use a mix of whole wheat, 7 grain, and unbleached white) 1 & 1/2 cups warm water 2 tsp salt 1/3 tsp yeast Mix everything briskly in a glass or crockery bowl, cover with a towel and set on the counter overnight. The next morning beat it down and let it rise again--twice. Then oil your hands good and form it into a loaf and allow to rise for the final time. Cook at 375 til done. Great stuff. Develops a bit of a sourdough taste. The 18 hours is an estimate. How soon it will be ready will depend on the room temp. Everybody stay safe.

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

Living in western PA my whole life, the worst weather that I had to deal with was a bad thunderstorm or a lot of snow. When I moved out here to Philadelphia 4 years ago I never thought in a million years I would be sitting smack dab in the middle of a hurricane. When I left work on Friday Oct 26th we had an email to all employees that due to the coming storm we might have to close on Monday Oct 29th. Well sure enough on Sunday night they updated the email and advised that the stock market will be closed. So Monday I sat at home all day watching what would be the worst storm I have ever seen in my life. I am only 27 years old, so I have not seen a lot of what life can offer yet, but I will tell you this storm is something I never want to have to live through again. It was horrifying to listen to 80+ mile an hour winds smack against the house. Everything outside was blowing around like we were in the chamber of a vacuum cleaner. BF and I live in a heavily suburban area elven miles north of the city proper. It is a lovely place with old architecture and lots of trees. But those trees ended up being our downfall. Our bedroom is on the third floor so I was almost in the canopy watching the tops bend almost in half to then stand straight back up and be blown the other direction. It truly is amazing how strong trees are and how much they can take before they give out. But sure enough we did have one give out. A piece of the neighbor's spruce tree snapped in half and fell flat in our front yard taking with it the power and cable lines. By the grace of God it missed the house. Amazingly we had enough slack (according to BF) so that the power wasn't knocked out. But now we had a downed tree with live wires under it to contend with when we went outside the next day. Scary stuff :( Now we are almost a week past the storm and the streets around here are still a mess. A lot of roads are blocked off due to either power lines being down or just whole trees lying in the middle of the street. Some people are just now getting their electricity back after almost a full week. We were fortunate enough not to loose power but I was without internet for almost the whole week. Thank you everyone for your thoughts and prayers. We are safe and slowly coming “back to life”. This truly was one for the history books and something I sure as hell never want to have to deal with again. Here are some of the pics I took for home owner's insurance. Not as pretty as a hosta but testament that mother nature is not to be trifled with. Thank you again everyone, your thoughts and prayers made the difference. Ludi Elegans did sustain some “smashing” damage but she was on her way to sleep for the winter so I'm pretty sure she didn't mind :p

I was glad to read on the other thread that our GW folks in Norman made it through yesterday with nothing more than some landscape damage. I was watching it closely because Larry was driving back from Eufaula and coming into the east side of the metro area just as it was starting to move towards Shawnee. We had to visit the storm shelter around 3 this morning due to a tornado warning for Logan County. There's nothing like waking from a sound sleep and experiencing that "oh no, here we go" feeling when you realize what's going on and the adrenaline (or is just plain old fear?) kicks in. I had watched the TV coverage until around 1 when it seemed to be dying down, which obviously it did not. I don't know if there was ever an actual funnel but News9 was reporting one southwest of us and moving our way. I do know there was a tremendous amount of rain! It will be a few days before I can finish planting the garden, and that's if we don't get more today. As much as I appreciate the better prediction and warning system we have now, I think it raises my anxiety level (a lot) when we're under the type of warning we are today when it sounds like almost a certainty that there will be a significant weather event. Especially after the devastating tornadoes of 2011. And we're in the bullseye in central OK. So I'm going to try and stay busy today to keep my mind off it, but will be paying attention when the warnings start. I hope everyone will be safe today! Suzie