Susan, Well, I don't think I am qualified to say much about the use of the heater. I hate having a space heater running in a house because I've been to so many housefires over the years blamed on space heaters. However, if it is UL-listed or certified or whatever phrase they use to show it meets the UL safety rules, it probably would be OK. Before you leave it on in the laundry room all night, be sure that there's nothing on a shelf or cabinet or on top of the washer or dryer that can be knocked down onto the heater by a person or pet. I also am assuming you have good, working smoke detectors in the house, at least one fire extinguisher and a 'fire escape' plan that you and Kenna have discussed and practiced, and also that y'all have a designated place to meet outside the house if you both escape a burning house separately. I may sound paranoid, but I've been to enough house fires with our fire dept. to know that the unexpected does indeed happen and the best possible outcome occurs when folks are prepared for the unthinkable. I hope your pipes don't freeze, and I hope your heater behaves itself and keeps the laundry room warm enough to avoid trouble. Inevitably when cold spells like this occur, there are more house fires, and often there also are barn fires and even doghouse fires when heaters or heat lamps ignite bedding or walls that are too close to them or something, so it pays to be extra-cautious. Dawn

Betty, It is just so bad, isn't it? Just a minute ago I was looking out the kitchen window and my sunflowers were wilting in the oddest way. They are very tall (over 10') but the stems weren't wilted and the leaves weren't wilted.....only the flower petals were wilted. They looked so bizarre. Hopefully they'll perk up after the sun goes down and it cools off. Existing tomato flower blossoms will drop if they are not pollinated within a certain time frame because they do not stay viable for long. However, cool weather will bring you new blossoms that should be viable and which should set fruit. We have several days of cooler weather ahead, so our tomato plants should set more fruit during that time. Dawn

Dody, Welcome to the forum. You did just fine. Watering the roots is all you needed to do. The plant will pull up moisture into itself overnight so all you had to worry about in terms of frost was to cover up the plants before frost settled on them, and then to uncover them in the morning so they wouldn't roast in the sunlight. (They roast more quickly under plastic sheeting or buckets than under a textile type cover that allows air flow.) I was watching football all day yesterday too and can't even remember why I clicked on the weather map at the Norman NWS page, but when I did, I saw the Frost Advisory and said something like "Uh oh" although I might have used a 4-letter word or two. I watch the spring and fall weather very carefully here because all it takes is one cold night....... Jo, You are welcome and I'm glad I happened to see the Frost Advisory because I wasn't necessarily expecting it. You know how closely I watch the weather here. Our very first year here, we had an early frost on Sept. 29th and it was a very hard frost. I had about 3 hours warning and had huge, tall tomato plants covered in tomatoes. I couldn't cover them all, but hastily built a 'hoophouse' type structure out of leftover lumber and 6 mm plastic sheeting to protect them. (I had to run to the store and buy that plastic and since we are not particularly close to any stores, that was a 1-hour round-trip.) Anyway, near sunset it just seemed too cold to me and I didn't have a lot of faith in that temporary hoophouse, so after watching the 6 p.m. news, I ran outside and threw a couple of blankets over the top of the temporary hoophouse, and then dragged bales of hay (I only had 4 square bales and wished I'd had about 12) up close to serve as extra insulation. Everything that wasn't covered up died, but the 6 or 8 plants I covered up survived that night and a couple of other ones and I was still picking tomatoes from them weeks later. We haven't had a hard frost that early since then, but it sure taught me to be aware that we could. Dawn

Rebecca, I believe in listening to one's gut instincts. They are rarely wrong. Amy, I know they do. It can be hard on them though. We always leave the front porch light on for them. I don't know how much it helps, but sometimes I see them perched near it early in the morning. They were eating yesterday like there was no tomorrow, and already are engaged in feeder wars to see who owns which feeder for this year. I have five feeders up and we have lots of hummers, so there is a constant feeder war between territorial males. I might need to put up a few more feeders. Bon, Yuck, that is too cold. I thought I was dying from the cold yesterday morning when I went outdoors in 43 degrees. My body has gotten too used to morning temperatures in the 50s and 60s, so the low 40s felt especially unpleasant. Nancy, They've been here since about mid-March. They usually arrive here at the end of March, so they were a bit early this year. I would think they'd be close to arriving up there, unless the cold nights have caused them to hold back and stay further south. Normally we have ruby-throated, rufous and black-chinned hummingbirds. This year so far, I've only seen the ruby-throated. They are particularly happy with the coral honeysuckle, "Pink Lemonade", which they prefer to the feeders, because it is in full bloom. They keep buzzing around the mimosa tree, trying to find an open flower, but it isn't blooming yet and it doesn't normally bloom this early. I guess they are just being impatient. Every day when I am out in the garden, listening to the hummingbirds and the bees, the purple martins, the frogs and the mockingbirds, I am reminded how many lovely sounds Mother Nature surrounds us with on a daily basis. Well, that is, when the roar of the wind through the trees isn't drowning out all the other sounds. Dawn