Hi Jan, It is good to see you here. I'd been wondering how y'all were doing up there since last year's horrific drought. I don't know how you grow anything there in 'No Man's Land", and I am sorry most of your pasture didn't survive. I hope you continue to enjoy the garden and the break from school. Summertime seems so much shorter to me now than it did back when I was a kid. I'm glad you're getting tomatoes and happy to hear this year is better for you than last year. To me, nothing says 'summertime' like a juicyy, fresh-from-the-garden tomato. I wish I could send you some rain because we've had plenty since the end of May. It isn't that we have had huge amounts of it, but we are on track to have at least an average year. Even in an average year, the summertime droughts are brutal, but an average year will seem wet compared to last year. Our rainfall last year was about 22" and our average is about 38-40". Right now we've had just over 20". At this time last year, we'd had maybe 10 or 11", so it feels like we're wet, wet, wet, but then you know how the sun evaporates the soil moisture so quickly. An El Nino weather pattern may be developing, and if it is, I am glad and am hoping for a good, strong El Nino. I don't know what El Nino does for the rest of Oklahoma, but in our part of the state it usually means good winter and spring rain. Wouldn't that be lovely? When I look at the Keetch Byram Drought Index Map, I am shocked every week by how dry the panhandle remains. I don't know if y'all ever are going to make it out of drought. Now that I mentioned the KBDI Map, I'll link it. Not only are y'all really dry, but so is a big swath of southeastern OK. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Keetch Byram Drought Index Map

I'm sure that others have also seen the big signs up over I-40 going into OKC that say "Extreme Fire Danger". I had to yell at my grandson's wife yesterday, and tell her "don't you dare throw that cigarette out!!" Sheeeeesh!! I am seeing some greening up of the grass around here. A couple of the lower fields around the Canadian have significant stands now, so that's really encouraging. And I saw a fellow up by the freeway putting up a field of square bales that looked like alfalfa. Too green to be anything else. It seems awfully late for it, isn't it? But any hay at all is a good sign. At least he didn't lose the field. Any improvement at all is better than none. Pat

The state drought map for OK is linked below. It is hard to see it on the map, but about one-third of one-percent of OK is back in D-2, Moderate Drought, this week. It is down right along the river and the Lake Texoma area and includes a tiny portion of my county, and I do live in the portion of the county that is back in Moderate Drought. I hope the rest of y'all can join us back in Moderate Drought soon. Actually, I hope by Christmas maybe all of us will be out of drought if we have a good, rainy autumn. And, in case you're thinking that making it to "Moderate Drought" means we have plentiful moisture, well....no we don't. Most ponds are still very low (if spring-fed) or empty (if they merely catch run-off) and the cracks in the ground haven't budged. However, we're having some good green -up in some places, though not so much in others. A lot depends on if you're looking at annual plants (many of them just flat out dead and not greening up) or perennial plants, which were only dry and dormant and now are sprouting green growth. In the tiny portion of Love County that received 3" of rainfall last week (most of the county had less than an inch), we have weeds and grasses sprouting everywhere. That's nice to see, though geogrpahically it is a pretty small area--maybe a couple of square miles. Here is a link that might be useful: Oklahoma Drought Monitor 8/28/2012

I've been watering too. I planted several rose bushes and other bushes in the early fall, so I knew they needed more water. Not looking forward to my water bill. My sewer charge for the next year is based on my water usage for Nov-Jan, so if I water a lot in the winter, I get to pay extra for it all year long. :(