Marda, To answer your question, you're not dreaming. The event you're remembering was the Children's Blizzard of 1888. The children died in South Dakota, I believe, where the temperature dropped from a few degrees above freezing to something like -20F in a matter of a couple of hours. There's a book on the subject with the same title that I read a couple of years ago. Digging back into my memory bank from when I took meteorology in college, the whole area of the American plains has what is called a Continental climate which basically means extremely low temperatures in the winter & extremely hot temperatures in the summer. There is very little there to block weird movements of low & high pressure systems that can cause these extreme variations in temperatures that can happen with frightening swiftness. George, I'm glad that you didn't lose any trees & the biggest inconvenience you experienced was a loss of power for a while.

Those suckers were fast, lol. I couldn't count the legs but I just looked up earwigs and I think thats what the one thing was under the pots but I will leave them alone unless they start doing a lot of plant damage since it said they eat aphids and spider mites, lol. I have no idea what the shiny thing was. I believe it was a spider. I hosed that one off since it appeared to be closing the top growth possibly with a web. I just noticed something didn't look right about the tip and was looking for buds and out he ran and went under the leaves and disappeared. I just caught a glimpse and thought it was odd that he looked like two balls of mercury stuck together, lol. I used to break all the thermometer when I was little and push the little mercury balls around. My mom used to get so mad at me, lol. Considering the heat and no rain most of my plants look pretty good but just no blooms on the brugs. If I remove the seed pods on the tacoma stans yellow bells will they keep flowering or should I leave them to go to seed?

After researching, found out these are Box Elder bugs and as they mature, they turn black and red in color and I think they fly though I haven't seen one in the air yet. I sprayed them with 2/3 parts detergent to water and it killed them instantly - it gets to their nervous system that quick. Not sure that I got all of them though as I saw just a few roaming the same front garden today. Apparently, we didn't have a large infestation, but I did see one in the backyard garden where no mulch was spread so those suckers must be prominent in this area. I hear they get into the house through cracks and crevices. But, they won't enter here as long as I can help it.

CONGRATS!!! It is soooooooooooooooo exciting to see a new bird, and especially one as gorgeous as the Blue Grosbeak. I have lived in the South all of my life, and I have seen one of them. I was living just SW of Atlanta at the time.~Angie