Boonevillle, Ny....we getting a few flurries but nothing bad. This is about the normal time for up here only a week or so early. Isn't NY life grand????But soon we leaving. 18 months ago I married a W.V. girl (i'm 56, her 49) and moved the dixie chick north. After spending all the time I did driving to WV to visit before marriage I can't stay here much more. The wife hates the cold and snow. Its nice not to have to fight the cold for 6 months there. Everything is cheaper there. I believe I've had enough of this "way-to-regulated" state. Sick of the cold here. You may clock us OUT OF HERE in APRIL 2007. Flowers are going with me. It snows in WV maybe 10" all year.

Yuck Penny, we got the same I saved as many plants as i could, hope the brugs make it... too damn early for this stuff!

Good Morning to all

Penny....I am so afraid that you might have really gotten hit with this nasty storm......sure hope you are ok......and that you still have power!

I just got off the phone with my daughter in East Arora....she has 6 inches on the ground but she does have power......school is closed and all the neighborhood kids were starting to arrive at her door.

School was to have a big rally and dance tonight and they had planned to see the Sabers play tomorrow night in Buffalo.

At least she has power and she is very grateful.....way too early for a snow day!

Jean

WE'VE GOT SNOW!!! Boy do we! I only just got electricity after not having it since last night. So of course I had to run onto gardenweb and see what the locals have to say about the storm. But of course most of you probably don't have any electricity either.

I ran around in the snowstorm yesterday bringing in my houseplants, so they're ok. I thought, "Tomorrow I'll dig out my tender plants, like cordyline, black taro, brugmansia cuttings, etc. Ha! It will be a couple of days before I can see them, and they will certainly be dead by then.

So here's some of my snow pix - 18 inches! I measured.

I just can't BELIEVE there is so much snow already!

My brother is in Roswell Park in Buffalo getting chemo treatments and got snowed in. They are without power and trees are blocking the streets so the plows can't get in. My brother and sister-in-law are staying at the American Cancer Society house on Best street and are not sure when they can get out. There are others that are extremely fragile at the house and need medical attention desperately. My SIL is the only one with a cell phone! It's quite a situation for them.

The snow is a little early and makes it hard to enjoy the Fall but those pictures sure are beautiful . Sorry to hear about your brother HerbalBetty, I hope things improve for him . NY life is grand Lillium guy and you will be missed !

Hope you all have power restored by now. My parents in Cheektowaga are still without power. Estimates say it could be as late as Sunday until it comes back.

We were lucky, only got 6 inches of snow. Lost power for about a day and a half. The house gets mighty cold with no heat! All of our appliances are electric, including the stove. So we ate nothing but peanuts and crackers for a day and a half. Yuck.

The garden is a mess, though. Storm aftermath

Tracy

I was one of the lucky ones in the South towns ... only got a dusting of snow and power was only off for 18 hours.

The rest of my family from Kenmore/Tonawanda ended up coming out to my house for heat and water, so we had a party. Their trees are just demolished ...

My 2 sisters in Kenmore are still without power today ..

Penny, how are you?

Pam
S Wales, NY

Think we got at least 2 foot here in West Seneca...without power for 20 hours which wasn't too bad...but lots of people have it way worse...so much for my get together with Penny and Remy today lol...the tree damage around town is unbelievable...And Tracy Congratulations on the wedding sounds like everything went great!

Hi Husky

Are you also assuming that Penny is still without power? Have you actually heard from her by cell?
After this many days it is certainly not a fun situation. I feel so sad for her.

Jean

Hey all I just got power back. We had it off and on yesterday but the puter kept going off or timing out so I couldn't send email or post. I have a huge limb from the neighbor's yard down and across the lines to our house. I am not sure what lines it is going to. We were without power for 4 days. We still don't have heat though as the basement flooded and the furnace was under water b4 we could get it completely bailed out with buckets. DH and his uncle spent the whole evening until 10 last night trying to get the water logged furnace out of the basement. I have watered down oil spills from the basement through the dining room, kitchen, mudroom to the back door where it was leaking out of the furnace. Needless to say we have to replace the furnce so we Hope to hzave heat no later than Thursday or Friday. Aside from that mess we made it ok with all our primitive camping skills and supplies close at hand. I still don't have reliable email so if anyone has emailed me I can't get to it but the phone (landline) is working although there is static. A generator purchase is in our future at some point even if it is only used to keep the sump pump running. We kept the refrigerator completely closed off and only ate canned goods such as tuna, chef boyardee, and soups. Our stove is gas so we were able to boil water and to heat up canned goods but the oven didn't work (which was no big deal)

Now on a happier note. Last evening as we were assessing the damage to the furnace and taking a quick break out back a hummingbird flew up. I immediately hung a fresh feeder for her. She is still here this morning but seems to be using the cuphea ignea and salvias that are still blooming in place of the feeders. So for all those who have feeders please keep at least one up for a little while longer as there are still hummers moving south. This is the latest date I have had a hummer in my yard.

Husky have you heard from Remy? I wonder if she is still without power in her area. The town of Tonawanda got hit REAL bad and since she is on the Kenmore Tonawanda border I think she may still be w/o power.

Penny

We got two feet of snow, most of it melted by now but still in the beds.

We lost power on Thursday at 5:45. It's still out. My house is at 50 degrees and falling. But at least the boil water restriction is lifted.

Seven trees in my yard were snapped like matchsticks and need to come down. The eighth uprooted itself. The maple got a little jagged at the top, and the norway maple by the street which used to have a perfect shape is down to about one third of the limbs it used to have last week.

The cable wire is snapped and on the ground. The phone wire is on the ground but still works. The electrical line to the house was snapped by a limb from my neighbor's massive willow.

We have a fourteen foot by eighteen or so inch thick limb from the willow in the yard and numerous other branches. We'd drag them curbside but ran out of room between sidewalk and street. We spent all of Saturday hauling out and cutting up branches, and there are still so many back there.

Our neighborhood looks like we had a hurricane, or maybe like hell froze over. We lost a chest freezer full of food and a fridge full. Our basement is dry because our neighbor with a generator ran us a line for the sump. We were swapping it back and forth between fridge/freezer/sump, but had to stop when my husband had to go to the hospital, and since we were there for half a day, stuff started to go.

I haven't been able to survey most of my perennials or anything. I know some of them broke. I had a climbing rose Zephirine Drouhin where the big willow limb is, and some toad lilies and monkshood back there, too. I think that's all gone. The trumpet vine was knocked off the fence, but at least that will regrow and I was going to hack it back in the spring anyway. Still waiting for the rhododendron in the front yard to shake off its snow to see if it's broken.

I feel so bad for you folks.......and to think that a short distance away things are normal.....wow!

Hang in there!

Jean

Penny, I haven't heard from Remy,hope she is doing ok...sorry to hear about your furnace etc...we still have about 10,000 people in Town without electricity...no power at Town Hall...but the phones work...been working everyday for a few hours fielding phone calls etc...most people are great but there are some grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr you know what i mean. As always we will make it through this, trying to save as many plants as i can from the backyard. The tree loss in WNY is devastating.

Kathy, thank you for the kind words. The wedding was wonderful. I'm glad we had it before all of this crazy weather hit!

Remy posted on the cottage garden forum over the weekend and said she had power. So I'm assuming she's just busy with clean-up and what not.

Tracy

Tracy,
Thank you for letting us know that Remy is ok.

Kathy
There are always going to be people that are going to be nasty no matter what the situation is. Hopefully everyone will be back up soon and they can find something else to complain about. My Salvias are still blooming like crazy. A little bit on the flat side but still going strong which is a good thing because my little visiting hummer is sure enjoying them.
Penny

I live in East Aurora. Our household was soooooo lucky! While 85% of the homes had power outages, ours was spared. I work at the Home Depot in Hamburg / Blasdell and had to call in on that Friday, due to driving bans. I came in on Saturday and the store was running on generator power. Generators, extention cords, C & D batteries, chain saws, water, and oil were selling like hotcakes. Streets were lined with tree parts. Couldn't believe Lancaster had 24" of snow and all we got was maybe 2". All this because the leaves were still on the trees!

Jim