Merryheart, I was living here in 2002. We moved here in February 1999. What I remember of 2002 was that we had a whole lot of rain in March, April and June and were relatively dry the rest of that year until October or November brought heavy autumn rains. Y'all may have had more rain in Carter County than we had here in 2002. I remember 2004 vividly because we were trying to get the barn/garage built and it rained daily. My dad, who was in the latter stages of Alzheimer's Disease went into a hospice facility in early June and passed away six days later. I was there with him for five of those six days. It rained here every day during that time frame. After daddy passed away, I came home to a wet, soggy, wildly overgrown and weedy garden/yard and trees full of almost-too-ripe peaches. I was playing catch-up for weeks. For what it is worth, we had about 30" of rain here in 2002 and the huge majority of it fell in March, April, June and October. In 2004 we had a little over 40" of rain, with more than 14" of that falling in June alone. The rain in 2004 was especially heavy in April, June, July, October and November, but each month had a pretty decent rainfall amount. I am just guessing, but I think we are on track to have a rainfall year more like 2004 than 2002. One of my peach trees is a Ranger and the other is RedHaven. The guys who were building our barn couldn't get anything done....and they were getting nervous because when they weren't working, they weren't getting paid! They noticed it tended to rain every day during the daylight hours but hardly ever rained at night that summer, so they bought some of those big worklights on stands and started working all night and sleeping during the day. It still took them about twice as long to finish our building as it should have, but that was the fault of the constant rain. Last night we received a weather statement from the NWS that the Red River was going to crest at something like 22.5' and that flood stage near Gainesville/Thackerville is about 25'. So, I think it is up and running about as high as we ever see it around here. I feel sorry for the folks in the Kingston area. Some of them always get flooded when the river is this high. My rainfall totals often vary significantly from the NWS totals and from the OK mesonet station for Love County at Burneyville. Our local cooperative weather service observer lives only a mile or so from us and you would be surprised how much our numbers will vary from his sometimes. That is one of the reason I try to track our rainfall for myself. My early-ripening peach tree is Red Haven and it always ripens around Father's Day, which makes it easy for me to remember when to expect ripe fruit. My other tree is Ranger, and it ripens later than Red Haven but earlier than Loring. According to OSU data, my Red Haven should ripen in early July. However, this tree does as it pleases and always ripens before July arrives. Maybe it is because we are so very far south. Nothing in my garden looks the way it ought to, and nothing is producing the way it usually does. I am hoping for sunshine and heat to correct the problems....if we ever have sunshine and heat again. Just the other day, some of our local firefighters at a meeting I had attended asked me how the garden was doing. I told them that it was pitiful and I was disgusted with it. They were stunned....saying that could not possibly be true. I assured them it was true. I described the garden and how the plants were looking and told them I'd only had about a dozen ripe tomatoes so far. That's when they told me that I was nuts if I wasn't happy with the garden because no one else has had any ripe tomatoes yet, and likely won't for another month. So, I tried to explain to them that usually my garden is 'spectacular' by now but this year it is only average. They basically told me to 'get over it'. LOL So, I guess in comparison to many local gardens, mine is doing fine. However, compared to how it normally does, I still think is it underperforming. I keep telling myself that some years are just this way and you just have to work with the weather you're given. This year's weather is certainly challenging though. I must say the trees love the rain and are growing like mad. We had an additional 2/10s of an inch after I emptied the rain gauge last evening, and both the skies here and the radar indicate it is likely we will receive more rain today. Right now the sun is shining and I bet the mosquitoes are hatching outside. Dawn

Hah! Convinced that nettles were "good for you" - they are - I ordered seeds years ago from the seed unit of Mountain Rose Herbs. They literally did go to seed, tho, and have encroached over about a third of my yard. I tried one spring to pull them up and got tendonitis in my arms. Then I found that if you pull them up, or chop up the roots, they form this armored network of roots to defend themselves. I now dry some, eat some in the spring (good soup recipes and pasta recipes are to be found) and then just have my lawn guy now the rest. This is the second year of cutting them down, so hopefully they'll weaken & become more sparse over time. Lesson learned! (as it was with the oregano in my front yard... but that's another story!)

mammie, you are 100% correct. Many people do not know this....quite bit of frozen shrimp are farmed in Texas. These shrimp are flash frozen right after they are harvested and come in 20 pound boxes. The quality and taste is very good.......few consumers would find any difference that those that are caught in the wild. These shrimp never have that Iodine taste which can be a problem with wild caught White shrimp. These harvested shrimp will all be uniform in size. In the winter when the wild season is closed, these frozen shrimp appear in Louisiana markets. The frozen shrimp are defrosted and sold. Since the product is always kept on ice and turnover rate is very high......the quality is still very good. I am not sure how much of the wild caught shrimp is flashed frozen. FYI, just this past year some entrepreneurs in my area have taken advantage of these farmed raised flash frozen shrimp. These guys provide a new service to locals. Place an order with them and they arrive at your house with boxed frozen shrimp from Texas. Upon your approval, they defrost the shrimp, de-head them, pack them in containers, and will even put them in your freezer for $4.00 per pound (gross weight). My niece in Baton Rouge swears by this service. Dan

I don't believe you need to pay for crappy business. There is too much competition out there to have to settle for delay's, broken promises, etc. That being said if they were being overly nice, compensating you, or trying to be helpful that would be one thing. It sounds though none of this is happening and I too would take my business elsewhere. One thing about our current economic climate, is that it tends to "separate the wheat from the chaff". That can be a very good thing in an overly saturated market. Maybe this company needs to learn some hard lessons on good customer service and if they reject that idea, so be it. They will just fall by the wayside. This just happened to me with all our door hardware. I had been working with a co. for some time on door plates, knobs, stops, etc. My contact just continues to be unfriendly, not helpful, and very irritating. Yesterday made the decision to call the competition. They have been wonderful. Came out to house, counted everything and will have a quote for me today. He was nice and genuinely wanted to do business. I think life is too short to have to deal with rude and unhelpful people. I am glad I switched.