Hi Everyone, Well, adding the rain that fell overnight to what we had yesterday, we ended up with 11.5" of rain here at our house between 11 a.m. Wed. and 7 a.m. Thursday. For the same time period, our county's Mesonet station recorded 12.89". Obviously we needed the rain and have needed it for a long time. I feel fairly confident in saying everyone's ponds have completely filled up. Around the county, and of course, the closer you are to the Red River, the worst the damage, we have roads washed away, at least one broken water main (in the Falconhead golf and retirement community), bottom land pastures flooded and cattle that had to be moved to higher ground, plenty of homes that seem to be standing in lakes, gravel driveways (including ours) almost completely washed away, standing water everywhere, damage to bridges caused by the rushing water and esp. when the water was carrying trees, etc. The Red River is a madly rushing wild thing this morning. While the river is not the highest I've ever seen it, it is the highest I've seen in rise in less than one day. Lake Texoma has already risen two feet from the runoff and will rise more over the next few days. My garden is probably in pretty good shape considering the rainfall. Some of the raised beds look wet but virtually untouched otherwise. Some had the mulch washed out into the path, but putting it back will be easy once everything is a little drier. Some raised beds that weren't planted yet had major erosion, but all I have to do is shovel that soil back out of the pathway and into the bed. The corn is in the lowest-lying part of the veggie garden and not in raised beds, to it may drown and die. If it does, I don't think I'll replant. It is getting late here to plant corn. I did notice as we drove to Gainesville this morning that several people who have very large gardens had much more erosion in their gardens than ours, but it had more to do with the lay of their land and erosion from the rain and runoff--not anything they really could have done to prevent it other than perhaps build raised beds. I guess now we'll have to wait and see if the veggies can survive the inevitable waterlogging of their roots. Of the four rows of tomato plants that I'd planted, two should be fine. Those beds are well above grade and ought to drain well enough that the plants survive. The other two rows may be in trouble. They are barely raised above grade and sit in the part of the garden where water drains down madly from the neighbor's higher ground. I will watch these plants for a couple of days before I even try to decide what to do with them, if anything. The broccoli, potatoes, cabbage, onions and herbs ought to be fine. I don't know when the soil will be dry enough to plant beans, melons, cucumbers, watermelons and okra, so I'll probably start all of them in 6-packs or paper cups on the back porch and transplant them out when the soil is a bit drier than it is now. I hadn't planned to plant them in cups and transplant them, but you have to work with what you have, and right now I have a lake instead of a garden. Water is standing in the pathways of the garden instead of flowing downhill. That's sort of comical. You wouldn't think water could stand still on a slope, but it is. And, I guess I don't have to tell y'all that the ponds are overflowing, the creeks are running like mad, the swamp is swampy again, the springs are running, etc. Now we can look forward to snakes, mosquitoes and fire ants. : ( Don't get me wrong. We needed the rain in the worst possible way. I am glad it fell. However, I would have been happy if we'd only had a more reasonable 6" or 8". Our Keetch-Byram Drought Index which had been in the upper 600s in Jan.-March when we were having so many fires has now dropped all the way to "0" from the rain-improved index in the mid-400s that we'd had for most of April. A KBDI score of "0" essentially means that the soil is 100% saturated down to a depth of 8", and 8" is as far down as the KBDI goes. Joyce, Drought is much more common here than flooding, so we are grateful for every inch that fell. Even sandy soil in the Thackerville area is too wet to drain well right now, but I think their soil will dry more quickly than our clay does. Scott, Keep your eye on the radar. I haven't even looked at the forecast (I'm almost afraid to) but my son told me we have rain the forecast for either 8 or 9 of the next 10 days. If it falls, we're looking at a 2007-type flooding situation again here along the river and the lake. Personally, I'm hoping the rain misses us these next couple of weeks and heads for the parts of western Oklahoma and southwestern Kansas that still need more moisture. I don't think I'll ever forget this rainfall. It wasn't as scarey as the April 2006 storm which literally washed cars off roadways and into rain-swollen creeks, but it was close. The poor emergency workers had a long, hard day yesterday. Moni, I hope you have a fun trip west and that you have exciting news to share with all of us soon. : ) I'm glad you got rain too, but I would have been happy to share ours with you if I could figure out how to get the water from here to there. Sally, Thanks to the miracle of having a GPS in his Blackberry, DH just punched in an address in Gainesville and his Blackberry told him what rural back roads to take to get around the flooded portions of I-35. He arrived home late and tired, but safely, and that is what really counts. I was thinking of you down there in Dallas yesterday as the "Swine Flu" news in Texas continued to worsen. I hope it is not going to be as bad as it sounds, and I think everyone is over-reacting. (Hope I'm right about that.) When I heard that the Fort Worth ISD had suspended classes for the next week, I was stunned. Y'all stay safe there and chase away any sickly-looking folks that are coughing around you. Laura, I'm glad y'all got some rain but I wish you hadn't had a river running through your place. I hope your land didn't erode too much. It is a shame about the grass. I noticed similar areas today where some folks near us had plowed large areas and planted either corn or grass and it looks like most, if not all, has washed away. It is hard to take the economic loss of the seed and having to replant, but rain is still a blessing. You're right, we needed the rain just as much as you did, and we all just have to take the bad with the good. : ) I always joke that our four seasons here are "Drought, Drought, Drought and Flood", but you know, it really is pretty close to the truth. Here in southern OK, we NEVER have a year where we get, say, 3" of rain per month every month. Instead, we have months and months of "below average" or even almost nonexistent rainfall, and then we have a deluge of rain all at once. So, in the end, the annual rainfall total looks normal, but it isn't normal in the sense that we had consistent rainfall every month. Y'all, I am grateful for every inch of rain that fell but I wish it could have been spread out over a few days instead of a few hours. To be honest, though, I more or less expected a major downpour at some point this spring because we always have a huge downpour following a long period of drough. I just didn't expect quite so much moisture to fall in a relatively short time. I am very concerned about the forecast for the next 10 days, but that is something we can't control, so I'm just going to do my best to not worry and fret over it. I hope all of you who need rain get some. And I hope we don't get any more here for a couple of weeks. Finally, I hope the Swine Flu leaves us all alone. I haven't followed the news too closely during the last 24 hours, mostly because the rain knocked out the satellite TV so all we had was the local stations and their news was almost entirely weather-related. Today, though it sounds like the flu situation is worsening and I am starting to think that I haven't taken it seriously enough--I just keep thinking the government and the media and the school officials are over-reacting. I hope that's all it is. Dawn

Oh, KYgirl--Big hugs coming from me, too. I haven't been on his forum in a while because I've been dealing with our own build from He$$, and I didn't read all the responses in this thread, but I did read your original post. We've just gone through something very, very similar--different problems, but similar in scope, jerk of a builder, almost no on-site supervision, several horrible subs, lots of stress and tears. It has been horrible. We ended up moving into our house ten days ago while it was still unfinished because of having to be out of our rental, reaching our bank deadline for closing, etc. I just wrote you a long post, but realized that it ended up being about me, not you--and this is your thread! So, I guess I just want to say that I sympathize with you, and I think I understand a lot of what you must be feeling. It's a good day if I haven't cried more than once before 9 a.m.! This has been the most stressful, unpleasant experience of our lives. Friends will say, "Oh, you must be so excited to be in your house," and I feel like a spoiled brat if I don't respond positively. It has been a nightmare. There's still lots to be done here, dh and I are doing and/or redoing stuff that we've already paid contractors to do, but they either did a crappy job or haven't been showing up. It just sucks. As badly as I feel for you, reading your post at least made me feel as though I'm not the only one who has gone through this and I thought you might want to know you're not alone. The old misery loves company routine, I guess! Take care of yourself, and try not to let it get you down--I know how hard it is, but if we don't look at the positive side, we'll go completely crazy. Although, at least you could then plead insanity when you're charged with killing Mr. Peanut!

hi jen! in rereading what i wrote, i can see i wasn't being clear at all--sorry. i made the marinated mozarella on sunday because i think it's best after it's had a chance to sit around for awhile. i don't like tomatoes after they have been refrigerated (our tomatoes always sit on the counter until we are ready to eat them...) so i took the marinated cheese out of the fridge wednesday morning and added the tomato halves to the dish of marinated cheese then (the olive oil is sort of firm--needs some time to warm up). then i just skewered a piece of cheese, a basil leaf and a chunk of tomato onto the toothpick. you certainly could use long skewers and put multiple pieces on but this just made a perfect little bite and the fresh leaf was a nice bit of some crunch in an otherwise rather soft bit of food... there were lots of dishes to choose from but both this and the stuffed ricotta pie went very quickly!

Chisue, not sure that is true here. It might be but when talking to the two ladies at our food bank they never mentioned that. I would think they would since I mentioned having one of the grocery stores deliver to them. I ended up going to Save A Lot last night an hour before they closed so I wouldn't run into a lot of people. Then I just had a delivery from Kroger to my garage door so all I would have to do is open my door and put it in the trunk. I thought about picking it up curbside but I've never done that and don't even know where you do that at our Kroger store plus it's my last day of vacation week and don't feel like going out. I saw no empty shelves at Save A Lot so that's good. I was worried they would have a limit on items but they didn't. I still didn't take more than 10 items each.