Scott and Jay, You cannot even imagine what it was like here. I couldn't tell y'all about it last night because some combination of wind, hail and rain took out our internet service provider's Ringling and Marietta towers and we lost service. THE STATS: 70 mph wind, small hail here but up to baseball sized elsewhere in the area, 2.5" of rain in 25 minutes THE DETAILS: THE STORM BEGINS BUILDING: I had watched the clouds begin building around 7 p.m. and they kept getting taller and taller and taller until it was too dark to see them. At the time I was watching them, they might have been 40,000 to 50,000 tall. I have seen at least one storm build up as tall as last night's, and that storm caused an F-3 tornado to our southeast about 20 miles from us in Texas that night a couple of years ago. As I watched the clouds begin building, our sky took on that grayish-green cast that often accompanies hail. I secured all the lawn furniture, made sure all the animals were inside their housing and the doors were securely closed so they couldn't blow open, etc. I even got out flashlights and candles in case we lost power. BETWEEN ABOUT 7-8 PM: To our northwest, in the Lone Grove-Ardmore area, one cell reportedly had golf ball and larger sized hail, winds of at least 70 mph, and heavy rain that caused flash flooding. That storm also had a mid-level, non-rotating wall cloud. When it hit Love County, we had winds around 70 mph, non-stop lightning that gave a strobe-light effect for 2 or 3 hours (the lightning preceded the rain by a couple of hours), zero visability that caused drivers to stop in their tracks and sit there, unmoving in roadways because they couldn't see the road, trees down, hail, etc. During this storm our internet service went out because they "lost" the use of their towers in Ringling and Marietta. BETWEEN 7-9 PM: To our southwest, just over the river in Montague County, Texas, we had two separate storms about 1 hour apart with rotation that did not, as far as I know, result in a tornado touchdown. That hail was in the tennis ball to baseball size category. BETWEEN 7 PM AND MIDNIGHT: Here in the middle we had ugly skies and almost total stillness for a long, long time in between those two storm cells....the kind of stillness that scares you because you know it precedes a very violent storm. We had that strobe-light lightning (horizontal, not vertical) for a couple of hours and sporadic thunder. The air was totally still. We had storm chasers from other areas come into our county and stage themselves in various places. Some of them were feeding their own weather info to our undersherriff and he was passing it on to us on the fire/police radio channel. When the storm arrived, it was like someone flipped a switch. The wind went from almost 0 to at least 70 in just a few minutes. The wind just roared. The rain poured. We got 2.5" of rain in about 25 minutes. It was the heaviest, most rapid rainfall I've ever seen in my life. Luckily for us, the big hail had stayed on either side of us and our hail was only about pea-sized. The rain was heaviest in the northern and eastern parts of the county and I have no idea how much they received. Here at our house, though, we had that 2.5" fall in less than 1/2 hour. The good news is that it fell so fast that most of it ran off and didn't soak into the ground. (The ground is so wet I don't think it can absorb much, if any, more.) The Mesonet Station at Burneyville, which is several miles northwest of us, recorded just over an inch. I am sure that the Greenville, Overbrook, Lake Murray, and Enville areas recorded much more rainfall, and maybe the town of Marietta as well. The Oswalt Rd. area (fairly close to the Love-Carter County line) had larger hail than most of the rest of the county, and they had it earlier than everyone else. EIGHTEEN INCHES OF RAINFALL IN ELEVEN DAYS: For anyone who is counting, we have had over 18" of rain here at our house since Wednesday, April 29th. I don't think my tomato plants are going to survive this much moisture in our heavy clay soil. Even in raised beds with heavily amended soil, the moisture level is outrageously high. For a while, I thought the corn would survive, but now I am beginning to think it won't. The squash, zukes and cukes are dead. The broccoli is deliriously happy, the onions are mostly happy, the potatoes less so. Most of the herbs seem alright. And, for what it is worth, a scientist from the Ardmore-based Noble Foundation told local media that our particular soil can only hold about three weeks worth of moisture and that everything above that amount either runs off into the creeks, rivers and lakes, or soaks down into the aquifer. So, the way he phrased it was that we are always "only two to three weeks away from drought conditions" if the rain stops falling for a prolonged time. His words backed up what I have observed since moving here, but hearing it from a scientist made it sound worse than just observing it for yourself. I am happy the ponds and creeks are full and that the pastures will grow for the cattle and horses. For us veggie gardeners, though, it is shaping up to be a poor year. Most of my flowers are looking OK so far, but the poppies are yellowing and dying. They can't handle too much moisture. The zinnias aren't looking too good either. The lawn, trees, shrubs, vines and weeds all are growing like weeds. I can't even plant beans, okra, black-eyed peas, pumpkins, winter squash and melons because it is far too wet. The peppers all most likely will go into containers beginning today because it is too wet for them to go into the ground. And that's the report from southern OK where more rain is in the forecast for tonight, tomorrow and the next day. And, actually, rain is falling a few miles to our south so we may get hit by rain any minute now. Jay, I wish you were getting some of this rain (and that we were not getting so much). The ground here is starting to get that sour, yucky smell you get when slowly-draining clay is totally saturated. Once you start smelling that, you begin to see plant death. Dawn

If anyone is looking for a nonstick skillet/fry pan, may I recommend Scanpan (no affiliation btw!)? We'd been using DH's very old non-stick skillets on those occasions when a NS pan was warranted (mostly if DH was making himself some scrambled eggs on a weekend morning). Not only were the pans old, but the non stick surface was degrading (nicked or chipped in spots, that sort of thing), and I really didn't know if they were even safe to use any more. I did some research here on GW (checked out Scanpan, All Clad NS, Swiss Diamond, Le Creuset SS NS, etc.) and spoke with some of the guys at a nearby cooking store (one of whom is a good friend of ours and has and loves his Scanpan--his family uses theirs every day). I liked what I'd read and heard about Scanpan's performance (also, they are DW safe, you can use metal utensils in them, they are oven safe, and you can brown/sear in them, too). I've only used it once since I got it a couple weeks ago, just to try it out (nothing sticky so I can't speak for it's NS qualities!) and it was spotless just from a rinse, before I even touched it with the sponge. DH used it to make himself some eggs recently and said "I like the new pan." I guess that's good enough for me!

I just bought 3 Lerhyttan kitchens (renovating a triplex) and I can tell you why. The grey cabinets look ridiculous. It looks like the frames have 2-3 coats of grey stain, and the middle panels have 1 thin layer. As a result, you can see the color of the ash veneer through the middle panel. If the frames matched, it wouldn't necessarily be a bad look, but when they're different, it's a strange two-tone effect that looks like poor manufacturing. I did black for my lowers and grey for my uppers. The black ones are fine, which is why they haven't been recalled. I guess Lerhyttan will be available in grey again early next year. Since there's a 365-day return policy, I'm just going to hold onto my crappy ones for now, since I already have everything. When the new ones are offered again, I'll exchange everything. Thankfully, IKEA doors are super easy to take on and off. No tools required. I do kinda wish they'd keep some of the Lerhyttan grey accessories for sale, though, for people in my situation. As I said, it's the door panels that are the problem. Everything else is fine. I think I might need some more deco strips, for example, and now I'm not sure if I can get them until early next year.

Sounds like they're getting rid of the http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums site and "integrate" it with the [https://www.houzz.com/discussions/home-and-garden-discussions-dsbr0-bd~[(https://https://www.houzz.com/discussions/home-and-garden-discussions-dsbr0-bd~/home-and-garden-discussions-dsbr0-bd~) site with the new interface and possibility to "cross post". At this point, they're redirecting only the Kitchen forum from this http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums to [https://https://www.houzz.com/discussions/home-and-garden-discussions-dsbr0-bd~/kitchens[(https://https://www.houzz.com/discussions/home-and-garden-discussions-dsbr0-bd~/kitchen-discussions-dsbr0-bd~t_28581) So, right now the two http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/decor and [https://https://www.houzz.com/discussions/home-and-garden-discussions-dsbr0-bd~/home-decorating[(https://https://www.houzz.com/discussions/home-and-garden-discussions-dsbr0-bd~/home-decorating-and-design-discussions-dsbr0-bd~t_28578) are both existing. The problem with the cross posting is that the same thread shows up all over to become meaningless. Of course, with one change, Houzz quadruples their posts if, say, you can post the same question in four forums.