Not as far as I know. It is sort of hit and miss in this state. I have about a dozen different ways I try to catch the latest fire news and post it here if I think any of our forum members have wildfire and/or evacuations near them. One way to see the location of very large fires is on one of the websites that show you the NOAA Satellite Fire Detection data. They analyze the satellite data and put a 'dot' on the map to show the location of each fire. My DH and I commonly refer to it as the dot map. Unfortunately, the fires have to be big before they show up on the dot map, so it won't have fires that have just broken out in the last half-hour or hour. I'll link the dot map below. It updates frequently, but because it is based on analyzed data, there's always a little bit of a time lag. If you are checking it often during the day, remember to hit refresh so it pulls up the latest data. You can check with your county's Emergency Management Director to see if he or she has any way that they routinely send out news alerts, including breaking news of fires or tornadoes or whatever. Ours sends out such alerts on Nixle.us and anyone can sign up to get them. Some counties that maintain a county website put fire news on their website---at least during business hours. Some fire departments do the same, and some fire departments and emergency management directors use Twitter or Facebook to alert their citizens of fires in the area. If there is a fire in your area and you are pretty sure it is in your county, sometimes you can go to radioreference.com and use it like a scanner to listen to your county's fire channel (if it is available for Web audio listening) on radioreference.com. There's also a smartphone app at that website. I used that website last week to track the fires in Cleveland County when our firefighters were up there helping fight them. Not all counties are available via radioreference, but many of them are. For large, ongoing multiday fires, you can go to the Oklahoma Forestry Services webpage and check the daily wildfire situation report at both the state level and the higher areas, like the southern area or the national inciweb system. Sometimes, on bad wildfire days, the NWS offices will put up radar with the current smoke plumes from large fires circled on them to show us where they are. Also, at the request of local county emergency officials, the NWS will issue a Fire Warning (different from a Red Flag Fire Warning) in the case of evacuations. When they do this, the alert feature on your weather radio sounds to alert you and is followed by an evacuation message. I also use the different local media websites. Most of the TV stations in central and northeastern OK get fire news up really quickly, usually with live streaming reports including video footage from a chopper. Often I click on KOCO or KFOR and first learn of a fire there, and then start hitting other websites to pick up the latest news. If we lived in Texas, they have a Google map feature on their Texas Forest Service website that shows working fires, their size and the amount of containment. It is really handy, but we don't have it here. I use it to track fires near me but across the river, since I am surrounded by Texas on three sides. Some counties have a reverse-9-1-1 system that calls homeowners and warns them of hazards, including dangerous weather and fire evacuations. So, as you can see, there's lots of way you may be able to find the news, but it is not necessarily easy. The dot map is linked below. It is the NOAA Satellite Fire Detection site and is available via OKFIRE via the OKMesonet. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: NOAA Satellite Fire Detection Site

Well, I can hardly believe it. I got out, the second time, a little late, since I was canning some beans, and the damage was hardly more than the other two days. Yet the other two days we didn't have frost until sunrise. Today we did. At any rate, the beans are doing okay. I did cut down one row of pole beans in order to use their cattle panel for something else. But Jerreth and I picked 4 1/2 lb of beans off of it before we did. Tonight I can't afford to do much to protect any plants. Most Sundays I'm up before 4 AM, and out the door by 5. Ilene, we had a great year for beans. Our favorite Tennessee Cutshort produced right through the entire summer, only slowing down during the worst heat. The row I cut down was the first one to be planted. This bean is especially nice for us, with our busy life style, since it stays tender for so long, even after picking. I also put in a couple poles of a mixed white greasy bean, from NC. It was much like the greasy bean which we grew back in 1985. We both liked it A LOT; extremely productive and vigorous and with very high production. I planted this mixture, which is all white seeded, with some of my black greasy beans, hoping for a cross, since my black greasy must be from some NC climate which has prolonged cool fall weather. It always just barely makes seed. So, I'm hoping to get a cross which will produce a faster yielding black seeded greasy, like what I had in 1985. Another bean which was a winner this year was the Cherokee Striped Cornhill bean, a traditional Cherokee cornfield bean. I got it from a member of the Seed Savers Exchange, in order to share with a local historical garden, and, of course, I planted a couple hills in my corn. This bean produces a couple weeks earlier than the Genuine Cornfield Pole bean, which I grew back in the 80's. Its seed looks about the same however. But the pods! Wow! Some are nearly 9" long. They have heavy strings and the pods remain tender right up through the green shell stage. This bean also produces prodigious amounts of seed. So those were our stars this year. Any bean would have done well. But these truly excelled. George

Hooray, Pam, I'm glad that itchy and annoying bandage is off, at least. Keep working on range of motion, it'll be better a bit at a time. And after you get the cataract surgery, you'll be able to see it too! (grin) Actually my mother, my stepmother and my Dad all had cataract surgery and they all said it was really quick and easy, so hopefully it really is quick and easy! I'll have to check with Ashley's new MIL about those shoes, she works at the local orthotic footwear store, the place that makes special shoes and sells stuff like Birkenstocks and Uggs. They might even be available here in the sticks! I especially like their advertisement about how if you are old and fat and your knees ache, they'll fix you up with shoes, LOL. Helene, I'm glad you are feeling so well. My doc says the same thing, that I can maybe recover faster with PT, but rehab is normally 4 to 6 months and I'll be fine without it if I choose not to participate. As for the stairs, heck, I'm still going down one at a time, so you're probably doing very well. I'm amazed you're getting around so quickly, I can tell you that. I'm doing pretty well too, I think. I'm back to walking to work, and I went to the farm and cut a big maple that had fallen onto the fence line during our last storm. That entailed crawling onto/into/over the tree to cut the ends of the branches that were lying on the fence, and I managed to at least not hurt myself further, balanced with each foot on separate limbs while sawing branches with a hand saw. If I were a REAL farmer I'd have a chain saw.... And I have no problem at all sneezing or laughing, thank goodness, so it appears that my problems are at least dry! Annie

When I needed to lose weight I knew I was going to be in for the long haul. It was a coincidence that my long haul started in January (it's when my birthday is and so it's when the life insurance company did the check-up and discovered high blood pressure). I planned on a year to lose 42 pounds and that would include maintenance. I figured I had a choice - December was going to come regardless so I could greet it being the same weight or I could greet it being 42 pounds lighter. It probably took 15 years to put it on - taking a year to take it off was doable. I can't remember how far in I was before noticing a real difference (2-3 months) and when you see and feel the difference it is (for me) so easy to keep going. Good Luck everyone. And remember December 2012 is coming regardless. So do you want to wear sexy new clothes for next years open houses and be able to eat a couple of extra treats without feeling guilty? The bottom line though is having that extra energy and "feel good" for all the running around that the holidays require. bethpen: I didn't do WW and know nothing about it. But when I was trying to lose weight and even now, I have a 5 lb. margin that I allow myself. If I see the weight creeping up I reassess what I'm eating immediately, but there are times where that 5 lbs leeway does get used. This christmas it was 4 lbs and it's off now but I do watch what I eat. IT isn't a chore to do that anymore because I love the way I feel without the extra weight - the way I look is just a nice by-product. At my age (58) it isn't why I did it.