Michael, hope you are better. I got stung two different times last month - one nest was below my kitchen window on my deck - they were somehow also getting in the house. Found out they were in a small hole inside the wall where a copper water line was inserted to go up to my balcony. The other was in a bag of fall decorations in my hay barn. Used a whole can of wasp spray in the hay barn and another in the wall hole. I found a can of spray by Raid just for yellow jackets - havent had an opportunity to use it and hope I dont. The stings itched and were a mess for awhile. Before all this, I killed a 7'2" chicken snake in one of my chicken nest boxes before I shut the coop up. Brave little hen was pecking at it to save her eggs. I am sick of bugs, reptiles and heat - SO ready for winter! Didnt think about the aloe vera for the stings. I have a big pot of it. Put a paste of baking soda on the stings - it helped but they were still bothersome. I am much more observant about flying insects now! Judith

Well, I'm with you, Shelley, unfortunately. I'll know more after Nov. 8 but I think I have blown my knee out again - torn medial meniscus (cartilidge). At this point, I'm self diagnosing but I've been through this before and this is worse than the one 2 years ago. I don't know when or how I did it but I cannot walk without severe pain. I managed to get some mega pain killers from one doctor but I need to see the orthopod really quickly. Here we go again. His office told me I need a referral again and I would be able to see him sometime between January and June (seriously) after I get the referral. If I thought it was an emergency, I could go and wait for him in emerg. I phoned emerg and the nurse, after laughing her head off, transferred me to the cast clinic. Of course they will see me but the earliest I can get to see him is Nov. 20 and I'm on the cancellation list. I did manage to get an MRI booked (on a cancellation) for Nov. 8. In the meantime, I'm keeping it iced and elevated for most of the time. Looks like I'll be in for a lonnnngggg winter. I'm so glad to hear that your daughter is OK, Shelley. That's a scary type of accident. I've got my 15 and 16 yr old DSs going for their learners' permit these days. The 15 yr. old got his and the 16 yr. old failed. Pleasant times in the homefront these days, I'll tell ya!! Well, let's keep our chins up and keep smiling. Sometimes that's all you can do. Shauna

Michelle, We have had misty, drizzly stuff several days this week but it all has added up to only about a half-inch. Today there is mist in the air blowing sideways but it isn't even reaching the ground. Thackerville must have had a good hard rain a few miles south of us on Thursday night, though, because the casino's EMS Fire Brigade (medics who double as firefighters) was paged out to rescue a woman from a ditch in front of the fire station (of all places!) and her vehicle was rapidly filling with water. So, we hardly had puddles at all and they had a ditch full.....but a lot of that was probably runoff from the casino's miles of concrete parking lots. Still, believe it or not, enough moisture has fallen in Jan.-Mar. here in Love County, that we have gone from a drought index in the upper 600s which is very, very bad to the lower 500s, which is bad but not terribly bad. In fact, the U. S. Drought Monitor just dropped us from a D-2 (severe) drought to a D-1 (moderate drought) last week. If we get 3 or 4 more inches of rain in the next month or so (probably wishful thinking on my part), we'll drop to D-0, which means only "Abnormally Dry". It is a slow and steady improvement. To REALLY end a drought and put water back in the ponds and creeks, though, we need a couple of good heavy downpours where 4 to 8" of rain falls in just a few hours. Until the ponds fill up, the ranchers and the cattle are still going to be hurting. All my life I've heard the saying "It takes a flood to end a drought", but it didn't really mean much to me until I moved here. Owie, It is OK that you didn't reply and I am glad y'all are OK. I figured if you knew a storm was approaching you'd be busy either seeking shelter, checking out radar or trying to secure the greenhouse and the children (though not in that order, of course). I'm surprised you could hear the siren, but it is good to know you might get a little advanced warning that way. It is terrible that the weather radios don't work there. Now that I know that, I'll pay special attention to the weather headed your way and post it if I see something severe rolling towards you. So often (and don't blame me for this) the storms we are having here head right for your part of the state after they leave us. I always try to post tornado warnings online if I see them in time because a lot of us, including me, are in such remote areas that there are no sirens close enough to hear. Usually, the weather radio alerts me, although I am usually downstairs and it is upstairs, but sometimes the local county dispatcher puts out the warning on the fire radio even before my weather radio goes off. The other night, when rotation was observed in the sky at Thackerville, they ran their sirens for about 30 minutes. Good heavens! I bet some people went down into their cellars just to get away (hopefully) from the sound of the sirens going on and on and on. I believe the school and one of the churches in Thackerville have underground basements they use as community tornado shelters too. In the tornado shelter, I was a technology fool. I had my laptop with the radar on and could receive it there (thanks to wireless technology) until I had to close the door because rain was coming inside, I had a weather radio, the fire radio so I could listen to the Emergency Operations Center, the firefighters and police and the storm spotters, and I was texting several people back and forth because some of them were out on the highway in the path of the storm and I was trying to help them get out of its way. My husband was watching the radar at DFW Airport and texting me or calling me to tell me what he was seeing. It must have been REALLY boring in the old days when you had to take yourself and your lantern or flashlight into the shelter and just sit there! My fingers were flying! Everyone did get out of the path of the storm, even our friend who was driving west on Hwy 82 from Sherman to Gainesville at the same time the tornado and hail were traveling east on Hwy 82 from Gainesville to Sherman! I even ran back inside in between bands of rain to check the TV radar and listen to the Channel 12 meteorologist, Steve LaNore, and storm chaser Doug Drace. Every time I did that, though, I saw enough to make me run back to the cellar (it's only about 20 feet from the back door). I was smart, though. On one trip back to the cellar, I grabbed a Dr. Pepper and on another trip back I grabbed some Chips Ahoy Cookies. Just because tornadic rotation was observed in the sky multiple places around us was no reason to go without a soda and cookies! LOL The wind is fierce here today but I can't complain. No ice, no snow, no damage and certainly no flooding like they're facing from the OTHER Red River near Fargo. Best of all, it warms up tomorrow, although I think we have a couple more cold fronts coming in the next week, though hopefully they won't be as cold as this one. Dawn

Mr. Trail is "directing " Mrs. Trail's efforts to replace him :) I have to get the pool open. We left it and it filled with algae due to the warm spell that took place. Mr. Trail usually does all pool related stuff so he has been sitting in a chair and telling me how to do all...sigh... Next I have to get the bricks scrubbed on the walkways etc out back...lots of mildew...sigh...sigh... Pollen has re-covered the front porch...sigh..sigh..sigh.. Haha...I love to complain ! DH is able to practice his clarinet by resting his bad arm on the table...so at the moment he is doing that..I am headed back outside to ride my bike to pay bills. Then back to do the above tasks. Luckily the weather is gorgeous. judie...he will be able to have PT in 3 weeks provided it all stays in place as it is now. I would think the recovery would be fairly quick with PT as long as the bone is healing. He was doing a lot of over-the-head exercise/weight lifting before the accident so hopefully the muscles with pick back up and do well. I sure will post as the weeks pass and let all the great folks on here know what is going on. Thank you again for all the sweet comments !! BTW Meatball is back to his old tricks and is meditating with us again 2x a day...no more under the bed for MB :) We love our kitty. c