bumping this down the page

Okiegarden, I know. It is the same story here. Harden them off a few days and then carry them inside a few days to get them out of the wind and cold. Lousy spring weather. Our humidity is ridiculously low here--20% right now, and it got down to 15% yesterday, so I doubt rain will fall, but the wind is beating the tar out of the plants hardening off on the patio despite my efforts to put larger objects around them to serve as a windbreak. Diane, I just came in and noticed they issued a Red Flag Fire Warning several hours ago for SE OK too......in effect until 7 p.m. Tons of dark clouds are flying over us and heading your way. I bet someone in SE OK or in Arkansas gets some storms out of those clouds. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Red Flag Fire Warning for Southeastern OK

Suzie, It is a sad story about the firefighter. They haven't released a lot of details, but I think he was involved in a fire truck burnover, which is when a wind-driven wildfire overtakes a firetruck and literally burns right over it/through it/around it. My husband and our Asst. Chief survived one of those a couple of years ago and it happened while I was watching. The only "good" thing about it was that the fire moved so fast that by the time it registered in my brain that fire had overtaken his truck, he'd driven out of the fire safely and the fire was running towards the interstate and he turned and 'chased' it from behind. I hope to never see anything like that again. The big fire west of Fort Worth is near Possum Kingdom Lake in very rough and rugged terrain. The last I heard, about 30 homes there had burned and over 200 more were at risk and had been evacuated. Possum Kingdom State Park had been closed, and some roads were closed. There's also a huge complex of fires in the Wichita Falls area that involves at least 3 separate very large, major wildfires. Homes have burned there and evacuations have occurred. Some Love County firefighters are in the county next to Wichita Falls helping fight a different fire complex near Henrietta, TX. Before today's fires, Texas had had about a half-million acres burn just in the last 7 or 8 days. There's no telling what that number will be after they total up all the acreage today. Our VFD only had two brief fire calls today so I consider us very fortuante indeed because it could have been so much worse. Our county's burn ban expires next week and I hope the commissioners renew it (though I don't think they will because burn bans are very unpopular with some of their constituents). Carol, Our mesonet station goes out every time the wind gusts over 20 mph. It is out even when no one else's stations are malfunctioning. It drives me up the wall. Our wind was like a ocean today....choppy and full of big waves interspersed with periods of calm. As sundown approached, it seemed to calm down a lot...then began gusting really hard again. It can't seem to make up its mind what to do. The little wildlife puddle in our driveway had little choppy whitecaps. The birds bathed in it anyway. There was a big wreck on I35 in Gainesville this afternoon caused by the wind blowing tractor-trailer trucks around. Gainesville's highest recorded gust was 53 and ours was 54. Our weather is very similar to theirs, so when the Burneyville mesonet station malfunctions, I just check the station at the Gainesville Airport. I'm watching the 10 p.m. newscast and Steve LaNore just said we'll have near-record lows here tonight. Oh good, just what we needed. Also, he said the wind returns Sunday, so I'll try to get a lot done tomorrow in case Sunday's weather is yucky. Dawn

George, Thanks for the prayers. In 2005-06, so many folks here lost too many cattle....and a lot sold off bloodlines they'd spent decades developing because it was better to sell them than to watch them die. You can only spend so many $$$$ for hay and water before the $$$$ run out. It was even worse for the horse ranches. Since so many of the people who raise horses really, really love their horses, most of them hang on to a lot of "extras" that don't sell as it is. When times are hard and no one is buying horses, they end up with way more than they can feed and you see a lot of horses that look like they are starving. I don't think we are in nearly as bad of a situation at this point as we were then....but if this dry weather continues into the winter, it will be "like deja vu all over again" as Yogi Berra used to say. After all the rain we had last year, I never would have imagined we'd be so dry so soon.....but our rain really stopped in mid-July of last year and has not yet returned to normal or average levels, so in that sense, our "moderate drought" started then, even though soil moisture levels were high for a long time thanks to the rain than fell earlier in 2007. The nice thing about living here is that we sometimes get an occasional thunderstorm with torrential rainfall. When that happens, we can get 5" to 9" of rain in one day, and sometimes when that happens, you can get back to your annual "average" rainfall with one good thunderstorm. I was kind of hoping we'd have that kind of storm yesterday. The pond is so low and stagnant that the dogs don't wade in it anymore, so the afternoon "doggie playtime" no longer includes swimming. It's going to be a long, hot summer, and the chairman of our VFD's board of directors tells me he believes this year's fire conditions are very similar to 2005, based on his observations of forage height and dryness and rainfall. He thinks we're in for a bad fire season just like 2005-06 if rain doesn't start falling soon. Since he's lived here forever.....I think about 70 years, he knows what he's talking about, but I hope he's wrong. Dawn