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

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

I always cook my chicken/turkey bones a second time after removing the meat and storing it away. I keep the first broth in the fridge in quart-sized freezer containers, but I only fill each half way because I want to mix the second stock into the first before I pack it for the freezer. People are always surprised to see what nice broth you can get from just the bones, skin and gristle. Sometimes I will add water to the bones again after draining them, and stir this around. If the water starts looking like chicken stock, I'll cook the bones again. When I'm finished with the bones, they are soft and will collapse to a sort of a paste when you pinch them between your fingertips. I smush this stuff and bury it in my garden. I have to do it when the dog isn't watching though, and set something on top of it for a few days. I love my crockpot, too! I've never looked into what it costs to run it. I also have one of those big electric roasters that I always cook my Thanksgiving turkey in (and later use it to simmer the bones for broth) and Dawn, if you want something that cooks up a huge amount, you need that! But it would be hard to carry to a fire, now that I think about it. And I do save bits and tads of things. I don't like mixing my meats together so I will usually put them in wide-mouthed tapered pint canning jars and label them as to whether they are poultry, beef or pork. Sometimes I will make up a "tv dinner" if we have maybe one serving left of something, and put it in the freezer for later. I collect the liquids from canned vegetables and bits and pieces of veggies like tomatoes, celery, asparagus and outer cabbage leaves, in a plastic coffee jug in the freezer. When it's full I thaw it out, add add whatever I think it needs more of. Usually this is chicken or beef, some broth, and maybe a jar of canned tomatoes. A chopped onion. Add a can of mixed veggies from the store or a part of a bag of frozen. Actually I prefer the canned as it has potatoes in it. Heat all this up, add enough cornstarch to give it a nice smooth consistency. DH has a sensitive stomach so I don't spice it up. Just salt and pepper. If I'm feeding kids I add a little sugar, unless there's lots of liquid from canned corn in that batch. Yum.

Yes... hand washing helps. I remember as a kid cleaning yellow bannana peppers for canning and my face burning from it. I'm fairly quick to wash my hands when working with peppers these days. Sometimes you have to wash them twice and scrub hard... pepper juice clings. Not just rinse but srub with soap and running water. Sometimes I'll taste my fingers to see if any residue remains. The baggie trick works good... learned that one on this forum! I grew jalapenos, cayenne, habenera, and the red savina habenera this year. The RS cultivar has been clocked at over 500,000 scovil units! Cutting a pepper and then cutting something else will transfer enough pepper juice to make the second item hot if I don't wash the knife in between... don't munch a chunk of onion while making chili. A couple jalapenos or cayenne I won't use a baggie but the stronger habenera require something even for only one quick little tiny pepper. : ) lyra