Thank you all for reading and commenting. Not far from here, they got a little too much rain and had flooding issues. Some folks who lived near a lake had the bad experience of the lake moving to their houses, but we just had a beneficial couple of inches. Rita, the weeds here are on steroids. I think every single acorn tries to become a tree! Weedin' in the rain sounds good! Val, I'm glad you got rain, and we are all hoping for Jean to get some. Avedon, you are so right. We had the bad drought last year and were headed there this year. Nancy and Julia. the worst part of weeding is you know you are going to have to do it again! Soon! I managed to get almost all of the new rose garden weeded and Preened it and got a nice section mulched. I took a couple pics that I will post later. I did spend the last couple hours working in the heat after the rain stopped, and sizzling in the humid heat wasn't nearly as pleasant as working in the gentle rain. Jude the Obscure was blooming nicely today with several lovely fragrant blooms. Ellie, working in the rain sure beats working in the heat. Tomorrow morning it's back to the gym. This is not easy, but I think it is very good for me. I may take DH's insistent advice and not walk the 30 minutes on the treadmill after working out on all the machines...I have been overtired each day I did that. But I may walk anyway. kay

The rain that missed us the last two days has caused problems all over. THE MIRACLE RESCUE: When the powerful storms hit near New Braunfels in central Texas and dumped up to a foot of rain, one family was swept away from their campsite by a huge wall of water that came from somewhere upstream and seemed to come out of nowhere. The mother held on to a tree for a couple of hours before being resuced, the 11-year-old daughter put on a lifevest/floatation device that came floating by (believe in miracles?), and was in the water for over 2 hours before a retired firefighter from Colorado rescued her.The father, himself currently a Fort Worth firefighter, was swept 32 MILES downstream by the waters before he was rescued. It was several hours before each family member learned the others had survived and they were eventually reunited. Yesterday the flooding continued just south and east of Dallas, including in the Hillsboro area where flash floods closed some highways and one county announded the entire county was underwater and travel was impossible. Imagine that! Now that same storm has moved across Arkansas where I understand it has hit another campground like the one in New Braunfels. I don't know if they've found everyone yet. I was so frustrated when the rain missed us, but then horribly relieved we didn't have the very heavy rains here and all the problems that come with it. I hope they find all the folks from the Arkansas campground. Moni, I caught tons and tons of rain (about 600 gallons) from the last big rainstorm here in mid-May, using my one rain barrel, 5-gallon buckets, tons of cat litter buckets that I've save for years, Rubbermaid roughneck totes....anything I could find and set out to catch the water. I thought that 600 gallons would last forever, but with three weeks of no rain and a couple of acres of plants to water, it didn't last long at all. My poor old rain barrel has been empty for so long now. Our granddaughter doesn't understand why the ground is 'broken' (cracking clay) and offered to fix it by pouring dirt, water and birdseed down it. I told her that I thought we should just wait for rain to come and fix things. The question is, when is that rain going to come? We have fairly good subsoil moisture from rain earlier in the year, but the top 6" or so are drying out pretty quickly. No matter how much I water, just a day or two later you can't even tell I watered because the ground is as dry as a bone. I am sure this dryness is going to result in reduced yields from the veggie garden. At least the trees and shrubs shouldn't suffer because we have great deep, deep moisture from last year's near-record rainfall. That's how it is here for us with rainfall---feast or famine. Already, some of the gardeners here that we know are saying they won't water....if rain doesn't fall, their gardens will die. Water is so expensive and it takes so much to keep clay well-watered (once it is dry, water just rolls off of it like it is concrete) that they feel like they'd spend more money on water than their garden produce would be worth. I have hit that point before, and sometimes as early as mid-June if the drought began in winter, but I'm going to try to keep watering as long as possible...at least until mid-July. That's assuming no watering restrictions. Some folks who water with well water are having trouble maintaining enough water pressure to water. That's not good. A lot of Oklahoma is getting rain, but we aren't, and it doesn't seem likely to improve. Ironically, I've decided I don't want for any rain to fall here until after I harvest the peach crop at mid-month. If a heavy rain falls now, it will water down the peach flavor and make the peaches and plums split. Since I don't 'need' or want rain this week, watch it show up now.

I think your house looks so charming!! I love the long porch. Just begs for a good book and cup of tea!! I found these that I thought could be an option for you as well. I've been wanting them myself, just don't have quite enough space on the one side of my door. Anyway, maybe they'll work? And if you are crafty(or not, because it's easy!), I had a bench like yours as well on my side porch. I bought 3 to 4 inch sheet foam at Jo Ann fabrics, and a pretty floral upholstery fabric and made a bench cushion for it. Also made pillows to match, and then when I was feeling extra Martha Stewart like, I made a set for the fourth of July (red white and blue) and a fall set. Since your porch is covered I think it would be lovely. I love your porch regardless! If you wanted also maybe attach flower boxes to those gorgeous railings. Here is a link that might be useful: Planters for near door

Kim, Sophie has my sympathy. Our dogs hate it too when the neighbors are shooting. I usually let them stay in, but sometimes they just have to go out at least for a couple of minutes, and then they are at the back door barking and carrying on and wanting back in within 60 seconds. I'm glad Sophie did so well getting her pins out. Nice score on all the seeds! You CAN teach a class. Just pretend you are talking to Ryder or to any of us instead of a larger crowd. You can do this! Sorry about the wind. I wish it would blow hard here---it would help dry up some of this excess moisture, but I know you don't need it there. March is coming and you live in a very windy part of Texas, so I'm guessing the wind is going to be an issue for quite a while yet. Is there any sort of windbreak anywhere near your new garden plot? Nancy, That sounds like a wedding miracle to me! Of course you cried---seeing one of your kids so happy on their special day is going to lead to tears, and rightfully so. Kim, Most of the seeds you got should do just fine with direct sowing. I am a little worried about the wind, but we have wind here too (usually not quite on the scale you have it there) and it doesn't seem to blow away my seeds. Everything you listed except ice plant and delphinium should be fine from seed sown directly in the ground. Ice plant---it might do okay. Do you have clay there? It needs well-drained sand or sandy loam and it does not tolerate staying overly wet for long periods of time. Delphinium is very iffy. They are beautiful flowers but they like prolonged, cool weather so your luck with them in any given year will depend more on the weather than anything else. Think of them as something that would like the weather in the cool, wet parts of the Pacific Northwest more than the west Texas plains, and don't get your hopes up too high. I simply grow the closely-related larkspur instead, and even the larkspur sometimes rots off at the ground when we are too wet for too long, but it tolerates the heat a lot better than delphiniums do. I have had the best luck with delphiniums when sowing them in the fall. They will germinate and remain as small plants down close to the ground all winter, but then when it warms up they'll grow pretty quickly. Sometimes I have managed to get blooms before the heat kills them, and sometimes not. Our Spring weather is so variable that the results were all over the place when I tried to grow them here. Whenever I see them in bloom in gallon pots in the stores in the Spring, I want to buy them and bring them home and plant them....but I don't.....because they'd basically be expensive annuals here in our hot climate. Jennifer, Three sounds like a nice number. Another 100 might be a bit much, you know, and that's doubly true of the straight runs, which tend to lean very heavily towards being roosters and not pullets. It sounds like yesterday was fun, and I hope you're outdoors enjoying your free afternoon now. Nancy, Well, 10 minutes of plant shopping squeezed in at the end of a day with the girls was enough to hold me another week. We saw ladybugs all over the garden center flying around, and then saw some outside Wal-mart so they certainly are swarming and enjoying this lovely day too. Rudbeckia is a large family with many members and some do great here for me, and others do not. I think some are more finicky about drainage (and powdery mildew) than others, but they're not the hardest things to grow if you choose the right ones. In my garden, most rudbeckias are happier with morning sun/afternoon shade than with full sun all day long. Kim, That's crazy about your friend's Dodge pickup. Try explaining that one to your insurance agent! We do try to be careful which way we park on really windy days, but it is more to keep the wind from slamming the car or truck door shut on someone who's attempting to get in or out in strong wind. I never once thought about the wind being able to break a door off a vehicle. It still is sunny and warm outside, so Tim's got ribeye steaks (our standard Sunday dinner) cooking on the grill and I have everything else cooking indoors. I suspect he'd have been out there grilling even if rain was pouring down, but I'm grateful he didn't have to do that. It only took one week of nonstop rain and cloudy skies to make us tired of the rain. I'm not wishing for another month or two with no rain, but I'm hoping whatever rain we get over the next couple of weeks at least will come in smaller, more manageable amounts. Dawn