Glad you're ok! We've had multiple hail storms, but so far, knock wood, it's all been small. I'm losing individual leaves instead of whole rows of plants. It is still early enough to try replanting some of what you lost, even if you have to resort to store-bought seedlings.

Another bad thing about this is all the weirdos and pranksters that will come crawling out of the woodwork and think it's funny to make threats against their local schools just to watch what happens. It happened one year just after another school shooting. Our local high school received a couple threats the last month of school. Had the kids scared to death and parents worried sick. Several of us parents showed up at the Sheriff's office within minutes of the initial event. I'll give the man credit, while the school was trying to poopoo it and had our kids sitting outside in the darn stadium with woods all around, the Sheriff jumped in and took it serious. These days it just doesn't pay to take 'ANY' threats lightly. Too many kooks and disturbed people out there.

We had a GREAT Thanksgiving, the best one in several years. Now THAT was a real blessing, spending time with my family (especially my sister who lives in Ohio - we don't see her very often). Today we'll spend some time with good friends, and tomorrow with my husband's family. It's the Thanksgiving that keeps on giving. . . . And, we're avoiding all shopping for the weekend - Black Friday isn't my cup of tea at all. (Now, if they sold DAYLILIES on Black Friday, I'd be up and out the door by 6AM!) Laurel

Hope you get rain soon - I don't know what official was since it lasted past midnight (I think) and my rain gauge was cracked, but Weather Underground station near us recorded 0.18", TWC says 0.28. Guess I'll have to get the wheelbarrow on level ground and measure how much was in that (DH leaves it upright - drives me crazy but I don't always catch it and til it over before a storm). I'm using a double layer (uncut bags) of burlap covered with bark mulch, hay, whatever I can get my hands on, between rows near the house. Out in the 3000sf area with raised beds that we just fenced, I started putting wood chips but only got about 1 cy and the weeds are growing up through it even though I put it on about 3" thick at the end where the weeds were the worst. I didn't pull them, just tried to smother them - didn't work. We have something really tenacious that even started growing (weak and spindly-looking like bean sprouts) under the burlap on the beds, but practically have to dig *those* out, stems just break when you pull. I haven't been out there to check potatoes and onions, but the greens, strawberries, peas, blueberries near the house look fine, not flattened, no berries knocked off. Looks like a deer nipped off a couple of shoots of 1 of my raspberries though - spit 1 out but I didn't find the other. Guess I have to fence/net off those 2 rows while they're growing. I hope they won't bother them once they're tougher and spinier - though I don't know about the TC blackberries since those are thornless. I don't really want to have to fence off the whole area since we have grass/weeds growing between the mounded rows (24 ft long), just the width of the lawnmower. But if I have to I'll put burlap and mulch down there too, try to smother everything (after mowing first!). And make a gate at 1 end between the 2 rows (was going to add a 3rd eventually) so we can get in. I hope a 6-7ft wide x 25 long area sloping downhill (rows run across the slope) doesn't need to be fenced 7ft high to keep the deer out. That's why I haven't left my tomato plants out at night - take them into garage - the wildlife around here is so bold, the motion sensor light doesn't deter the bear getting into garbage right outside garage, and the deer and turkeys will come right up to the house at night, and into the backyard during the day. Found deer prints going over my potato bed (1ft high) and a couple of seed potatoes pulled out of the ground before we put the fence up. Of course, down there (1000ft from house) it's like a deer/turkey/bear/coyote superhighway, from all the tracks we find.