At least there looks to be a good chance for rain mid-week. Man, do we need it.

It's officially the dry season now. Summer was dry, so winter is going to be dry too. Our duck pond never even filled completely up one time, and it usually stays full from about the end of July on.

Well thanks for the news, Debbie Downer :) Maybe this cold front will peter out by the end of the week. Fingers, toes, eyes crossed LOL

Rhonda, better to know than be caught off guard, right? I think we'll be fine. We survived the last one.

OMG! Guess I'll be dragging those 40 pots of succulents and the cuttings back up on the porch and covering the tender perennials under a tarp. Luckily, I don't work on Fridays so they won't have to fry under the tarps while I'm at work. Thanks for the update.

YW. I'm not doing much. I'll probably just let Mother Nature do her worst with most stuff. I'll protect the tomatoes and baby plants and take cuttings of the brugs, and bring in the tender stuff, but the rest will just stay outside. I'll pile up leaves over and around things like I did last year. That seemed to save a lot of tender plants, like my vincas, that lived through both freezes just covered with leaves.

I'm going more toward a perennial garden with annuals just to attract butterflies and such. I need a less labor-intensive garden.

Originally they were saying it was going to get down to 39 here in Friday but now projections are 45.

That sounds about right. Our forecast is 30, and you're usually around 10 degrees warmer than we are. Plus, the cold front isn't dipping down quite that far.

Been raining hard all night! Forecast is now low of 35 Friday....awesome.

Accuweather still has 30 for Friday, so I would rather be safe than sorry. The rain was really nice, but it kept me from raking, which puts me behind, but I'm not going to worry about it. If things die, they die.

Has 34 for us, I'm 30 miles southwest of you (10 miles SW of Williston) towards the Gulf so it tends to be a few degrees warmer. But, I won't take a chance on the more tender plants and cuttings.

Now they're saying 33 on Friday for us. I give up. My back has gone out, so I can't rake anymore leaves. Everything is just at Ma Nature's mercy here.

I'm no longer worried. Accuweather says 34, Weather dot com and Weather Underground both say 35 for Gainesville. I'll toss a sheet over the tomatoes, but I'm not going to worry about anything else, since we're usually a couple of degrees warmer here. Of course, there was that time last year when they predicted 35 and it went down to 31, but I got no lasting damage from that.

I'll start worrying when it goes down into the 20s.

I was watching with envy last night as the rain was going through Northern Central Florida. In the Orlando area we only got a sprinkle.

This was the first day since late last winter that I've gone outside in the morning and not seen any butterflies. I think it will be warm enough later on.

I'm hoping that the cold spell will send down some hummingbirds our way.

Right now I'm going to go for a swim and not looking forward to it because of the cold.

Tom,

If it makes you feel any better, we didn't get any rain here and it is very chilly and windy this morning.

Try to enjoy your swim.

Rhonda

Nope, no rain here in G'ville either. Chilly this morning, but I took a short walk to stretch my legs.

Saying 37° for a low. I went ahead and brought the succulents, cuttings, small trees up on the porch and covered up some more tender perennials. Don't want to chance it in case they're wrong about the temp.

Looks like we'll be in the high 40's here. I thought I might have to cover the coconut palm, but it looks like everything will be fine. Darn near midnight, and still in the 50s here.

We only got down to 40. No damage. Breathing a sigh of relief for now, but having lived here almost 3 years, I know it will get colder.