And that little fawn pup of yours is just the cutest! (Well, they're all cute, but that one stole my heart!)

Carol

I'm sad, Carol, and a little bitter. LOL. I loved my 2nd year one that was nearly 2 1/2 feet tall. Got killed in December of 2016. So got a bunch of Arps last spring. . . and 3 of them got killed in January this year. Two survivors. I had bunches of mulch--obviously not enough! LOL

Oh, just saw the puppies and Jacob's post above. Dawn steered me to the Arp rosemary, Jacob. Now I see 2 others--Alcalde from High Country Gardens (says zones 6-9) and Rosemary Hill Hardy. Check out this link, and read up. I'm pretty sure you can find a good spot for a couple.

http://statebystategardening.com/state.php/oh/blog_01/the_hardiest_rosemary_varieties/

Kim, the puppies are cuter than cute!

Jacob, I have made my peace with the trees (cept for that black walnut that said bye bye this morning.) I am astonished at how well most "full sun" things do here with 4 hours of sun. Or even 5 hours of dappled shade/sun. The hydrangeas out front get about 3 hours of full sun in the morning, but then have shade the rest of the day, for which they are very grateful. And wouldn't you know it--the only TRUE full sun at our place is the long driveway! Figures, right? We did put a 30' long raised cinder block there against the car/boat-port fence, and I'm loving that. Who knows, maybe I'll have another one show up further back. We certainly don't need the driveway going as far back as it was. (I say was, because I let the clover and weeds fill in back there.) But I need to decide soon, because the Bermuda has discovered it and just began sending out a few scouts last year. And we do get 3-4 hours of full sun in the main portion of the back yard--the Bermuda grass is so happy. I've been delighted with how many plants I'm finding that do just fine in a teensy bit of sun.

And how many the deer don't bother with. But the deer are always a concern, and Titan has to be diligent, and I have to be diligent about keeping my "fishing line fences" in good repair.

I was determined to grow New Guinea impatiens this year for a couple of the shadiest beds in the back, and also in the front beds that run the length of the house next to the porch. And DID. I have 13 out of 20 that have germinated, so far. I'm plum tickled. Because those guys are so expensive from the nurseries.

I'm so anxious to see what effect 3 and 1/2 missing trees will have on the yard. For sure the iris in one of the near beds will be in heaven this year.

Dawn. . . hope you can find your words again soon, after having lost them so far today. I hate it when that happens. And by the time I've lost a lengthy post, I don't have any more to say.

I'm going to check that out Nancy. Thank you! I've been wanting to grow more rosemary, but haven't because I thought it could only survive zone 9+ winters. Awesome.

Baby chickens! Ack! I wasn't prepared and I walked right into Tractor Supply. So cute. I left without any, but it was SO hard. They only had Welsummer pullets, but had several straight runs including a Turken. Have y'all seen those? they are so ugly they are cute. Naked necks. Anyway...

My chickens are a little wet. I hope they don't get sick. There is an area--a seam--that leaks on their pen roof. We need to fix it at some point.

Other than that, tomatillos were started today. And maybe some flowers in a bit.

Does anyone have any experience with Ice Flowers? I tried last year and failed. They are so pretty.

There are several flooded areas on our property, but amazingly the garden looks okay, especially the onion bed and raised beds. But we are supposed to get more rain.

I have no idea what kind of rosemary that I have. It was planted in the spring of 2016. It survived that very cold snap in December of 2016. We will see if it survives again this year. BUT the interesting thing is that only part of it survived....like a piece of it. the original "base" of the plant died. I tried to explain this on fb, but it seemed like no one understood what I was talking about. I should find a pic and post it here in a bit. I was very confused by this and would like to dig up the dead original "base" part to make room for something else.

We're melting......at 37 degrees (at our house, I haven't checked Burneyville) and our forecast low for tonight is 36, so we are supposed to stay above freezing all night. I'm looking forward to having all the ice in the rain gauge melt so we can get an accurate reading of how much precipitation has fallen. Right now, the rain gauge has some layers of water and some layers of ice...and as the ice melts, it seems to take up less space as water than it did as ice, so I'm wondering if the overall total amount of ice in the rain gauge will increase. The ice that seems to have a pumped up volume is sleet that fell yesterday---it looks like finely crushed ice with air pockets in it.

Of course, more rain is supposed to arrive tomorrow but not so much that we'll flood or anything (knock on wood).

I'm going to try to read backwards and catch up as long as the computer doesn't start acting up.

Jacob, Hill Hardy rosemary is supposed to be cold hardy down to zone 6, but I've only grown it in zone 7 (where it is winter hardy IF in well-drained soil and IF it has sufficiently hardened off to gradually colder temperatures) so that's all I can verify. I've read some anecdotal reports of it surviving winter in zone 5 if in perfect growing conditions (and, presumably, maybe that particular zone 5 winter was warmer than usual). One thing that is really hard on rosemary is when we go from a very warm winter to very cold weather very suddenly, especially if the first cold night it experiences in winter is an incredibly cold night---the lack of prior hardening hurtsit in this case. I think the rosemary (Arp) in an urn-shaped container in our garden died on the night we went down to 2 degrees a few weeks ago. However, the Hill Hardy in a tall raised bed survived just fine. So, if the one in the urn didn't survive, I'll replace it when the Arp and Hill Hardy varieties hit the stores here in March. Oh, and the brioche looks great!

Nancy, My experience is that all full sun plants are happier in our climate if they get at least some shade. True full sun from sunrise to sunset combined with our heat and (often) lack of rainfall is very hard on plants here in the summer time. I use lots of strategic plant placement to try to give plants some shade when I can. I really think that for most full-sun plants here in our climate in the summer, 6-8 hours of sunlight is more than enough and many will thrive with 4-6 hours. This is especially true of ornamentals, but even tomato and pepper plants do surprisingly well here in only 6-8 hours of direct sun versus 12 hours or more in the height of the summer. That's doubly true in an exceptionally hot, exceptionally dry summer like the epic summer of 2011 where, at our house, we were over 100 degrees (often over 108-110 degrees) for around 80 days straight with no rainfall at all during that time. That year, it was hard to keep plants happy even with the additional use of shade cloth and lots and lots of watering. Even the native cacti died, so I don't know why I thought I could keep my veggies, herbs and flowers alive and thriving....but I tried. Fortunately, most summers are not nearly as bad as 2011 was.

That's great news about the black walnut tree. Gardeners who like growing other things certainly don't need the aggravation of having to deal with the juglone.

Jacob, We fight the shade too. I knew when we built the garden in what was then one of our sunniest spots in 1999 that eventually the woodland would encroach on the garden, and for about the last 5 years it really really has become a problem---so much so that we've given up lots of ground to the shade (I just grow shade loving flowers there where I once grew veggies, herbs and flowers) and I am fighting hard to keep the shade from taking any more of the garden space away from me.

Kim, The puppies are so adorable. I love puppies....and kittens....and kids....and lambs.....all baby animals really. And, no, (grin) Tim and I are not in the market for any more animals. I hope you can find good homes for all of them. Maybe a nice marketing campaign? Buy three big bunches of kale or Swiss chard and get a free puppy. : )

Amy, Just don't do your fire scarification in a county with a burn ban (your county doesn't have one, AFAIK) or on a windy day! We had some fool (I believe I am justified using that term) in our county out burning during a burn ban today, which seems very peculiar considering the ice coating everything. I want to know how they got anything to ignite and burn in these conditions.....so I am going to assume either they were burning household garbage in a barrel or perhaps used gasoline or kerosene to light up a brush pile. Either way, someone reported them and they received a visit from a county deputy.

Some plants that need fire scarification need wildfire that produces a lot of heat and they need for the temperatures to reach so many thousands of degrees and to stay there for a certain period of time---fire scarification can be very complicated. It doesn't sound like the one for your plant would be all that hard to do. Fire scarification is one way that burned-over forests rejuvenate themselves---all those seeds and cones that drop to the forest floor can lie there for decades until a big wildfire comes through and heats them up enough for them to germinate to replace plants lost in the wildfire. It is cool to think of the forests being self-sustaining in that sort of a way.

Rebecca, I'm sorry to hear you're hurting more than usual and hope the change in the weather helps bring you relief. I'm looking forward to the warm-up and to the sunshine, but (yuck) there's rain back in our forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday. I'm okay if that part of the forecast is an epic fail and we do not get more rain. Why in the world we swing from feast to famine so much with rain is beyond me.

I have the happiest husband in America, y'all, because the roads are in good shape so he'll be able to go back to work tomorrow. Why can't he be like a normal person and just enjoy being home on ice days instead of worrying and fretting because he isn't at work? I assured him that the world doesn't stop turning on a day he misses work. You know that the roads here were really bad after everything refroze last night because he did not get up and go to any of the 2 or 3 fire calls we had during the night. Neither did anyone else from our VFD. It is almost impossible to get out of our low-lying neighborhood in the ice, so folks know better than to try. It certainly isn't work wrecking one's personal vehicle or a fire truck either. Actually, since we have a sloping driveway (downhill) as you approach the road, it is impossible to get out of our driveway when it is slick---you're going to have to make a sharp turn either left or right onto the roadway and if you miss that turn, you end up going down an embankment and hitting our neighbor's pipe fence at the ranch across the road, so unless we have parked our pickup in the bar ditch and left it there before dark (a good way to get it hit and destroyed if someone driving down the road slides off the road into it), we aren't going anywhere after roads refreeze. I don't even know why we left the fire pager/radios set on the alert feature last night, except in case someone in our fire district had a house fire, but we left them on and they ruined our sleep....repeatedly. We already had decided no one was going anywhere except in the most drastic of cases.

Trees here still have lots of ice on them, but the rain (while it lasted) had begun melting it off today, and if we still are above freezing as expected all night, I imagine most of it will melt off tonight. Then, tomorrow's rain, expected to fall in warm temperatures, will melt off the rest. There's tons of damaged trees that will require a lot of cleanup just in our neighborhood---we haven't gone further than that so I don't know about the rest of the county.

I don't think we got that much rain today---it was mostly that light misty/foggy stuff that isn't even heavy enough to call drizzle, so I don't think our rainfall amount rises much based on today's rainfall. We've had plenty in a short time, and don't need more. Counties to our east have flooding issues and with a lot more rain expected to fall there tomorrow and Saturday. We also have a chance of tornadoes on Saturday because....well, you know.....it's Oklahoma. Why shouldn't we have thundersleet, freezing rain, high winds, rain, snow, sleet, lake-effect snow, freezing drizzle, flooding and possibly tornadoes all in the same week? It wouldn't be Oklahoma if the weather wasn't changing daily, right? All we're missing is the sunshine.

I'm watching the 6 pm news and our weather news isn't pleasant. I want to go to sleep and wake up to the permanent arrival of sunny, warm, Spring weather. It probably isn't going to happen.

Dawn

Jacob, some years it doesn't, but either I got the hang of growing it correctly or possibly the weather has been just right the past couple of years. I've found that too much water is "no bueno" and not watering when it's dry and hot is also deadly (but so easy after school begins.) Mine is on the south side of the house and protected from north winds. I decided to try harder at keeping rosemary alive after I saw it growing in the middle of the lawn in someone's back yard, lol.

Carol

Studying planting dates etc got me to thinking, it's almost March and then April comes rushing in. Well we all know what happens in April. So I am almost to excited to sleep

I'm so impressed you didn't just swoop up a bunch of those little chicks, HJ. GASP. What if they're all GONE when you go back!! Oh-oh...............

Coincidentally, Amy brought me some magenta ice flower seeds (woo, how'd you know I love magenta!), so guess I'll find out. I hadn't realized they were edible succulents--did you know that? You probably did, that's probably why you tried to start them last year? Rats, I wish I'd thought to research them, first. The ones I planated will probably be 100% fail; undoubtedly, their little cups are too damp. Glad I only started 3 little cups. I'll give it another try, now that I know! I really want some now! :)

Dawn, you have had some ridiculous, cockeyed, crazy weather! But at least you DID get some rain finally. LOL Good grief! And we got NO rain yesterday but little over half an inch today. Well, we'll see what tomorrow and Saturday bring. I hope the forecasters don't yank our sunny Sunday and Monday. The guys who cut the tree down today said they were finding a lot of branches in the taller trees were frozen this morning. I asked if they heard of any trees being toppled, and they hadn't. I hope the weather smoothes out for both

Rebecca and you!

Haha, Kim.

We're about to have two busy days. Daughter had to change wedding venue at the last minute because of the rain. She is NOT happy, but it will be closer for most of us--or at least an easier highway drive, rather than 15 miles off the beaten path. we're still going to help her tomorrow, and then back Saturday for the wedding. I am NERVOUS. Her daughter came down with the flu Tuesday and I know she is going to be there come hell or high water. And 70-80 of their closest friends and relatives. I dread going in there; don't know to avoid hugs--many relatives. And then another daughter invited us to her son's ice skating rink birthday party 2 weeks from now with his entire class invited (not that many kids in the class, maybe 15-17) and their families. Aggh. Have any of you heard about updates on the flu situation? I'm going to read up on it tonight or tomorrow night.

Kim, those puppies are CUTE!

Nancy, I didn't realize they were edible succulents! I'm not sure what made me pick up that packet of seed last year...the picture of the flowers was just so pretty maybe. I remember scattering the seed on a plastic tray and they sprouted barely, but I couldn't keep them alive. Maybe they were over watered. I don't know, but I WANT some now more than ever.

Hmmm...maybe scattering the seed in a long planter and and put the planter in the sun? and move it to cover if it rains. I don't know. We need to figure this out, Nancy.

Nancy, official word on the flu is that it's peaked and is on the downward slope.

This is the second winter I've kept my Arp alive (2 plants). They're in pots, and kept in a sheltered area of the yard, and moved into the garage during serious cold snaps. No problem so far.

I am in no way going to complain about the rain, but I am also looking forward to a break from it. The rain is waking up the earth and getting it ready to sustain life.

I have ice plant seeds, was going to wintersow them.

GDW and I were visiting today, and he wondered if we should give daughter and new husband a money gift. I said, "Sure." But in my head I was thinking we should have thought of something personal. Darn us. And then it hit me. Twice said daughter has said to me. What will make our new place perfect is a painting from YOU over the fireplace. Well, how can I refuse. I mentioned it to Garry and we both started looking around for some painting! LOL At those times she had mentioned it, she said she'd like something Wyomingish and I had said, like the mountains in winter, maybe? YES she said. At any rate, as you know, I have not touched a paintbrush this year. So here were GDW and I Iooking through paintings, and then I spotted it! I have a winter painting in the living room. It's not mountains, and it's not big enough. But it's something I like a lot. So I trotted out, grabbed it and brought in. Then I looked all over the house for a frame that would fit it. Nope. That's okay--they can find a frame they like. But then had to actually sign it. I hate that part! LOL I'll have to tell her it's not THE painting, but THE painting's little brother. Whew. Dodged a bullet. I can't look at this painting objectively. I know its weaknesses and strengths too well. It's 18x24.

Have to laugh--one of the peppers I REALLY want (poblano)--not one of the four little pots has sprouted. Too funny. Maybe I'll wait another week and if nothing happens, will start a few more--and then I'll end up with a herd, most likely. Right? And if the commelina sprouts, it will have to live in a container. Or should I just toss it, too, Dawn/Amy/Lisa?

Jenn, I really am thinking they'll do fine with just keeping misted, and not actually watered (like I have been! LOL)

Those ice plants grow wild here by the creek. Very pretty!

Yes, I too, now, see that it has peaked. But JUST. It'll take it a couple weeks to be noticeably down, it appears. But at least I'll feel better about grandson's birthday (in early March. Now Saturday a different matter, with one of the granddaughters having it--who knows who else! LOL Jacob, well in case Hazel Jenn's and mine don't sprout be sure to look them up and then taste them for us. :)

Oh my, Dawn. When you told me we needed to adopt both the kittens. And we did. And then when I was so paranoid about how afraid they were, and you assured me they'd come around. Well. We now have two cats that absolutely ADORE us and hardly leave us alone, except to wrestle with each other. They adore us and we adore them. They just love us to death! I feel so blessed by them. What a trip THIS is going to be, with those rascals. I need to set up a guardian right now for these very special individuals in the event we die. They are so precious.

Jennifer, It must have been hard to walk away from those Welsummer pullets. They do lay beautiful eggs. It was smart not to buy them in this weather and I wouldn't have bought them either, but if things were different, and it were a nice warm sunny day for chicks to travel, I would have been tempted to buy them, put up a heat lamp over the chicken brooder and bring them home. TSC and Atwood's did not have chicks when I was in those stores last weekend, which probably was a good thing.

Our poultry love to be out in the rain and it does not seem to harm them. I do think they have enough sense to stay inside if they aren't feeling well to begin with. A lot of our poultry stayed out in their chicken run in Wednesday's freezing rain and sleet---perhaps because they have no sense. I don't know. I noticed yesterday they all stayed indoors so perhaps they learned a lesson on Wednesday.

By ice flower, are you referring the the succulent ice plant? I love them but they abhor clay and heavy rainfall, so aren't a good match for our place. I probably could grow them like I do the rosemary in containers---using cacti soil mixed with gravel and decomposed granite. It drains incredibly well even during the heaviest rainfall, which keeps them alive, but then it does have to be watered probably weekly (a little water, not a whole lot) in the summer time. I just keep an eye on plants in that sort of dry mix and water as needed. David Salman of HCG offers lots of how-to info on growing them on the High Country Gardens webpage. I'll find some of it and link it here. I think on our property we probably could grow them on the sandy/rocky sides of the creek bank, but since rattlesnakes hang out there in summer and we do, therefore, avoid the creek in snake season, there would be no reason to plant them down at the creek since we'd never see them.

HCG: Tips For Growing Ice Plants

Kim, That is precisely the sort of thinking that gets my gardener's brain so wound up that I cannot sleep at night. By March, I'll be popping out of bed before sunrise, eager to get out to the garden as soon as the temperatures rise at least to freezing.

You know, meteorological Spring, as defined and used by meteorologists if not by folks who wait for true Spring to arrive, does arrive on March 1st, and that's next week!

I'm trying not to think about Spring planting too much because, except for that little warm spell last week, this February has been pretty cold compared to last February, so this does not feel like a year to get an early start on anything. For example, last year, I bought a couple of big tomato plants in pots at Wal-Mart in mid-January and had ripe fruit before the end of March. That just isn't going to happen this year---in the first place, Wal-Mart hasn't even had any of the really big plants yet. Plus, this weather has been so much grayer and colder than last February's that even if I had the big plants in pots that could be brought indoors on cold nights, I think they wouldn't be growing as quickly and fruiting as quickly as they did last year because this weather is completely different. Even my seedlings indoors are growing more slowly this year, but that is because of a deliberate effort on my part to grow them on at cooler temperatures indoors on purpose so they will not get too big too quickly since it feels like a late Spring this year rather than an early one.

Last week's highs in the 80s pushed our soil temperatures up to the mid 50s for several days and I was joking with Tim that it was warm enough to plant tomato plants, based on soil temperatures (but not the forecast nor the air temperatures). Anyhow, we laughed about it and I said "by next week the soil temps will be back in the 40s" and so they are. Looking at our forecast, I see warmer days but still some awfully cold nights, so I'm staying calm and not letting my desire to plant things get too far out of control. I do need to get onions and some cool-season veggies in the ground, but maybe not until early next week since our soil is super-saturated right now. I wish the rainfall in the forecast for today and tomorrow would miss us completely because we're too wet now as it is. I doubt we'll be so lucky. and I feel kinda bad for wishing away the rain but I don't care. Our ground is so squishy now and we don't need for it to get any squishier.

Nancy, Hot, dry, weather, low relative humidity in general, low summer rainfall and drought is the norm for us down here most summers. (It is why we are almost never referred to as the Green Country....ha ha....more like the wheat-colored and brown country. It actually is the last three years that have been really, really abnormally wet, with record river flooding and such. It is so odd to have the problem of being too wet after a couple of decades of mostly being too dry! You have to adjust your whole paradigm on how to garden so you can work with the existing conditions. I'm worried that we gardeners here in my county have forgotten how to cope when rain doesn't fall for a month or more. We may have to retrain ourselves this summer if 'normal' weather returns. In May 2015, on a day when we got over 12" of rainfall in one day, most of that in the afternoon, our county courthouse's basement flooded. It is the oldest courthouse in Oklahoma and I do not believe the basement ever had flooded before---in over 100 years, so it was very shocking. It also was very expensive to clean up and restore, so we're hoping that never happens again.

Our weather the last decade or so seems to be swinging wildly from very dry to very wet---you know, either one or the other but not much in between. I wish the rainfall would even out more, but we get whatever we get, don't we?

Nancy, I heard that last week the flu appeared to have peaked and rates are now slowly falling, so at least there's that. I hope the wedding goes well and that y'all come home without any flu germs trailing along behind you. Here in our county, it does seem like there's been a lot fewer people sick with the flu (or bronchitis or pneumonia) the last 2 weeks, so I do think it has peaked here. Tim says it is pretty bad still at work, but then, law enforcement officers have so much contact with members of the public on any given day that their flu season always seems to drag on forever and forever anyway. I'm glad you found a suitable painting for a wedding gift...as it does sound like she was hinting about wanting one, which I think is so sweet!

Commelina is an invasive monster here and I dig it out of my garden constantly just in an effort to keep it from taking over....and I have crap clay soil where it keeps coming back and it is at the far SE corner of the garden, which is the least improved soil in all the garden. Down at that end of the garden I just grow reseeding annuals like zinnias, cosmos, verbena bonariensis (and poppies and larkspur in Spring) qnd such that tolerate dry clay that's not very well amended, but we'd have nothing but commelina there if I didn't dig it out religiously. It grows everywhere here....pastures, bar ditches, lawns that aren't mowed often enough, flower beds where it never was planted by humans, etc. I think the flowers are pretty but overall I hate the plant because of its invasiveness. So, if you are going to plant it, put it somewhere far away from meaningful gardening areas so that it cannot invade where you don't want it. I imagine it will go completely crazy in your soil and rainfall conditions and it is beautiful.....it just is too aggressive for me. I like reseeding plants, and I like plants that can tolerate anything the weather throws at them and commelina can do that---but not in my garden. I've been digging it out (unsuccessfully) for 19 years now and still haven't won that battle yet. It is just as relentless and bermuda grass and Johnson grass.

I am glad getting both Tom and Jerry worked out so well. We've always had multiple cats and I love seeing how tightly they bond to one another and how close they become. Cats will give you their hearts, souls and total devotion and then they'll steal your hearts too. Every now and then a real loner of a cat comes along---Yellow Cat was that way. He hated every other cat for the longest time. But then, over time as he adapted from being a feral wild man to living a calmer, domestic pet lifestyle, he fell in love with his cat family members and become quite close to some of them. (Not all---he had trouble with any male cat who did not respect him as the alpha male.) It sort of broke Fred's heart when Yellow Cat abandoned Fred's house, which was his first attempt at giving up the feral lifestyle and becoming a pet, but Fred adopted a dog who wanted to share Yellow Cat's sleeping space and food dish, and Yellow Cat wanted nothing to do with that dog. He didn't seem to mind our dogs too much, but he had a space (and food dish) separate from them so he didn't have to deal with them too much if he didn't want to. I sure do miss Yellow Cat. For several years, when Fred would stop by while driving up the road, Yellow Cat would walk down to the garden and sniff Fred's truck and sort of say hello to Fred, but eventually it seemed like Yellow Cat forgot who Fred was and he stopped coming to visit Fred in the garden.

We have stayed above freezing all night, but just barely, and that's a good thing because our firefighters had to go to a house fire in Thackerville a couple of hours ago. They aren't home yet. Fran and I didn't go because, as a matter of policy (and because we are not fond of driving on icy roads) we do not respond to fires with Fire Rehab food and drinks any time the roads are icy (even potentially icy) or if there's freezing rain/drizzle, sleet, snow or whatever. That means we miss a fire or two a year simply because of the weather conditions, but we're okay with that. These country roads can be really treacherous when icy. So, I've been awake since the pagers went off at 2:30 a.m. and I know I'm not likely to be able to fall back asleep before sunrise. I'm going to be cranky all day if I cannot manage to squeeze in a nap.

Dawn

Score!! The electric company tree guys are back at OUR house today, trimming trimming trimming. . . and guess what they have, handily hooked up to the back of their truck--a WOOD chipper! I asked them if they knew their trees; they said yes. I asked them if they had any black walnut tree chips in there, they said no. I asked them what they did with the chips. . . they said most of the time they just gave them to whoever wanted them. I said, "We want them, you can dump them here!" What do ya think?

Uh. . . . that's a lot of wood chips. . . we're off to today's trip. Everyone have a good day!

I have to remember to refresh my screen-so many simultaneous posts. I'm really enjoying reading everyone's posts these past couple days. No rushing through, not stopping to research info, and no distractions.

Carol

Nancy, The chips will make good mulch. Try to look through them carefully when you get a chance to see if you see bits and pieces of something you don't want...like thorns from Honey Locust or bits and pieces of poison ivy. ALWAYS wear gloves when handling the mulch. If you feel uneasy about using them raw, let them sit and decompose for six months or a year. If you still feel uneasy about using them around edible plants, just use them as mulch in the pathways around the beds or around ornamental plants.

Have a safe trip and enjoy your daughter's wedding!!!!

Carol, It must be fun to have the luxury of that time for the last couple of days! There are some benefits to ice storms.

Here's my day so far since breakfast time this morning: thunder, rain, lightning, rain, rain, gray skies, rain, clouds, rain, fog, rain....and gigantic muddy puddles everywhere. Did I mention that if you go out in it, it is a very cold rain?

I emptied 5.25" out of the rain gauge this morning in between storms so the rain gauge wouldn't overflow. That is what has fallen so far this week at our house. The rain gauge already is back up to about a half-inch more, but the rain seems to have stopped for now. This is on top of last Saturday's 0.42". I'm so glad now that I held off and didn't put any plants or seeds in the ground prior to this big rainy spell because the garden is much too wet now for them and I likely would have been sorry because by now my seeds likely would be floating along a creek on their way to the Red River.

We went 57 or 58 days without rain in 2018, and now we have above average rainfall for Jan-Feb 2018. This is nuts. I sure do wish far western OK could have some of the remaining 2-4" of rain in our forecast for today and tomorrow. I'd like to think the rain that already has fallen today is all we'll get, but more is expected later. I don't know if any flooding is occurring anywhere, but with this much rain in such a short time, it would not surprise me if folks in low-lying areas are having some issues.

One nice thing is the rain quickly melted the ice off all the trees, so at least there's that.

NOT looking at Kim's cute puppies, not gonna do it. My DH keeps saying he doesn't know if he will survive the puppy stage. I sometimes wonder if she had another dog to play with if Honey would be better, but then there would be TWO dogs to chew, dig, tear things up and step on my feet! Honey has been snuggly lately. I keep checking to see if there have been earthquakes to make her change behavior.

Nancy, I'm sure you're glad to have the Black Walnut gone. I know you want the light, and not the juglone, but can you eat the nuts?

Ha, ha, H/J, DH has to look at the chicks every time we go to Atwoods. He wants ducks. Fortunately he understands that Sasquatch is not ready for baby ducks.

I grew ice plants from nursery transplants the first year. I thought I had killed them, but they came back after some rain (kind of the opposite of what you'd expect.) I grew them in my standard paper cups last year. They grew in the flower garden. Don't know if they'll come back, it got weedy, and of course, the dog dug some things up. I did not know they were edible. They say New Zealand spinach is in the same family.

I suppose I could do fire scarification in the fire place, or the charcoal grill. Wouldn't smell good, I'm sure. It is fascinating the roll fire plays in maintaining native areas.

I hope the flu hurries up and goes away, too. Of course spring break is coming, so new germs will travel around.

Our 7 day rainfall looks like 2.72. Our gauge came down withe the trellis, so I'm going by the mesonet.

Have to go take Honey to the vet for check up.

Nancy, that painting you posted never showed up until now. That is beautiful!

Amy, Good luck with not looking at the cute puppy photos.

We'd love to have ducks, but we'd have to have a fully enclosed pen con contain them because ducks here quickly fall prey to bobcats, coons, coyotes, hawks, snapping turtles and everything else hungry. Ducks aren't as good at coming in at night as chickens are. Or, at least any ducks we've ever had were not good at coming in, and not good at surviving when they stay out all night. The solution would be to keep them enclosed from Day 1 and never let them out to roam freely, I guess. Some of our neighbors kept ducks alive for almost a year, but they had an electric fence all the way around their pond, and apparently that worked....until it no longer did, and then the ducks were gone, gone, gone. I loved watching our ducks swimming on our ponds, but that had a definite ability to tune out us people and just stay out there long after dark. Then, in the morning, you'd find feathers and one less duck.

While you're at the vet, I hope you don't find out Honey really is a Sasquatch, though it might explain a lot of things.

Rain, rain, rain. I am starting to lose my mind. Every time it stops for a few minutes I run outdoors and check the garden or check the mail or feed the wild birds or take the dogs out or whatever. The cats are almost hysterical as they have not been outside in days and seem convinced I am deliberately trying to ruin their lives. I am pretty sure that when I am not in the room with them, they are standing close to one another, whispering and plotting my death by cat homicide. They're taking this being stuck indoors real personally and aren't even impressed when I tell them "but, we need the rain". I am going to have to Google and find a photo of the Sun so I can remember what it looks like.

Jacob, I couldn't see Nancy's photo at first either. I am wondering if our internet loads too slowly. We've had lots of electrical surges and internet/DirecTV interruptions in the midst of all this weather, so everything's been flakey here lately.

I suppose I could pass some time by starting some more seeds but the light shelves are getting pretty full and the rain isn't letting up. I don't want to have more plants than I can reasonably manage. As if all this week's rain isn't overkill enough, we have more rain in the forecast for next week. I think we're gonna need a bigger boat.

Dawn

Glad I planted my onions in raised mounds. They would be swimming right now. Anyone else wishing we could save some rain for summer.

I realized I forgot to soak my pea seeds when I planted them last weekend. Apparently, Mother Nature has my back on that.

Just got a weather update from our county's Asst. Emerg. Mgmt Director, and I assume that means he just finished getting the latest NWS briefing.

Our weather is never dull.

It. is. still. raining. I just thought I'd throw that out there in case any of you might be thinking our six straight days of rain might taper off and give us a break. Nope. : ) We'd headed into day 7 tomorrow.

For tomorrow morning, we have a chance of severe weather, mostly in the form of strong winds and large hail from 6 a.m. to 1 p.m. and we are only in the Marginal risk area. Large hail normally is not an issue in February, right? But, OK weather does as it pleases. Areas east of us have a higher risk. It is peculiar to think of the Severe Weather threat being an early morning thing instead of an afternoon thing.

The latest update for our county from the NWS is that we should expect 2-3" more of rain in the next 18-ish hours. At this point, the only 'mound' of soil not underwater at our place is the flat top of the hill where our house is built. The garden is just a lake---even the raised beds are holding a lot of water. The ponds are beyond lake sized and are shooting for achieving Great Lake size. (grin) After being pretty much empty for months, the ponds probably are excited to have water in them at all. I haven't seen the river yet---maybe tomorrow morning, but the bar ditches and creeks are running high. Hopefully all the standing water on the ground will soak in overnight. On the other hand, any overwintering bugs in the garden soil, including those in the raised beds, might be doing the backstroke or breaststroke right now as they struggle to survive in a flooded garden. It's okay with me if they don't make it.

My main job today has been to let dogs in, let dogs out, let dogs in, let dogs out, over and over again (because all 4 dogs cannot possibly go out together in the rain) and to break up cat fights because the cats are cranky, tired of the rain and tired of each other. Somehow I still managed to get all the laundry done in spite of the animals, and I swept the floors although it seems pointless. At this point in time, sweeping and mopping is a thankless task and doesn't seem to achieve much because you know ten minutes after you're finished someone is going in and out and will bring in mud, dirt, water, tree limbs....whatever.

The big issue with getting this much rain at one time is that Mother Nature usually recognizes her error and doesn't let us have significant rain again for weeks. With planting season coming up, I hope she doesn't go overboard on that.

How's everyone amusing themselves? Are y'all getting endless rain? You know, it isn't that it rains heavily or non-stop, but just one little wave of light to moderate rain after another, with occasional thunder. I'll look at the radar and think the next little wave of rain is the last one, but then it isn't because more of them spring up out of nowhere. I believe we have won the rain lottery. Really, McCurtain County, which is over 10" already this week, won the lottery and we're not going to fight to take that away from them. I wonder if everyone is floating away over there.

I just saw that 10" in McCurtain County! But a lot of us won runner-up prizes, I'd say. We had only 1 3/4" in the rain gauge when we got home and hour ago, but it's still coming down fast and furious.

We found out the daughter just switched the wedding tomorrow back to their house. . .And the rain started there at noon and when we left at 4, was coming strong. It's not gonna be ideal. That's an understatement.

So sleeepppy. GDW and I stopped in Pryor and had dinner and a glass of wine. zzzzzzz need nap now! :)

Lots of puddle jumping here at Possum Holler, too. I kept thinking it would slack off, but it just poured harder when I headed to the coop. No more jumping over puddles, it's just slog, slog, slog through mud. I keep telling myself I wanted this rain as my feet become wet and cold. Thanks for helping me regain perspective, MK and Rebecca!

I agree with Jacob, Nancy-that painting is beautiful! Your daughter will love it, and the bonus will be that it was created by her Mama's hands.

Dawn, if it makes you feel any better, I'm trying to just ignore my floors that were clean just a couple hours earlier. (Like cleaning is my favorite thing to do, pffft.)

I think I'll just go back and see if I can narrow down the seed list I made for Prairie Moon. I bought a couple (okay....3!) packets of of zinnia seed I "desperately needed" after swearing off buying any more seed this year. I really need to go to school tomorrow and work on senior video. I'm so far behind, I probably won't get any seed planted this year.

Carol

Nancy that picture is beautiful. Amazing gift you have.

I kept busy at work. It finally stopped raining around 6 or so. We went in to get carry out from Carinos tonight and stopped to get rawhides. Poor dogs are so bored. Luckily, our net worked better tonight so we even watched an episode of our show.

Wine makes me sleepy too, Nancy. Hope you had a good nap.

Looks like we might get a break from the rain tomorrow afternoon. I know we need the rain, but it will be good to get a break from it--not a 4 month break, but a week or so would be good.

Not much in gardening news. I did buy a lavender plant while buying the rawhides.

Wow. this was a boring post, huh?

Thank you, friends. I certainly DO love painting--and quilting. I wish our days were 40 hours long. Also. . . a big part of the reason I've slacked off quilting and painting this year was because of the kittens "living" in the art/quilt room. Could not fathom how I would be able to have oils out, turpenoid, linseed oil and brushes all over. Not THIS year. Next fall I'll be back at it. And as you know, gardening takes up a bit of time, too. :)

That wood chip pile is BIG. LOL. I'll have to snap a photo of it. The guys said they didn't think there were any plant materials in it. I wear gloves always, Dawn, but good tips. Thank you. I'll start with one bed, watch it for a couple months, and then may proceed. I found this and some other interesting articles on the breakdown of the allelopathic properties in black walnut. This one was fascinating, really. https://www.gardenmyths.com/walnuts-juglone-allelopathy/

Oh the rain! The cold rain! Just let up a little. . . 2.6" for today so far. It was quite a view coming home from daughter's. A lot of rain, and it rained steadily and generously the entire 41 miles home. As we turned off onto the road to Rocky Point and Whitehorn, it became obvious immediately that we had not been spared the rain that was in Adair, not a bit. Of course, you know that what doesn't soak in here runs off pretty quickly (except in an area 60'x50- at the southeast corner of the back yard.) Bet the folks below us the next "street" to our easy are mighty wet and the ones below them. We are so happy we are on one of the elevated parts of the road. We passed one house roughly half a mile from us that is unluckily at the low point from the east, west and south--their property was a lake.

Carol, yes, even when we have more seeds than we can ever plant, we're still able to think of ones we desperately need. (I'm trying not to tell on myself.) What does the senior video entail?

Laughed at your comment, HJ--not a 4-month break, but a week or so would be good. LOL I would venture to say that even we gardeners aren't cheering the rain today, or will be tomorrow. I see the sunny Sunday is still being promised by the forecasters. I'm sure we're mentally counting down toward it!

And I also laughed at Dawn's full light shelves. My own are pretty full, too. My my my. Takes a while to water all those little seedlings, for sure! You worked way too hard today, Dawn.

Our French press tea mugs came today. Pretty cool! And our metal slinkies for our the bird feeders hanging from planter poles--for our squirrel entertainment. You should check em out, HJ. One could use them as a travel tea mug!

Amy, so how much does Honey weigh now, from her visit to vet today? BTW re black walnuts. When we cut down one 2 1/2 years ago, my brother wanted me to send him a boxful. So GDW and I cracked a couple open. These are not high-quality-black-walnut-producing black walnuts! Very little meat and thick walls. We got a laugh. . . knowing David would crack open a couple and the boxful would be tossed. He did and it was, but it was worth a laugh to us to pay for shipping it. LOL

Rebecca, did you in Tulsa proper get the same pounding of rain?

We got 16 drops of rain. It was beautiful.

Nancy, If they keep moving the wedding location, no one's going to be able to keep up with the changes and make it to the wedding. So, they switched it back to their original location? Rain on a wedding day is never ideal, but I know they'll have a special day anyway, and years from now likely will look back at all the irritation the weather caused and will laugh about it.

A few years ago, our nephew and his bride choose an early June evening for an outdoor wedding. Other than the possibility of rain or a little heat, what could go wrong? How about the hottest summer on record there? By the end of the summer, it might have been the second hottest summer, but in early June, there was record-setting heat. So, luckily the wedding garden where they wed was partially shaded, so it was only 105 degrees when the wedding started, which might have been 6 p.m. Possibly 6:30 or 7:00 p.m. I remember the sun was already low in the western sky. The wedding was lovely and the heat was not totally unbearable, and the reception was indoors in an air-conditioned building. Still, you don't forget an outdoor wedding at 105 degrees in Texas. At least it didn't rain.

I saw that the rains that came through here all day moved up into central and northeastern OK and spread the joy. Some of y'all ended up getting more rain than I thought you would.

Carol, Honestly, with as busy as you are during the school year, I don't know how you find the time to garden anyway. It must be hard to find enough time for yourself and your garden. I hope you get to sow the seeds you have and any future ones you purchase.

Jennifer, Ditto on the dogs being bored, and we stopped on our way back from dinner and bought rawhides too. The dogs were thrilled. They are silly as they know we usually bring them something, so when shopping bags come into the house, they run and stick their noses in the bags, as if they're saying "what did you bring me?" I saw in the TSC ad that Chick Days have begun here. That might be an issue for the TSC in Gainesville because they were in the quadrant of town that had thousands of power outages a couple of days ago. So, if they already had their chicks, they might have had issues keeping them warm. I hope not.

All the talk of wine making people sleepy makes me wonder if I should drink wine since I have a hard time falling asleep and staying asleep? I have long steered clear of all alcohol ever since I was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 1999 (because this type of cancer is more common in women who drink alcohol than those who don't drink alcohol). On the other hand, I've never drank much and I had cancer anyhow, so maybe my effort to avoid wine is pointless anyway. I'll have to think about that.

I'm glad you found your lavender plant. I love the aroma of lavender.

Jefferson County wins the prize this morning (at least as far as our weather radio is concerned) for the first Severe Thunderstorm Warning of the day. Our radio alert feature went off just before 6 a.m. because the alert feature is set to go off for any county that touches our county borders. Then, here in Love County we got our first Severe Thunderstorm Warning of the day just minutes later. (This might be our first Severe Thunderstorm Warning of 2018.) So, last night the NWS said the severe weather was likely to occur here between 6 am and 1 pm, and you've got to give them credit for being right on the money because it started up right around 6 a.m. I blame Texas for this because the storms are starting there and then moving into southern OK. Our worst hazard in the present storm, which is well west of our place by about 15 or more miles, is ping pong ball sized hall. Just the words ping pong ball sized hail strike fear in my gardener's heart---and I don't even have anything out there in the ground that hail would hurt. It's just the thought of hail slamming tiny little plants....which, at this point, all are still in flats either in the breakfast room window (kale, iceberg lettuce, leaf lettuce, violas and a couple of Early Girl tomato plants I bought last weekend) or on the light shelf (everything else) disturbs me. You'd think we'd at least be able to get the plants in the ground before the first hail storm of the year, though in this case I'm glad there isn't anything out there yet since young plants likely would have floated away or would be drowning this morning.

I think these storms are confused---Kim needs rain over there near Lubbock much more than we need rain in the OK counties that have been slammed with rain the last week. I do hope SW OK counties get more rain today because they have not received nearly as much as southcentral and southeastern OK counties.

Nancy, I agree with your assessment of black walnuts. The ones that grow on our property aren't really worth messing with, and since the remaining black walnut trees are far from our house and off in the snakey woods, the squirrels or feral hogs or whoever/whatever can have those black walnuts. I'd rather eat English walnuts.

Kim, It sounds like you got what Tim calls a 6" rainfall.....six inches in between raindrops, and sometimes they are so widely spaced it might be 6' and not 6". Usually when we get a 6" rainfall, we get about 16 drops of rain too and they all fall in about a minute, and then it is over. I wish you could have gotten some of the rain we've gotten. I don't even think the OK Mesonet maps are accurately representing our rainfall at our place---as of yesterday they seemed about an inch off for the last week. This is why I track and record our rainfall myself, because the Mesonet captures broad-scale rainfall and not necessarily the exact rainfall on an area as small as one piece of property.

I would like to go plant shopping today. We'll see. Much depends on how the severe weather develops. Maybe we'll just stay home during the severe weather and go plant shopping tomorrow afternoon. At least the temperatures will be nice. I'm so tired of having highs in the 30s and low 40s, so today's and tomorrow's 60s are going to feel glorious, even if rain and/or hail are falling today. Tomorrow we are supposed to see the reappearance of the sun. I feel like we should fall to our knees and worship the Sun when it finally shows itself because I was starting to think it had abandoned us for good. When we got the latest NWS briefing last night that said more inches of rain overnight and today, I felt so discouraged. We're already too wet. I wish today's rain would fall somewhere else, like in western OK where it is really really needed, or over there at Kim's place. As my grandmother always said, though, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. I do think it is bad karma to wish away the rain because all too often there is not enough of it, so I know I shouldn't wish for it go to away. Still, it vexes me that we had virtually no rain whatsoever here in all of 2018 until the start of the cool-season planting season arrived, and we've had rain pretty much every day and every night since then.

I stayed off seed company websites and did not order any more seeds this week, once I had ordered the long-awaited flower seeds early in the week, so I am proud of myself for not 'self-medicating' during the gloomy gray rainy days by going back online every day and ordering seeds I don't need.

I'm not looking forward to the massive cool season weed explosion that will occur in the garden now that the long-awaited moisture has fallen. One advantage of the winter drought has been that there have been virtually no winter weeds appearing in the garden yet. I guarantee you that by the middle of next week, those weeds will be popping up everywhere. However, so will desirable reseeding plants like larkspur, poppies, dill, etc. so I'm looking forward to seeing where those desirable ones pop up. (And that's how poppies got their name, I assume, by popping up here, there and everywhere.)

It is raining here. Of course it is. Silly woman. Would I really expect that it is not going to rain on a day when we have a 90% chance of rain? There's no hail yet though so at least the nasty weather is staying to our west so far.

Y'all have a good day today.

Dawn

HJ, your evening sounded great to me. Carinos sounds lovely (and not cooking-also great!) The glass of wine? Heck, yeah! I maybe have one 2 or 3 times a year, but I thoroughly enjoy it.

Nancy, I'm at a very small (class B) school and because our graduating classes are usually small, we do a nice video for their graduation; morphs of them from baby pictures to senior pics (with an elementary & middle school age between), a Power Point photo collage of each that's converted into video format, and random bits of video, all set to music that runs around 20 minutes. I taught a seniors' multimedia class for 10 years that produced and edited it and other projects. For the past 3 years it was taught in the regular computer classroom, but that teacher left last year. Due to budget cuts, I volunteered to do it again without a class, as they combined art and computer classes.

Dawn, I will probably not get them all in, but I'm sure going to try to get some seed in the ground. My beds may be weedy, but I'll just call it my pottager/cottage garden. Somebody's got to feed the voles, right?

We're enjoying a lull in the rain right now (and I'm with you, HJ, I'm not hoping for a 4 month break, lol.)

Carol

The skies are getting lighter, the clouds are lifting, and the rain is pronounced "done." I lost track of how much we were blessed with. . .right around 7 inches in the past week. Mesonet is approximately in line with my tallies. We, in the far very northeast part of Waggoner County, are far different than the western part of our county and the Mesonet station--we're more in line with the Tahlequah-reporting station, which is much closer, as the crow flies.

Dawn, regarding the wedding. I KNOW. That was what I said about the wedding. Daughter called us yesterday morning to see when we'd be there. . . I said, oh in about 90 minutes. What time are you going to be there? She said, "huh?" I asked again what time she'd be at the venue. She said, "You didn't see the update? That it's going to be at our house?" Uh, no. Hung up and looked for the update. Took 5 minutes to find it. I let her know that I finally found it, but it wasn't easy, so she sent another FB alert to everyone. LOL We should leave early to help them, but we don't want to be early to be party to the disappointment that it is SO wet up there. There was so much stuff she can't do while raining. . . well, the rain is finally gone from there, too. Good luck, R and F. And so thankful it has cleared, just as the forecasters said it would. Whew.

That's what I pictured, Carol, but was interested in finding out, about the video. I love and salute good teachers. You all are worth your weight in gold!! Good teachers were instrumental in shaping me. "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear." The best teachers inspire students to WANT to learn.

LOL, Dawn, the 6" rainfall.

Okay, gotta go shower for the big event. Blessings and peace to you all!!

Yes, sun is out. Water has disappeared into spongy soil. My 7 day total according to the mesonet is 3.9. We will see how the onions and garlic fare.

I bought things from Prairie Moon yesterday, but didn't get Common Milkweed, even though I considered it. (I really need another flower bed for natives like this.) Any way, this article appeared on my FB today. Never thought about eating it. And, Dawn, Native Seeds says you can eat Devil's claw, seeds and immature fruit. The claw part was used for baskets.

We're going to take the dog to Lowes.

Yep, we have sun, but way too wet to work outside. Had to move the rosemary under cover, as I think it's gotten a lot more water than it really wanted. Spinach and Shasta daisies are sprouting in their jugs. One of my planters that I put spinach or lettuce in is full to the top with water. Guess I should figure out what's up with the drainage holes in that one, but it's currently too heavy to lift and dump. Gotta go out and bail water.

I spent most of the day sitting in car shops, after I blew a tire and the original place I bought them from said I was SOL, because the tire was 6 months out of warrantee. Crappy budget tires anyway. Got it to my regular place and they cut me a deal on 2 really good tires that were being discontinued, for only $30 more than the original place wanted to put 2 of the same crappy cheap tires on. I think I made out like a bandit, but I lost most of the day to sitting and playing on my phone.

That beautiful bright shiny thing in the sky reappeared around 1 p.m., accompanied by a blue sky. What a relief! We're so glad the rain is gone, even if only for 3 or so days. Maybe most of this current rainfall at least will soak into the clay before the rain returns on Tuesday. We made it up to 59 degrees so it not only looks nice outdoors this afternoon, but it also feels pretty nice too. There's tons more green in the pastures and along the roadways than there was a week ago, so all the rain already is making a difference. Ponds and creeks are plenty full, and the Red River looks so much better than it did during the drought.

At our house, we ended up with 7.4" of rain in one rain gauge and 7.6" in the other, so I guess I'll call it 7.5" since last Saturday and let it go at that. I think our Mesonet station recorded 5.83 or 5.84", but much of our county got more than that. The rain was widespread but with various bands here and there that were heavier than others, so how much rain anyone got was sort of the luck of the draw. I haven't heard anyone here complaining they got too little rainfall.

Carol, I'm glad you're thinking of the voles and wanting to be sure they get fed. I'm thinking of them in an opposite way---not planting anything with tubers, like dahlias for example, because those almost instantly become Vole Chow and I just don't like the voles well enough to feed them on purpose. I love the cottage garden look and non-gardeners generally cannot spot the weeds mixed in with the veggies, herbs and flowers either, so it can be less than perfect and no one even notices or cares.

Nancy, I hope the wedding goes great, and y'all please be careful driving home tonight. As all this rainfall runs off, rivers and creeks are rising. I know there is a Flood Warning for the Illinois River near Tahlequah in effect right now, and for many, many other places in eastern OK as well. That's Oklahoma for you---from drought to flood in the blink of an eye.

I hope the wedding is wonderful and fun and memorable (for all the right reasons). Hopefully the weather will cooperate for the rest of the day.

Amy, I've grown Devil's Claw for years because it was one of my dad's favorite plants from his childhood, and I know it is edible, but I've never tried eating it. I like to leave the flowers/seed pods so we can harvest the big brown "mosquitoes" in the fall.

Your dog goes more places than I do. Honey has an adventurous life, and I hope all that shopping wears her out so that she is not so destructive when she is at home.

Rebecca, Ditto on it being too wet to work outside. I am hoping all the water ponding and puddling on top of the ground will hurry up and soak in. Even then, I may have to be patient for a few more days and wait for everything to dry up some. I'm glad I didn't have anything in the ground yet.

It sounds like you did make out like a bandit with the new tires, even if you had to waste a lot of your day waiting and playing on the phone. At least the tire issue is all taken care of.

We had an unexpected guest show up here during the rain---a little black and white (but chubby, if not downright fat) chihuahua. I opened the mudroom door, he ran right in, and I said well, you can stay here while it is raining but we're not keeping you. Then I dried him off with a towel, gave him a blanket to sleep on and gave him dog food and water. He was adorable, and obviously terrified of thunder. While I was taking care of him, Tim was checking with the nearest neighbors to see if anyone knew who he belonged to. No one did, but one said he lives at the far south end of our road and was terrified of thunder, and his description of the dog fit him to a T. Apparently he wanders around a lot and shows up at our neighbor's ranch every so often. So, after the last band of rain came through, I opened the door and he ran off, presumably headed for home and we haven't seen him since. I hope he made it home okay. He was in the mudroom for 3 or 4 hours and really wanted to come into the house, but Jersey and Jet were watching him and growling, so clearly they were not wanting for him to come into the house itself. The mudroom was warm and dry, so it was a good place for a lost little dog to stay inside, dry off and wait out the thunderstorm.

I'm hoping to go plant shopping tomorrow---not so much for any specific thing but just to see what is out there.

After the sun came out, I moved some of the indoor plants into new positions so they could catch some sunlight coming through the windows. Then we let the dogs go out into the muddy dog yard, the cats go out into the yard to roam around, and around 3 pm we let the poultry out to free-range for a while. Everyone is deliriously happy except for one cat who finds wet paws unacceptable. She's funny that way. She doesn't mind being outside when it is 5 degrees as long as her paws are not wet.

My garden looks like a river of rain has been running through it/over it for a week, which is pretty much what has been happening. I can't wait for it to dry out enough that I can go out into it and do something. I'm not sure how long the drying out will take.

Dawn

Got an Arp rosemary plant at Lowes, along with a cilantro, a 6 pack of "stirfry" broccoli, and a 6 pack of kale. Got a pair of waterproof gardening shoes at Atwoods on clearance. The dog had fun, but why does she always fart in the car?!! 2 trips out in 2 days, maybe it will make up for rainy days. Rain, of course, does not phase her. The beagle looks out at it and says "I'll wait."

I am kind of amused you all have to go buy rawhides. I buy mine in bulk. She has to have one to carry around, and take outside and loose, and one to actually chew on when the toys and buffalo horn aren't cutting it.

I'm sorry Rebecca, I can't think of much worse than what you did today (well ERs are worse, but not much).

I hope Nancy and company are having a lovely wedding.

Honey weighed between 64 and 67 (she would not sit still.) The vet looked shocked and said 65 pounds at 10 months?

Carol, what a nice thing to do. I read senior video and thought senior citizen. Reminds me I was supposed to get a video from my high school reunion last year and never did.

Sophie was a good girl getting her pins out yesterday. After a long and non productive day in q I got home and the neighbors were shooting. Sophie hates guns so the poor girl just suffered all day.

This morning went to a meeting with a market vendor friend and offered my muscles to help out at the area school gardens lol in my spare time. They had a seed swap set up which I wasn't going to get any even tho I was drooling and then a lady brought in 3 huge bins of gasp botanical interests seeds. In case you don't know these are my favorite because if their package. She insisted that I please take as many as I want. WHAT? She obviously did not know she was speaking to an addict. I restrained myself mostly but still came home a beautiful variety of flowers and herbs for my raised bed. So I am signed up now. I can't wait to see how this plays out. One person even wanted me to teach a class haha. I said sure as long as there are only 2 people in the room.

Too windy to do anything at all here

We made it back. The sun came out at 3:30, it warmed up and all was perfect for the ceremony. The sun disappeared again by 4:30 and it was uncomfortably chilly by 5:15. What a huge blessing for the actual ceremony. We're so happy for them. We cried.

Woo-hoo, Kim! Darn. . . I feel a nap coming on.

Park Seed has free shipping this weekend. Code is SHIPFREE.

This is a list of flower seeds I got. Any advice welcome. I am planning to remove holly and black mulch from front beds around my porch to plant lots of herbs and flowers.

Okay, Kim. . . waiting. . . LOL

So funny I do not know what is wrong with me sometimes

Larkspur, iceplant, echinacea, cosmos, delphinium, black Eyed Susan, poppies, portulaca, rudbeckia. I have grown cosmos but I have never started from seed for any of the others

Y'all I need to go back and read and will do that tomorrow JUST in time for the new week's thread.

SO thankful for the sunshine. It poured this morning, but we were able to walk the dogs this late afternoon and the hens got a few minutes out of their pen, which is totally nasty.

I'm pleased with how the onion bed looks. No standing water. In other places on the property there is much standing water.

Today was FUN filled. I bought three new baby chicks to add to the flock. Now, I feel guilty for not choosing the other 100 that were left behind. I wonder what happens to the chicks who nobody wants. Everyone wants the smallest and cutest babies--what happens when they aren't chosen and get to that awkward age when their feather start coming in. Maybe I need to go back tomorrow and get the other 100 and somehow convince Tom to turn his 1200 sq. ft. shop into a giant coop.

Other than that, I had lunch with my daughter and mom. And we did some shopping. Plus grocery shopping is done so tomorrow afternoon is FREE.

Glad Sophie's done with her ordeal. I'm glad you were there for the little chihuahua, Dawn. I bet he was even MORE glad.

Dawn, have a great day plant shopping tomorrow. I am just going to be happy being at home tomorrow! (Well, after church.) Then back on the road Monday to retrieve the elderberry cuttings and berries.

I'm sure all our hearts were joyful at seeing the sun. . . mine was joyful as soon as I saw the clouds lifting! What a glorious day it was.

Vole chow. Gotta love it.

Big scores for Rebecca and Kim. Love making out like a bandit!

I see where you sent the image, Kim, so maybe it will show up eventually. :) HJ and Amy and I were just talking about ice plants. . . mine have germinated now despite my possibly keeping the soil a bit too wet. So they must be fairly forgiving. In fact, this evening, it occurred to me that I have had 100% germination this year for some of all the ones I started on the grow cart. The impatiens didn't have a great germination rate, but I planted a lot of them, so have more than enough for this year.

Okay, I saw your list. I've never grown larkspur, which I find odd.

In my experience, cosmos, rudbeckia (poppies now, as Dawn assured me), and portulaca, all easy, straightforward. (But I started indoors under lights. Didn't really need to, I just wanted to. This year I started a few cosmos indoors, but will sow freely and direct as it gets warmer. Echinacea needs stratification. . . I didn't know it last year until about the first week in Feb. So hastily kept them in freezer (in damp paper towel) for 3 weeks, then planted them. Got them planted indoors about Mar. 1. I loved delphiniums; was thinking it was probably too hot for them here. . . but I think maybe in the part shade garden that's fairly protected from wind, I'll give them a try. I thought all black-eyed Susans were from the rudbeckia family. ?

And many folks interchange the name larkspur with delphinium. (That's why common names are sometimes misleading. But there are two varieties covered by "larkspur." Consolida (annual) and delphinium (perennial.)

I see others posting so will come back.

You know when the wind is blowing 50 plus mph and you think it could break your car door off the hinges well it happened to a friend of mine. On her big dodge pickup. I will have to remember to park facing the wind.

Nancy, I've tried at least three times to grow delphiniums with no luck, but you may have have more success, being north of me. I ordered these from Prairie Moon yesterday, which I've had luck with resending for about four years, until last year. (It may be that the previous year was too wet, I don't really know.)

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