We had the tiniest sprinkle yesterday up in the Verdugo Mountains, also SFV from what I hear. Looks like our prayers for rain might be answered. I mostly hope the sierras get something to show for it.

They said they were seeing a few 90's in Texas a few posts above.....well Oklahoma has now also seen their first 90's this last weekend as well. So the warming trend is moving north. I have some trees stuck up north waiting on a truck and I expressed my concewrns to the grower that I was getting past my comfort zone on planting time for conifers. Like most folks in the north he told me not to worry because the trees were still dormant due to the cold weather they were still in. What I try to get most northerners to realize is it's the shock factor that worries us.......not just the fact this tree will have to endure so much more heat that it has been used to throughout the summer, but nothing turns a tree into a crispy critter faster than for it to come from nice cool cloudy growing conditions and drop it right in the middle of a heat wave of 90 - 100 degree temps and full sun. mark

a2gemini - thanks for the lesson of the confusing land I know only from Robocop and Home Improvement. :p Never been over there before. Before moving to the southeast I normally stayed from Texas to west of the Rockies to that whole north central/northeast US portion of the map is still unexplored. MGMum - I have some friends from London, ON who mentioned something like that. The whole area sounds really different from parts of BC that I've spent time in. Texas_Gem - all I can say is that my eyes get as big as saucer plates every time I read something about the tooth problems! cal_quail - comeon and join the not at work today club! Painting is on the list over here too so I can put things back on the bottom shelf of the pantry. greenhaven - using up stuff you already have is loads of fun, especially if you're a minimalist. I did find everything I needed eventually. It's like this... Hardware needed for the front door is a deadbolt, doorknob set, and at least one round thing that goes around the doorknob (escutcheon) that makes it look nice. The escutcheon I already have has a satin brass finish. I also have a nice non-locking doorknob set that I found at Habitat a couple of years ago but it's satin bronze. So I'm starting with 1 out of 3 pieces of two puzzles. I was able to come up with a way to properly finish both of them. I'll use the satin bronze one for the front door because normally the only thing that takes a key at that location is the deadbolt, not the knob. I already have one of these. Also two escutcheons in that finish were available from ebay and I wanted one for the inside and another for the outside. Deadbolts are easy because Schlage still makes that finish in their commercial/high end residential line. I'll use the satin brass set for the door to the garage because everywhere I've lived had a patio (locking) doorknob to the garage + a deadbolt. This is the only way you can get satin brass doorknobs for some reason. I have only one escutcheon in this finish, which is ok because it would be pointless to have one inside the garage. The finish has been discontinued but deadbolts are still available. I'll wait for the satin bronze set to come in first, then use the key number to have the brass one keyed to match it when I place the order. I'll have to do the same with the lock on the knob since those are available only on ebay with whatever cylinder they came with. All of this lock replacing is a good thing because right now we have three different kinds of locks at home. We only have the key to the front door, and I'll have to replace the door to the garage at some point because some genius decided to cut a dog door in it and they did a really sloppy job. It's also insecure because to get in from the garage all you have to do is reach in from the dog door and turn the knob if it's locked. This post was edited by schicksal on Fri, Oct 17, 14 at 9:57

I think we ended up with 6.1" yesterday, bringing our May total so far to about 13" and our year-to-date total in the upper 20s. The flash flooding damage is massive, and we cancelled our Mother's Day cookout/dinner as Tim and Chris were out with the fire department working motor vehicle accidents, reporting flooded roads so our county commissioner could send out guys to barricade those roads, and participating in a high water rescue in which one of our firefighters(so proud of him!) came across a person about to be swept off a bridge and into a creek that would feeds into the Red River fairly close by and rescued her from the vehicle, and the rest of our firefighters rushed there to help him and to try to save the car from washing away (and also to try to prevent other people from driving into that flooded roadway). Other than that, nothing at all happened here in our neighborhood. I understand Hwy 77 in our part of the county may be iffy in a few places today, but there was a lot more damage in town including damaged or destroyed roadways, as far as I know, than out here in the sticks. We'll have our cookout and dinner this evening in perfect sunny weather and without rain falling on our heads and we'll be able to enjoy it more than we would have yesterday when the skies were black and rain wouldn't stop falling. The Red River is about to crest, or already has crested, at a little over 30'. For perspective, that means any equipment or cattle in the river bottom areas had to be moved to an elevation 6' higher in order to stay out of the flood waters. We saw farmers/ranchers with bottom land areas cutting and baling and moving their hay to higher ground last week, and it is a good thing, because some of those same bottom lands are under several feet of water now. I'm glad they were able to get that first cutting of hay harvested so they wouldn't lose it to the flood. The Red River is making folks nervous, and I am sure all of you likely have flooding rivers nearby that are making folks feel the same way. It has flooded much worse here before and still is 10-11 feet lower than its record flood stage reached in 1987 at the I35 bridge between Cooke County TX and Love County OK. I am worried about the Kingston area Marshall County as they usually get hit hard by all this water flowing downstream to Lake Texoma. I don't know how the plants in my garden are going to handle all this moisture. The couple of days of drying out that we have before the next rain event will help a little, but not enough. We'll know soon if the raised beds have saved the plants that are growing in them. I know everything is going to have all kinds of fungal diseases. I sprayed with Daconil a couple of weeks ago, but rain washes it off, so it isn't really helpful if it is raining every day, and that's doubly true if you're getting 3-6" a day. Some years are just this way and we just have to wait it out and see how our plants respond. It is hard to be unhappy about rain when we generally are in desperate need of more of it. I'm still not happy about the fact that it is coming in such ridiculous amounts. The weeks that typically bring our rainiest weather still lie ahead of us, and that's food for thought, isn't it? Hope everyone is well and that your plants are hanging in there and surviving.