Thanks for the thoughts, Lamora! This time of year, living in Oklahoma, my nerves are always frazzled & I seem to be perpetually on edge, monitoring the weather. This year seems to be worse than most years. I'm glued to the Weather Channel constantly & my weather preparedness borders on obsession (or so says my crazy, adrenaline junkie husband, who likes to stay out & video the storms). When storms knock the satellite out, I turn to my computer. If that fails, I'm subscribed to text alerts from TWC & our county's Blackboard notification system. We don't have an underground shelter, but I have 2 interior hall closets. The one that backs up to our bathroom shower plumbing is for us humans & the other one is for the dogs. It's always an adventure to get those 3 mutts to cooperate with me. Two of my dogs are like me & want to hide until the storms go away, but my youngest pup is like my husband & wants to go out in the storm & run the zoomies around the yard in the thick of it all. Luckily, my 4-year-old son's take on things is more like mine than his father's, b/c he will stay in the closet with me & worries constantly about any rain or storm bringing a tornado. I don't shelter him from the news coverage on storms & definitely want him to have that healthy fear. Mission accomplished, especially after the last month's coverage on TX & OK monster tornadoes. We've watched live coverage on the Moore tornado & yesterday's OKC area tornado. If watching something like that live isn't enough to scare you half to death & make you take storms seriously, I don't know what is. Our area down here in southern OK hasn't had any extremely damaging tornadoes hit in many, many years & people here have fallen into complacency. They say that b/c we're in a valley, any rotation that comes our way will just magically lift & go over us. Despite TWC stating over & over again that this is a false statement, many people in my area just don't take the warnings seriously. I fear that it will take a tragedy of epic proportions to put that fear back into the natives of this area, but I have a great fearful respect for these storms, & you won't find me brushing warnings off lightly. Better safe than sorry, in my experience. Living in Oklahoma (& formerly in North Texas), these storms are just a fact of life for us. May is always a bad month for tornadoes, but we've had tornadoes in the immediate vicinity of us anywhere from February to December. All it takes in those "off-season" times to get the weather to go severe is an unseasonably warm, humid day out ahead of a powerful cold front. I find it in my best interest to always stay informed of the ever-changing weather b/c it takes literally minutes for the sky here to go from sunny to scary.

Saturday and alls well, went to work at 6 this morning(had to drive an hour away) and got back home about 3:30. Not to bad for an inventory day. Tomorrow I go back but probably will only be a ½ day situation. V, my best wishes to your Cubs. Ive always had a soft spot for them and will most likely root for them in the playoffs . Bet the poor old Brewskies though they had it dialed into after holding the lead for most of the season. What strength of character you show Denise-resisting the urge to pilfer an agave pup. I would suspect that no one at that shopping center gives a rats a*** for that agave and that your theft would go unnoticed-however you didnt hear it from me ! (Betcha if you called the property manager you could get permission !) Well, I must say that even at my worst I never caught my hair on fire lol ! I did have my share of experiences in and around Sunset Blvd though. Do you remember Wallachs Music City on Sunset and Vine??? I will be sure to take the Idylls house-hunting with me ! Hey , did you ask about noisettes? The only one I have right now is Boule de Neige , and will absolutely have Madame Alfred Carriere one day. If I had to pick. Mme Alfred would win the day. Martie, I have Star of Yelta which is quite similar to Grandpa Ott, and it re-seeds like mad. This year I was not diligent enough in my thinning and it has engulfed Sombrieuil and one of my Rudbeckias. I agree that I need to be careful with how I spend my house sale prep bucks. My house will list in the 675k range. 2 to 5k is a drop in the bucket. I expect to spend 10, mostly in plumbing issues and kitchen and window upgrades. Hiya Brenda-glad you checked in..sounds like you are a busy lady-its that harvest thing. The harvest season is quite intense here in Napa, and the company I work for furnishes many supplies to the vineyard folk. Eden, Im all for Reed listening to Cinderella , especially the Rogers and Hammerstein version- I did not discriminate gender wise and my son is even more into show tunes now than DD. When we did car trips in their younger days the soundtracks were a great way to keep them entertained. Oklahoma was definitely a favorite ! The address for Creepy Guy has been sent. I am pondering his visit . (oh, and my kids were also very fond of a video I taped of Sweeney Todd with Angela in her glory-I edited out the gory stuff. !) Ok everyone, I have some chores to do and some baseball to watch. Catch yall later ! Kathy in Napa

Probably its best fall yet. Seems like for a month we have had highs around 70 and lows about 40 with little rain so it isn't a typical year. It was cloudy and wet when I took the pics. My phone did pretty good. The color was really variable depending on angle and cloud cover.

Trades are getting slimmer. I've been weeding out the plants I don't want over the past few years and haven't got enough of the plants I like to be able to divide much. Hope that changes in a year or two! I can bring: My seed stash 1 black walnut seedling Daylilies (unknown type but definitely not ditch lilies) Mums (yellow) Black eyed susans Grape hyacinth bulbs Lycoris bulbs Small flowered coreopsis seedlings Russian sage cuttings (roots easily in water during the spring) Star of Bethlehem bulbs (can be VERY invasive and is very poisonous to dogs and cats but perhaps in a pot it wouldn't be too bad) Hyacinthoides (wood hyacinth)-white I may not get to dig all of these (time is getting short), so let me know if you want something and I'll make sure I bring it. Diana Lynn