May 2019, Week 4

4 years ago

How is it possible we are starting the 4th week of May already? This month has flown by in a blur of rain, clouds, wind, hail, floods, etc. It is hard to believe that the upcoming weekend will be Memorial Day weekend. I cannot help thinking that even if we get some sunny weather later this week, the lakes and marinas still will be too inundated with runoff to be really operational, and it seems like a lot of folks who normally spend the holiday weekend at the lake may have to make alternate plans this year.

Amidst all the rain and storms, there is good news. Our soil temperatures are finally warming up though it has taken long enough. The soil at our place was hitting close to 80 degrees on those sunny days. At the soil temperatures we're seeing now across the state (except maybe the panhandle?), all warm-season plants and seeds can be planted, including the seeds of southern peas, winter squash, okra, melons, etc. I wasn't sure if everyone's soil temperatures was as nice as ours are down here, so I checked the map. Here it is:

Three Day Average Soil Temperatures @ 4" Below Bare Soil

Even the pickiest of the hot-season annuals won't mind being transplanted into soils at these temperatures (except for those panhandle areas). I'm talking about annuals like periwinkles, pentas, angelonias, caladiums, etc.

If you can keep rain from washing away grass seed (our son is growing some lovely grass on his now dirt-covered sidewalk that sits below the retaining wall he is about to replace, but he is treating it as sod...lifting it up by the shovelful, dirt and new grass and all, and putting it back on the ground above the retaining wall), it is a great time to seed in new lawn areas, or even to plant plugs or lay sod. Normally, establishing new lawn takes daily watering in the beginning, but I'm thinking Mother Nature has that part mostly covered this year.

There's still tons of plants in the nurseries here (and I have noticed that even the big box stores down here do not rush to put plants on clearance here like they seem to do further north), so a person still can find a lovely selection of all kinds of plants to transplant into the ground, including shrubs, vines, ground covers, perennials and annuals. The bigger issue might be whether it is too wet to plant. I've been buying things I want when I see them, and then holding them in their containers until the ground dries out enough for them.

Be on the lookout for:

---fungal and bacterial infections on plants, particularly foliage. They're always so much more worse in wet years.

---major garden pests in the true bug category that are hard to control: potato bugs, squash bugs, stink bugs (both green and brown) and leaf-footed bugs.

---signs of Rose Rosette Disease on your roses. Infected plants need to be removed promptly so the mites that carry the disease cannot spread to other plants, but always get someone else to confirm you are seeing RRD because new growth on some types of roses looks remarkably similar to RRD

---grasshoppers. Although they are a couple of months late, some small nymphs are hatching out here now. I am not seeing them in large enough numbers that I'd bother putting out Nolo Bait or Semaspore to control them though.

---chiggers. Late May is when they normally show up here, and they seem to always catch us by surprise. I expect they will be really bad this year, especially in any area not being mowed regularly because they love that tall grass.

---fruit tree diseases and pests.

---scale on plants, especially the Crape Myrtle Bark scale (but also watch for lady bugs to show up to eat it).

Don't forget that if pruning is needed, now is a great time to do certain types of it.

--Spring-flowering shrubs can be pruned after they've finished blooming.

--Deadhead your roses, daylilies and other plants as their blooms fade.

--Use your fingers to tip-prune plants that tend to get too tall and lanky too early in the season, like coleus, mums, copper plants and Mexican bush sage

Monday's weather is a huge concern, with the risk of severe weather currently being quite high for much of the state. Be sure to stay weather aware.

Enjoy today---at least we get to start out the week with sunshine.

Dawn

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Rebecca (7a)

4 years ago

I’m home and watching the coverage. Right now it’s on top of the Drummond lands in Osage county, AKA the Pioneer Woman.

Jen, we found out the state was closed when we tried calling the Medicaid offices to fix some problems.

No safe room at work, just an interior bathroom that we have to crowd everyone into. I have Audrey’s travel case in the hallway in case we need to take cover. She’s been restless and on edge all last night and still is, although I don’t know what she did while I was at work.

Dawn, I have a feeling that my brother in law will take care of the snakes with his pellet gun, whether it’s legal or not. He’s had to dispatch a squirrel family that ate their porch furniture cushions. Of course, my sister handled a Pygmy rattlesnake in their driveway in NC, with a rake.

I really need to fertilize things, if it ever stops raining.

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Comments (40)

Rebecca (7a)
4 years ago
Reason #7962 why my sister is ready to leave Texas.
hazelinok
4 years ago
Our internet is down yet again. I’m on my phone and dislike posting this way but y’all! They’ve cancelled school tomorrow because of possible bad storms. Tomorrow is May 20. Ethan was finishing up elementary school May 20, 2013 when disaster struck. The remainder of the school year was cancelled and his 6th grade awards ceremony was postponed until August. Do you think they (the schools) are just being sensitive because tomorrow is May 20?

everyone in my community is just a little freaked out.
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Jennifer, I was supposed to be growing okra, southern peas, melons, cucumbers, winter squash, summer squash and gourds in the back garden but the constant Spring rain ruined that plan after the front garden was mostly filled with other plantings, leaving me little to no space to squeeze them in. Well, really the tomatoes were to be in the back garden too, but the muddy quagmire made that impossible too, so the tomatoes ended up in the front garden, leaving even less space for anything else. When I moved them there, I just figured the back garden would dry out eventually, and it is beginning to, but it is such a weedy mess, since weeds will grow in heavy mud, that I really don't even want to tackle planting back there this late. My fear is that our rain will suddenly stop and I'll have a huge back garden filled with young plants that will need a lot of water. The rain has largely dried up here, though the lower end of the front garden still is very wet. 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In some years I have grown both of them on the garden fence, using it as a trellis, but with the way herbicide drift keeps hitting the front garden, anything on the fence is first in the line of fire so I sort of hate to plant anything there at all. At least if I have random flowers along the fence line, they seem, for the most part, to be more resilient and to bounce back from getting herbicide drift damage. I could plant melons and cucumbers along the northern fence line, but that's the lower end of our strongly sloping garden (sitting several feet lower than the upper end) and it still is very wet down there. The plants I have there now (Heidi tomato plants and some herbs) are producing but the plants are too waterlogged and look horrible and I am sort of amazed they still are alive. I don't think melons or cukes would fare well down there this year unless we dry out a lot. With potentially heavy rain in the Sunday forecast, drying out might not happen. I have grown cucumbers on the north garden fence before, but not in recent years---the woodland has moved across the 10 feet of open space that used to serve as a buffer between the woodland and the garden and now trees and vines are trying to grow right up to and through that fence line, making that fence line a bit shady. We lost control of that open buffer space in 2010 when we got almost 80" of rain and all the woodland plants went crazy and exploded into growth. We need to spend time this winter clearing it out. We can't do it now because of the risk of dropping a tree on the garden fence. We'll have to wait for the off-season when it wouldn't matter so much if the fence was destroyed. Well, it would matter, because we'd have to rebuild the fence, but there wouldn't be garden plants exposed to deer in winter if the fence was damaged like there would be right now. I do have about a 20' row of bush beans in the same bed as the okra. Those are just now starting to bloom, so they'll likely be producing throughout June, depending on how soon we hit the mid-90s, which tends to shut down bean production. I might be able to replace the bush beans with southern peas if we don't keep getting too much rain. I think late June would be pretty late to plant melons or winter squash though and it only would be possible anyway if we dry out some. When I transplanted the okra after taking out the sad-looking sugar snap pea plants, I found the soil there was still really, really wet. Thus, it seems like melons those probably will come from the Farmer's Market this summer. We can get really good locally-grown melons here, if anyone was able to get them planted this year. A lot of the good melon-growing areas here are on lower-lying ground near the river. I don't think they've been flooded, but they may have been too wet at planting time. It just isn't an ideal situation at all this year. I probably should have planted only half as many tomato plants as I had planned, reserving one of the two large raised beds currently filled with tomato plants for non-tomatoes, but I didn't. I have contemplated taking all the tomato plants out of one raised bed fairly early, as soon as I finish harvesting their first big round of fruit, just to have space for something else. I kinda hate to do that, but then, we're getting a lot more tomatoes than we can eat anyway, so I need to start canning now or the fruit sitting on the counter is going to get overly ripe. I'm not used to having to start canning quite this early. I could take out those two dozen tomato plants in the smaller of the two tomato beds and hardly miss them. I don't know if I will. It is hard to take out plants that are producing. It isn't quite as hard though when you're already overloaded with ripe fruit, so that might help make it easier. Those tomato plants are interplanted with basil, borage, marigolds and other plants that would make planting cucumbers or melons there a real challenge, so I wouldn't gain much by taking them out except I could plant more flowers and herbs there. Really, I am trying to be content with what I do have planted because there's plenty of people in OK and AR with flooded gardens, yards, homes, etc. that really are suffering and losing everything, so having to skip planting a few favorite veggies this year is so very minor by comparison. JetStar and Supersonic can be a little late to set fruit, but usually not extremely late. This has been such a weird year weather-wise that nothing would surprise me. With tomatoes, when we have high moisture and high humidity, tomato plants can go downhill overnight. Diseases like bacterial speck, bacterial spot, Septoria Leaf Spot and Early Blight are much worse in years with weather like this. While I usually don't have trouble with the more serious wilt diseases like southern blight or fusarium wilt, they also seem a lot worse in wet, humid years----not in my garden, but just in a lot of people's gardens in general. I would expect we'd see more of those across the state this year than usual. I even have wondered if this might be one of the very rare years we have late blight in OK. Normally we are too warm and mostly too dry for it, but with all the moisture and all the cool weather in May, we may have had a period of time when it could have developed. Hopefully not, though, since it is a totally devastating disease that can completely destroy a tomato planting in just a few days....and there is no cure, nor can you salvage any fruit---they all are infected and rot. The weird white stuff on your strawberry plants does look like some form of slime mold, though not necessarily the right color and texture to be dog vomit slime mold, which is a real thing. It is peculiar because slime molds usually grow on the ground, and then they quickly die away as soon as the soil dries out a little. They feed on decaying plant matter in the soil. Slime molds are just unicellular beings that thrive on decaying matter and tend to be short-lived when they do appear, often disappearing within a few days. While it is rare here, you can get slime mold on strawberry plants, on the leaves and even on the fruit. Normally we do not have high-enough moisture or humidity levels to support this sort of slime mold on strawberries, but it looks like your plants do have it growing on them right now. Don't worry, the slime mold is a growth but it is not an infection, so your plants aren't ill or anything---they just have an unwelcome guest temporarily growing on them. If it is dry enough, you might be able to scrape it off the plants. If the plants are mulched, the slime mold likely started growing there since, obviously, your strawberry plants are not decaying plant matter. It would help if the next round of rain would miss your garden so more drying out can occur and the slime mold will just go away on its own. I have been finding and killing a lot of armyworms on plants in my garden. Mostly I am finding them while they are very small--maybe a half-inch long at most, so have been able to kill them before they can do too much damage. I have seen other unidentified caterpillars and have left them alone if I don't know what kind they are. I don't want to spray with Bt because I have swallowtails caterpillars all over the place, anywhere that I'm growing parsley, cilantro, dill or fennel for them. I think I have those plants in 4 or 5 different locations and it is a deliberate choice to spread them around so that the songbirds won't be able to find and eat the swallowtail cats as easily. Larry, Your deer are smart---checking to see if some of their favorites have sprouted yet. We are seeing the deer a lot more often too. Sometimes they walk right by the garden fence while I'm in the garden. I have a feeling that if I were not in the garden, they might walk right in through the gate (they've done it before) and help themselves to whatever they are craving. I have no really good explanation why the deer are checking out the yard and garden as much as they are lately, and I've been wondering why I am seeing them so much. I suppose I could blame it a little bit on the river being so high--it is running only about 3 feet below flood stage--but the river bottom lands frequented by the deer aren't even under water, so why more of them are up here on higher ground this last month or two is something I really don't understand. There's plentiful native food for them as we certainly are not in drought. I'm having the same issue with the wild turkeys. The dogs will start barking like mad and I'll know there's wild turkeys in the front yard. They stroll right down the driveway from out west behind the barn, which is the area they always come from and return to, walk down the middle of the driveway a couple hundred feet to the front garden and then either slip off into the woodland adjacent to the garden or turn around and walk back up the driveway like they own the place. I put out cracked corn and a little hen scratch for them west of the barn each morning and they have become quite spoiled. Often, when I walk out the back door, the wild turkeys are waiting for me at their feeding spot. They take off into the back pasture as soon as they see me, but they don't go far. They just stand in the tall grass watching me, and come back to eat as soon as I had back towards the house. We've never had as many wild turkeys before as we've had this year. I see them in flocks of as many as 7 or 8 at one time. Some come from our woodland, and undoubtedly are living in it or the nearby pasture or both, and others come from our neighbors' pasture and woodland area. I hear them all day long, so I know they are around even when I'm not seeing them. Our neighbor who used to hunt them passed away a couple of months ago and I didn't hear his kids or grandkids back there hunting during the spring turkey season---undoubtedly they were occupied with other things. So, maybe we're just seeing more because they feel like they're in a safer spot with that property behind us currently unoccupied. Patti, I just cut them any old time. Like you, I hate cutting them down while the bees are visiting them so much, so I usually wait until they get so big that they are flopping over on the ground, which is happening now. I haven't cut mine yet, but will do so soon. You can cut them back pretty much any time you want, and you can cut them back as hard as you want. I have cut them back almost to the ground some years. They regrow like crazy and are big again in the blink of an eye. Often, I cut back half of them, leaving the other half for the bees. Then, when the ones I cut are about ready to bloom again, I'll cut back the other half. It doesn't matter though. You can cut them all at one time. When I've done that, the bees just switch to other flowering plants until the comfrey comes back into bloom. I worked in the garden longer on Friday than I have in a long time...from around 7:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. I weeded, weeded, weeded seemingly all day long, but also was able to get quite a lot of herbs and flowers tucked into little places here and there in the beds. I finally feel like I made a lot of progress with the weeds---not nearly enough, but enough that it gives me hope that I'll have weed-free beds in another week or two. Not that they will stay weed-free, but they do look a lot better now with all those sprouting weeds pulled out. It takes me so long to weed such a large garden though that if I start at the highest raised bed at the south end of the garden, then by the time I work my way down through the rest of the garden, from south to north, and eventually get back to the first bed, it has new weeds sprouting and the whole weeding cycle starts over again. I need to do some more mulching in the trouble spots. With all this rain, the whole garden seems to be a weedy trouble spot and I don't have enough mulch for the whole thing. With potentially heavy rain in the forecast for Sunday, I'm going to skip grocery shopping and running errands today if I can and spend as much time as possible in the garden again today, or at least until it gets too hot to stay out there. I probably stayed out in the heat too long yesterday and I know I didn't drink enough fluids, but I really tried to stay hydrated. I can grocery shop and run errands on a rainy day. I need to spend the sunny day in the garden. I was amazed at how many small armyworms I found and killed. I've been killing them for weeks, and more just keep coming. Their name suits them. I wasn't even looking for them....just killing them as I came across them. Often they were on small weeds that I was pulling, or on plants near the weeds....a reminder that we try to keep our gardens weed-free for just this reason....to give the pests fewer places to hide. I don't mind looking at weeds in the garden that much, but I don't like knowing the weeds are providing a home for pests that I don't want in the garden in the first place. Speaking of pests, I've been finding and killing a lot of green stink bugs lately, and I'm finding them in about the 4th instar stage. I don't know why I don't find them younger than that. Perhaps they're hatching and growing outside the garden and don't move into it until they're at the 4th instar. I never see their eggs either, or the newly hatched nymphs. Regardless, so far I'm seeing a lot more green stink bugs than brown stink bugs. I've hardly seen any squash bugs at all and when I do see them, they are sitting on non-squash plants looking confused, perhaps because the squash plants are under micromesh netting and they cannot get to them. So far I think I have been successful at killing every squash bug I've found. One advantage to not having many cucurbit crops this Spring is that the squash bugs cannot find anything to eat. Yay! I found a leaf-footed bug inside my garden shed and killed it. I haven't seen many of them yet, and I am glad, as they are quick to fly away when you spot them. I mostly just watch for them on the tomato plants. Right now it is likely they're feeding more on tree fruit. Speaking of tree fruit, the first sand plums are beginning to ripen now and I need to start picking them so I can make some jelly. I'm really sort of surprised we have any at all because we had multiple late freezes after they bloomed that I figured would have killed all the fruit. The freezes killed a lot of the fruit, but apparently not all of it. Have a great day everyone, and Happy June! The heat is arriving right on schedule, unfortunately. Dawn
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September 2019, Week 4
Q
Comments (22)
Thanks, Amy and Nancy. What a year it has been, though in all the wrong ways. I'm looking forward more than ever to 2020, or even to October, which at least is coming soon. Amy, Do you know what stripped the kale? Have you seen any cabbage loopers or anything? Maybe fall armyworms? Sadly, at our house, when the kale is being stripped, it usually is our own chickens feasting on our kale. I love Beck's Big Buck, but its size does stun a person when they are new to it. I like to slice them and oven roast them. You can sprinkle the sliced with a little olive oil and seasoning and create okra chips that are (to me) much tastier and obviously healthier than potato chips. With the cucumber plants and as moist as it has been, I'd suspect disease more so than pests. I hope y'all have a good weekend too. Nancy, There's three kittens and they all look just like their mother except they are going to be bigger than her. They are growing fast now that they are eating regularly. I think they are about five to six weeks old and beginning to get a little bit more used to my presence every day, but it is going to be hard to tame them. Still, I am making progress. One of them no longer runs and hides immediately when it sees me---it sits and waits to see if I am bringing food. lol. With cats, you can develop a friendship over food, so I'm off to a good start there. I need to spend a lot of time trying to tame them over the next several weeks and it likely will involve putting a large cage in the garage and moving their cat food dishes into it. Once they are used to eating in the cage, hopefully I can catch them in the cage and bring them indoors to start working to tame them. It needs to happen while they are pretty young, or they'll be impossible to tame. As soon as we get them caged, their mom will go to the vet to be spayed so that she won't have another litter of kittens. If I can't tame them, they can become barn cats/garage cats, but I'd rather tame them so they can enjoy being around humans. If we let them remain feral, it will be hard to catch them in order to take them to a vet for shots and medical attention as we'd have to trap them and then they'd be upset, hysterical wrecks. I'd like to avoid trapping if at all possible. I guess I can spend the non-gardening season taming feral kittens. I'm amazed they've survived living outdoors this long because we have raccoons in the yard every night and coons will kill and eat kittens (or even adult cats). This kittens basically have survived by climbing up into the engine of our Dodge pickup truck to sleep at night. You have to lift the hood, check for them and make sure they aren't in there before you can start up the engine....every single time. They also like to hide on top of the tornado shelter, which is covered by a large trumpet creeper vine that gives them lots of cover, so if we can peer into that mess and see them, at least we know they aren't under or in the truck. Have fun with the church group tomorrow. I'm sure the house and yard look simply splendid. I love our house when it is perfectly clean and tidy, which generally doesn't happen nearly as often as I'd like! You know, there's a level of everyday clean or family clean but then there is holiday/visitor clean. I love it when I take the time to get it all holiday/visitor clean BUT I don't love it enough to keep it that spic and span every day of the year either. I hope you get a good night's sleep so you do not feel exhausted tomorrow! Today there were new monarchs in the garden. I don't know if they hatched here, but they were enjoying nectaring at various plants. It is too soon for us to be seeing migrants here, so these are local more or less, one way or another, though they could be regional or local butterflies beginning to mass prior to migrating. All the butterflies and bees are why I don't rip out any plants too early....any more, it is all about them in the garden, not us. I looked at the plants at Home Depot today (inside the garden center, I forgot to look at the ones outside on the sidewalk) and they are starting to compress them down into a smaller area, probably in order to make way for holiday merchandise. They still had some shrubs and perennials, and some fall annual warm-season color, but nothing new for cool weather yet, and I forgot to check to see what Wal-Mart had. They had a lot of tropical plants that would look lovely indoors if only we didn't have cats and dogs that would destroy them. We were buying paint at HD to paint the house, a job which has been on our To Do list ever since we got the new roof put on the house, which I think was in July. We totally changed the shingles from light colored to dark colored and wanted a new paint color that would look better with the new color of the roof. We've just been waiting endlessly for cooler weather to arrive because who wants to paint when the heat index is 108 or 110 or 112? We cannot wait too long now that it is almost October or the nights will start to get too cool for the paint to dry properly, so we are going to start painting Saturday. I would have started tomorrow but Fred's funeral is tomorrow afternoon, and I don't want to go to the funeral with paint in my hair or anything. I'm seeing a definite pattern change in the behavior of the hummingbirds over the last week or two. Several weeks ago, hummingbirds were flocking to the feeders all day---flying back and forth from blooming plants to feeders in a dizzying whirl of activity that went all all day long. I knew they were our locals eating extra food to put on the fat they need to help sustain them on their journey south to Mexico. It was amazing to watch and then it ended, and I knew at that point that the males were headed south, though we still had females and juveniles feeding all day long but not in such a crazy frenzy---they seem a bit calmer. Over the weekend and at the start of this week, it appears the females and juveniles too had headed south, and we had a day or two with practically no hummingbirds. Now we have migrants. One way you can tell is that they appear suddenly at the feeders early in the day, feed like mad, and then pretty much disappear. I assume these are migrants eating as they travel south. Then, in the evening you'll see more of them. I don't think it is the same ones that I saw in the morning. They seem tired, and content to sit on the feeder perches and feed a long time before drifting away before dark. Then, in the morning, they probably feed again and leave on the next leg of their journey, and then new travelers come in, sometimes in the morning hours, and sometimes in the early evening hours and repeat the process all over again. They're definitely spending more time at the feeders, and somewhat less time at the plants in the garden or around the house. There's nothing feeding in between the morning crowd and the evening crowd. It is fascinating to watch it all happen. Oh, and also at Home Depot today, there was one lone hummingbird who was visiting all the flowers and was so thrilled. It was just happy and chirpy and the whole nine yards and not at all bothered by being in very close proximity to people. I forgot to ask if it is a regular visitor there or just passing through. The garden is full of sulphur butterflies, and some of the candletree leaves are being devoured, so we may have sulphur cats. I just haven't had time to check. The partridge pea plants in the pastures still are in bloom but there's much fewer flowers on them now, so I think they are about done. I'm glad we have the candletrees to fill that niche of time in October after the partridge peas finish up because their blooms won't last much longer. Helenium, goldenrod and and a few other fall bloomers fill all the fencerows and any pastures that aren't regularly hayed or grazed down low, so butterflies and bees have all the flowering plants they possibly could want right now, and that's such a good thing. Our weather was slightly cooler today, but still hot, though our heat index did not break 100 today---yay! The HX was 99 but that is am improvement and we'll take any improvement we can get. Have a great weekend, y'all. Maybe cooler weather is coming next week. Dawn
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dbarron
4 years ago
last modified: 4 years ago
I don't remember EVER having school cancelled besides snow when I grew up. What kind of snake was that? couldn't tell from photo.
hazelinok
4 years ago
I know! It's weird, dbarron. Moore has cancelled two or three times for possibility of severe weather...since May 20, 2013.

People around here are understandably freaked out. Children died in their school that day. Three schools had severe damage. I had friends (teachers) and friends' children in all three schools. I don't scare often--I'm the one standing in the yard watching--but I do understand the fear.

And...I'm sad about our gardens too. Good grief. They can't take much more. The onion bed is saturated as it is.

I have more thoughts, but they can wait.
Rebecca (7a)
4 years ago
Black snake. They don’t want to kill it, but it can’t stay there either. They worry it might ma dinner out of the chihuahua.

I‘ll be at work during the weather, of course.
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
4 years ago
Rebecca, Living in Texas is not for sissies! I saw my first copperhead, in the driveway of our house (a Fort Worth suburb that was built around 1944) when I was about 6 six years old. Those black snakes are evil. I suppose your sister's neighborhood has a no-shooting-within-city-limits ordinance so they cannot just shoot those things like we can. There are wildlife removal companies that will come and trap them and remove them, but as long as the rainfall remains heavy, more probably will come. Friends of ours who live in various parts of the DFW metro have a surprising number of snake encounters, especially those whose property in their nice gated communities are near golf courses, lakes or creeks.

Jennifer, I don't think anyone is overreacting. The setup for today's weather is historically bad and we weather junkies have been reading about it since last week, hoping all the parts of the puzzle would not come together as forecast. Unfortunately, they are coming together as expected. There was a great blog about the expected Monday severe weather/tornado outbreak on the Weather Underground Cat 6 blog back on Friday. That is when I really began paying close attention to today's forecast (as much as a person can when they're busy with an active 10 year old and 4 year old). I kept hoping something in the merging weather conditions would change, but nothing has. At 1 a.m. the latest Convective Outlook added a High Risk area within the already-existing Moderate Risk area. We have very few High Risk days in the entire USA per year, and it is of high concern that much of our region is at High Risk today. After I read the accompanying outlook, I found it hard to sleep and tossed and turned all night. If you read the outlook, it tells you exactly where they think the big tornadoes are most likely to fire up. Here it is, and it will update several times throughout the day as more weather data is collected and run through the models.

Convective Outlook Day 1

One key to understanding where the worst storms are expected to be is to watch and see where the storm chasers set up today as well as to watch and see where The Weather Channel positions its live reporters. Last night, Reed Timmer sort of freaked out everyone in Elk City when he arrived there in his chase vehicle, but of course, no one knows if he is going to chase from there or if he'll head elsewhere after he sees all the data this morning. Elk City schools already had made the decision to close.

NWS-Norman has great graphics on its webpage. When I looked at it during the night (I haven't checked it this morning, but the graphics I saw overnight were updated right after the new Convective Outlook was released shortly before 1 a.m.), it said the most likely time for severe weather in my county is 10 a.m. today through 7 a.m. tomorrow----that's a long stretch of time! For most of you in central OK, I think your most likely time is 10 a.m. today to 4 a.m. tomorrow which is also a very long time frame to have to remain on high alert and always have a sheltering place planned out. Our risk down here is more for very strong winds and large (but not giant) hail. Our tornado risk is low, but we're only in the Enhanced Risk area. Those of you in the High and Moderate Risk area have a risk of tornadoes and large to giant hail. I always find it nerve-wracking to be in the Enhanced Risk area on days like this, and I probably still should, but I'm more worried about everyone in the High and Moderate Risk areas.

Here's the NWS-Norman webpage, They will be updating throughout the day as they can but, remember, their office is under the same threat as the rest of central OK so, if they are threatened and must seek shelter themselves, they will hand off their responsibilities to the nearest available WFO that is not under imminent threat. If that happens, we will be getting our updates from someone else. What I have found during this sort of weather is that the NWS pages can get overloaded and be slow to load especially if new Warnings are popping up constantly, so it helps if you're following NWS-Norman on FB and Twitter because you still can see info that way. Be sure to have at least two different modes of getting your weather info today. I have a bunch....the TV for as long as it lasts, my cell phone, our NOAA All-Hazards radio which is set to alert not just for our county but for the 8 nearest counties to us, and my VFD fire radios, where I can listen to first-hand reports from our trained storm spotters positioned around the county as well as get official news from our EOC. I feel as prepared, in terms of awareness, as it is possible to be. I hope all the rest of you are prepared as well.

NWS-Norman Webpage

I expected the schools to begin cancelling classes yesterday afternoon, so that part didn't surprise me so much. Maybe the fact that a lot more schools cancelled than just Norman, Moore and OKC was what surprised me, but I understand it. While those of you in central OK were living that nightmare on May 20, 2013, Tim, Chris and I were sitting in our living room with our TV on The Weather Channel as they showed the tornado hitting Moore live on the air. We were so horrified as we watched its path, and then horrified by the aftermath as the search for the children in the schools was ongoing. We knew then, and understand to this day, that everything changed for central OK that day even more than it already had in May 1999 and that the schools, especially in Moore, never would be the same again when it comes to High and Moderate Risk days for tornadoes. The amount of PTSD in that area guarantees that. I am not sure parents, students and staff who went through that horrible day ever will feel safe enough even after all the schools get the safe rooms and shelters completed. Long before Moore announced the school closings there were tons of parents saying they were not sending their children to school today even if school wasn't cancelled, and I understand why they feel that way. I think the school administrators understand it too.

I still do not understand why safe rooms or underground shelters are not mandatory for every single new building built in OK. I love our tornado shelter for the peace of mind it gives us. I didn't love it when we were spending the money to build it---I would rather have spent that money on landscaping our second year here, but installing it was the right decision. After we got ours, neighbors would come to it during warned storms because there were so few in our area. Now many, many homes on our rural road have added either safe rooms or tornado shelters.

I agree---how much more torrential rainfall, flooding, hail and strong winds can gardens tolerate this year? How much more frustration can gardeners tolerate? Nature is pushing the limits and pushing our buttons this year. I already have cut back so much on what I'm growing since the back garden is unplantable, and I'm okay with that. We cannot control the weather and I know better than to plant in a swampy garden just so I can say I planted. I'll just focus on what I have planted in the front garden and hope the plants survive the May weather. We all can worry about June weather later, right? Compared to the weather risk and weather hazards today, all our garden issues are just small stuff.....and we do love our gardens, but they pale insignificance to bigger weather issues.

About the only thing I intend to do garden-wise is to harvest any tomatoes at the breaker stage this morning early so I won't lose them to hail, if we get any hail here.

Rebecca and all the rest of you who will be at work today----I hope your places of employment have safe rooms inside them somewhere. Tim and Chris both work today and I do not think their buildings have safe rooms but they are not at the same risk area down in the DFW metro area as folks up here are. I am more worried about Tim being on the road driving home during prime storm time for us, but we're pretty good at watching the radar and navigating his way around tornadoes and hail because we've done that a lot over the past 20+ years.

Men think differently from women. Last night Tim reminded me that the monthly county fire association meeting (we call it the fire chiefs' meeting) is tonight, which is his nice way of saying he'll be home early for dinner before going to the meeting so he's hoping I'll have dinner ready early. lol lol lol. I just rolled my eyes at that statement. My response to him was that I guessed they'd be holding the association meeting in the Emergency Operations Center then because that was where everyone was gong to be anyway. Why on earth they haven't cancelled that meeting is beyond me---they shouldn't be having it during a severe weather outbreak because fire chiefs have to drive a long way from some parts of the county just to get to the meeting. On our last bad tornado day here they had to evacuate the EOC and go to the public underground shelter a few blocks away. We had three small, weak tornadoes that day. I just don't think a bunch of fire chiefs will be sitting around having their regular monthly meeting tonight---I think they'll be too busy for that.

I dread the next 24 -30 hours for the people of our state and also adjacent states where folks are at risk from this weather. This has the potential to be the worst tornado outbreak for us in several years. You know, it doesn't have to be one of those days with tons of tornadoes popping up everywhere----it only takes one big one to make a day memorable for all the wrong reasons.

Please stay safe everyone.

Dawn
slowpoke_gardener
4 years ago
We had some bad weather Sat., lost two large oaks, and the top was blown out of another tree. The top I was able to push out of the way, the two large oaks were to large to do anything with.

All of my onions have rotted and insects are eating their fair share of everything else. I have planted okra, peas and, and zinnias, which may or may not come up. About 10# of peas were planted in the wildlife garden.

I have planted my overflow plants in my garden, just in time for the hail to get them. As of now I have 50+ tomatoes and around 18 peppers, and close to a million weeds.

Dawn thanks for the weather up date, I always hear it first here on OK Gardening.
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
4 years ago
Larry, I am sorry about the trees and also about the onions. I am pulling rotting onions as well, though not a lot of them yet. They are in a well-drained raised bed, but this rain is too much for them anyway.

Sorry about your flowers too and the peas. I hope hail leaves you alone!

You and I belong to the same Million Weed Club and we aren't the only ones.

You're welcome. I try to keep the weather news current here since it affects all of us and our gardens.

So, y'all, this morning's updated Convective Outlook shows the High Risk area expanded further into central OK, putting the OKC metro in the High Risk area. Even as far south as I am, they expanded the Moderate Risk area to us and increased our tornado risk from low to medium down here. Our son's county, one county north of us, mostly is in Moderate Risk, but a small portion (the NW corner of the county) is in the High Risk category. Wow. For those of you in central OK, The Weather CHannel updated your TorCon from 8 to 9 when your area moved into the High Risk area. Also, TWC reporters Jim Cantore and Mike Bettes are in the OKC metro area, and y'all know what their presence means on days like this. When a Tornado Watch is issued for central OK, I would expect it will carry the rare "Particularly Dangerous Situation" label.

Here is the newest Convective Outlook from 7:55 a.m. It will update again around noon:

Latest SPC Convective Outlook for Today

Keep in mind that in many parts of the state, the worst weather might not occur until late in the day or overnight.

For those of you in the Tulsa Weather Forecast Office area, here is your webpage below. You can look at the one entitled Severe Weather Mon/Tues to see if you're in the Moderate, Enhanced or Slight Risk area.

NWS-Tulsa

I harvested 7 tomatoes today during my brief foray into the garden now known as Mudville. It isn't much of a name, but it is better than having to rename it Hailville, right?

Please, please stay safe. We already knew today had the potential to be bad weatherwise, but the adjustment of the High and Moderate Risk areas to take in more square miles and more people just drives home the point how dire things look. Remember, all this is based on potential, and not every area will get hit hard, but we must be prepared because it might hit any of us.

Dawn
dbarron
4 years ago
You know how wrong it feels to be starting SEEDS in mid to late May? Because of the overly watered spring...and I don't like to mess with indoor seeds (because of poor lighting). Geez, I even started annuals today..like tithonia, rudbeckia 'Sahara', and zinnias.
Nancy RW (zone 7)
4 years ago
Thank you for the information, Dawn. Since I lived in MN at the time, I hadn't read extensively about tornadoes down here. I was aware that Oklahoma and Texas were both really bad, of course. I just spent an hour or so reading up on tornadoes here, and watched the footage of the Moore 2013 one. Absolutely horrific and upsetting. We missed the first round, although it has been windy with larger gusts.

Harvesting tomatoes on May 20, 2019. The comfort I take from that, Dawn, is that I should also be harvesting in 3-4 weeks. I need to go tend my own herd of weeds.
hazelinok
4 years ago
I spent the morning outdoors. The asparagus bed had to be weeded or it was going to become a raised bed lawn.

I kept an eye on the chickens too. I saw the hawk circle around and perch on a tree to our west. I took that opportunity to clean last year's cardinal vine off the chicken pen.

When I went back to the asparagus, I made them go into their pen. Then, let them out again but put the dogs on cords near the chickens. (Not too near. haha)

I harvested strawberries, lettuce and asparagus. Oh, and the rhubarb, but I'm afraid I did it wrong, so probably killed it just now. I've never harvested rhubarb but wanted to try a strawberry/rhubarb pie. It's not looking it's healthiest right now, so I should have left it alone (after reading about harvesting it) Also, I didn't twist the stalks, I cut them. So, I will run back out and put some fertilizer around it AND try to fix the cut stalks.

Larry, sorry about your trees! My onions aren't looking good right now either.

It was good to spend time outdoors. It was a distraction really. I stayed away from the TV.

So...the sweet peppers look bad. The pimentos were beautiful two weeks ago. I removed their small fruit so maybe they'll put out some more leaves. However, I am considering starting some more seed. Why not? I can leave the peat pellets outdoors (under shelter when necessary) and once it dries up, put the seedlings in the garden.

Maybe we will all have wonderful fall gardens!

So, my heart has been literally skipping beats for the past couple of weeks. After watching the news a few minutes ago, my heart is doing it again. I'm pretty sure it's just anxiety and not a health issue. It's been an anxious month.

Okay, I'm going to try to fix the rhubarb and do some cleaning. Maybe take a nap.
jlhart76
4 years ago
No tomatoes, not even blooms. Guess I'll have to resign myself to getting my crop in September again.

Sitting at home since the governor closed the state at 1 today. Not that I mind free time off, of course!
Rebecca (7a)
4 years ago
Something nicer, first lilies are blooming. Hope they survive the storms.
Nancy RW (zone 7)
4 years ago
Sheesh, Rebecca--but them being in TX is perfect for you, right? So you have to convince them to stay there.

I must confess that I've been very nervous today. I lived up at the north end of tornado alley in MN, and knew it was much worse here. Up there, we went through tornado/wall cloud/heavy winds every 4-5 years. Enough times that we ran for the basement on more than one occasion. My grandson, who was 3 at the time of the first one, w.as absolutely TERRIFIED of them. I'm wondering how he's doing now with them, as he is a tough athlete and 14 years old. He was always tough, though, but when tornado warnings came, his face just turned absolutely pale, and though he didn't cry, he stiffened up and it was obvious he was terrified. I'm not THAT bad, but I'm not good I had a dear friend in Sheridan, Wyoming. Her husband was a dentist, and their son was one of my sons' best friends. They had moved to Sheridan from Tennessee. They lived through a tornado that destroyed their house. And the reason they moved to Sheridan, Wyoming? To get away from tornadoes. THAT impacted me so much, as she recounted how it transpired.

I could not care less about all the plants with hail or hard rain, but if our house caved in. . . and if we lived through it, I probably still wouldn't care! It's times like that when you realize none of the stuff matters, if your loved one is still alive. Still. To lose all our property in a storm now? That would not be an easy loss, seems to me. And yet I've been through it before. Expect it would all be just fine. So. Guess I will quit worrying. :)
AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
4 years ago
I hope everyone is ok. The heavy rain just hit us about 9 pm. Well tornado warning. Bye
AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
4 years ago
I'm ok. 3.25 inches in my gauge since this morning. Most since 9 pm.
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
4 years ago
I hope everyone is OK this morning. Glad you were okay Amy. I hate those Tornado Warnings (but, at the same time, we have warnings...) and they always send me fleeing to the storm shelter. My wake-up call this morning was the NOAA weather radio going off for a Tornado Warning near Lake Texoma--that one was slightly NE of us moving NE, so I wasn't worried. The storms didn't really arrive here until almost sunrise (not that we can see the sun) and the rain has been fairly light. We certainly are not flooded like all the photos and videos I'm watching on TV. I simply cannot believe all the floodwater in central and northern OK. Those images remind me of 2015 and 2007.

Here's the 2-day rainfall map showing all the most recent rainfall:

Two-day Rainfall Map

Larry, Hope you are okay. I am watching The Weather Channel right now where they are showing more rain headed into Arkansas in your area.

Stay safe everyone, turn around don't drown, when lightning roars, go indoors and all that stuff!

Dawn
jlhart76
4 years ago
My husband has the mentality "if a tornado hits, we're dead anyway, so why worry?" And he doesn't understand our fascination with watching weather news for hours.

Sirens for the next area over went off at 4 this morning, so we herded 5 dogs and 2 cats into the hallway until they stopped.
slowpoke_gardener
4 years ago
Dawn, thanks. I have been tying some tomatoes and peppers in the north garden. The heavy weather is still a little west of me and crossing the state a little north west of me. We are to get hit about 1 PM.

I took a picture of the peppers and tomatoes so you could say goodbye to them.
slowpoke_gardener
4 years ago
I dont think we will make it till 1 PM before the heavy weather hits us, we are getting wind and rain now.

I have got to get ready and go to Ft. Smith to meat with an attorney.

I dont like leaving our little dog home alone, I am afraid his days are numbered anyway.

I will check with y'all latter.
Nancy RW (zone 7)
4 years ago
Wow, Amy. There was just 2 1/4" in our gauge this morning. I did wake up with the heavy rain this morning about 6 but then back to sleep. Little branches down all over the yard, Couple large ones out back. But that's it. I apparently really DID quit worrying about it, as I slept soundly all night. Nonetheless, know that when there are branches all over like that, we're having high winds. Garry slept through it, too.

Be safe, Larry. The peppers look so good! I hope you don't lose them all.

Daughter north of Pryor says 31-32" inches before the water is in the house. They got app. 6" of rain. Not good. But they knew the risks when they bought the house, so there is that, at least.

Jen, Garry thinks the same way as your hubby. And I'd probably get swept away just looking for the cats. So no worries, right!? LOL

I think we'll go for a drive and see what's happening all around us. Stay safe, all.
Rebecca (7a)
4 years ago
Red Dirt greenhouses are under water
hazelinok
4 years ago
I'm actually going to Pilates tonight! (I'm probably forgetting something vital, though. lol)

Our neighbors have all posted that we got 3.5 inches. The "river" on the property behind us was rushing. It's not really a river--just when it rains a lot.

I was woke (awakened?) by a siren at 4am. It was the siren just down the road. So, by the time I clicked on the TV and saw that the triangle they were showing was right over us--Indian Hills and Franklin Rd., it would have been too late had it dipped down. There would have been no time to take shelter at all. It quickly moved to the east. I'm not sure how Tom and Ethan didn't wake up. The siren was blaring, the dogs were barking, phones were alerting. They were snoring. This morning was a maze to get to work with all the road closings and school zones. School zones I don't normally deal with. Oh, and the place that I was obsessed with in May 2015 where the SUV had washed off the road and somehow went over a fence, creek, and wedged into trees (frighteningly amazing--still don't know how it happened and the 2 women and little girl in that car are lucky to be alive...anyway. I'm rambling. BUT, there was a truck washed off in that same spot only not as bad.

Ethan had Senior Walk at his elementary school. It's a new thing some of the Moore elementary schools are doing. The kids who finished 6th grade at the specific school are invited back as seniors to see their old teachers, have a reception, and walk the halls in the caps/gowns and high-5 the little kids. It was really neat. I was late (because we live a million miles away now and the road conditions). It was the most emotional I've been so far. I spent so much time volunteering at the elementary school...it's hard to believe it's been 6 years. Then, I started thinking, "when was the last time I was in this school". It was May 20, 2013. The day of the tornado. I dropped Ethan and some neighbor kids off that morning. Moore schools didn't complete their year...so the last time I had stepped foot in that building was May 20, 2013. So weird.

The garden looks okay, I guess. I did a walk around (or squish around). The back garden looks amazingly okay. The beds are all raised. It's only tomatoes and jalapeno peppers back there. And red bee balm.

The east garden is a mess. The water and wind actually moved the pathway mulch. The strawberries look wonderful and I harvested another quart this afternoon. The asparagus is coming to an end soon, I think.

The arugula is flowering now. The flowers aren't striking, but I think they are so pretty in an understated way. And they have a subtle pleasant smell. I really like arugula. I'm rethinking my salad/greens bed. Arugula will be a keeper.

I have 3 bad chickens who are out of the yard, so I'm going to put everyone in the pen and get ready for pilates.

Quick question for Dawn first. What types of shrubs did you plant for chicken cover? I've wanted to do that in their yard.
Rebecca (7a)
4 years ago
Roughly 4” here. Squishy yard, but the fabric beds make a difference.

I‘m losing flowers to the wet. Guess I’ll start more seeds.

We are talking about a family gathering in Stillwater for Memorial Day. Hoping Bustani is open.
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
4 years ago
Jen, If a tornado hits and you're in a safe room or a tornado shelter, you're not dead anyway---that is why those structures exist. I know you probably cannot change his mind. As for being weather junkies, probably it is because we are gardeners and it affects everything we do. Tim will watch it with me, but he thinks differently because he is a cop and a firefighter. He'll be thinking about what trucks they'll take out to do search and rescue, or what high water crossings might need to be shut down (easy to coordinate with our precint's county commissioner because he is a member of our VFD) or whether someone needs to run up to the fire station and set off our siren (which I think is out of service right now anyway). So, while I'm obsessing over garden-related weather things, he is obsessing about other weather-related things.mI can watch the weather longer than he can....he sees what he needs to see and is done, and I just keep watching and watching and watching.

Larry, I keep hoping something will happen and rain will miss you and you'll get to dry out.....and it just doesn't happen. I hope your tomato and pepper plants pull through somehow. I'm sorry about your little dog. I know you've mentioned its age and health before, and it is so hard that our little furbabies don't get to live as long as we do.

Nancy, That happens to us too---the weather may keep us away for a night or two, but eventually our very tired bodies fall asleep and just stay asleep. That's a good thing though as long as one doesn't sleep through a Tornado Warning or something.

I make our cats stay indoors on bad weather days and they hate me for it. They whine, they beg, they plead....they look at me with big eyes that are saying please, let our people go....and I keep them in anyways. I put them in a bedroom or in the sunroom and close the door so they cannot escape outdoors when I am going out for whatever reason. Our dogs are nuts. At night they whine and hide from the thunder, but if it is thundering during the daylight hours they want to go outside and bark at the thunder, especially Jersey, who is 12 years old. I told Tim that I think she must be getting senile because she never used to want to go outside in thunder and lightning and rain.

Most people I know who have homes in low-lying areas simply never believed the water ever would rise high enough to get to them. Sure, they knew the risk but they also thought it was a super-low risk. We almost bought a 45 acre place on the river but the more we thought about it, the more we worried it was too low-lying and that the owner wasn't being honest with us about how often it would flood. We backed out of that deal and bought this place on significantly higher ground instead. I am so glad we did, as that other place has flooded several times since we moved here.

Rebecca, That is so sad and I just hate it for them. Lisa posted their photo of the flooded greenhouses on FB last night on the OK Gardening Network. I cannot imagine how devastating it must be. What a hard spring this is.

Jennifer, That is how it is at our house when the weather alerts go off...Jersey and I wake right up and everyone else snores their way through it. Drives me crazy.

Rambling is okay.....isn't it crazy to look around and see all the water everywhere? It is a surreal feeling. We haven't had that sort of rain here this time, and I am so relieved, because I don't have to start watching the low water crossings and wondering if they'll get too high for us to get in and out of our neighborhood.

The schools here have done the senior walk during the last week of school for as long as I can remember. The way they do it here is all the elementary school kids line the halls, sitting cross-legged on the floors up against the walls, and the seniors walk the halls in their caps and gowns, and the little kids smile and clap and wave. I think it is a lovely way for the little kids to become inspired to want to make that senior walk themselves one of these days and to keep their eyes on the prize and, for the seniors, I think it is a nice reminder of where their educational journey began all those years ago.

To provide both shade for our house and cover for the chickens, we planted regular Burford hollies on the south side of the house (there were no trees there in the beginning, now we have very tall oaks there). The standard Burfords can get very tall and wide (ours are about 15' tall and 8' wide per shrub) fairly quickly and are very dense so the chickens can run under them and disappear. In the front of the house we planted dwarf Burford hollies. They are dwarf only in the sense that they are shorter than regular Burford hollies. Ours are about 8' tall and about 5' wide but also very dense. There are other forms of hollies that stay smaller if you don't want something that is too tall. I feel like all our plants are too tall now and it is time to redo them after 20 years, but we do have a 2-story house so the scale of the shrubs is in keeping with the house. It is just that we have shade trees now that are taller than the house, so it isn't imperative that the shrubs provide shade like it once was.

Rebecca, I have started a ton of flowers in flats. Instead of doing succession plantings of veggies (since veggies are struggling a lot more than flowers in this wet weather), I am going to do succession plantings of flowers, so eventually my whole garden will be flowers before the end of the summer. I'm kind of excited about it.

With all the flooding going on, I hope Bustani is above water! Friends who live in the Stillwater area have been posting a lot of flood photos and that cannot be good.

I heard last night that the Muskogee County Commissioners had voted, upon the advice of their county emergency management folks, to evacuate the whole town of Webber's Falls due to the expected flooding that is sure to come. I cannot even imagine how disruptive it will be to evacuate the whole town. The town is just too close to the Arkansas River and I think there are two reservoirs there near Webber's Falls that impound the water, but they cannot hold enough water to prevent the flooding. Y'all might remember Webber's Falls from the 2002 bridge disaster where the barge hit the I-40 bridge support causing it to collapse and sending vehicles into the water. I believe 14 people died along with a couple of horses in a horse trailer.

I feel bad for the Army Corps of Engineers folks as you can be sure all of them are really working hard and feeling the stress right now. I know that they are doing the best they can to manage the amounts of water released from each lake but, honestly, at this point the flooding is going to happen anyway and the flow of water downstream likely is uncontrollable to a certain degree. It isn't the Corps of Engineer's fault that the flooding will occur because they cannot force lakes to hold more water than they were built to construct, but people will mumble and grumble and blame them anyway for opening the flood gates. You know it is better to open the flood gates and have some control instead of holding back all the water until it goes over the tops of the dams and potentially compromises them structurally.

We have standing water everywhere, but here is it only puddling, ponding and giving us full ponds and semi-full creeks. It isn't flooding like what is happening further north. I wasn't that worried about rain here today because yesterday morning they had us at such a very slim chance. Then, last night they put up the severe weather risk maps again, so here I sit, starting my day watching The Weather Channel and listening to them going on and on about all the flooding in OK and the prospects for more rain today. At least the risk for severe weather is a lot lower today. Hopefully any rain that falls will be minor because nobody needs for anything that worsens the flooding situation. Oh well, if it is too wet outside, I have seeds, paper cups and a couple of bags of seed-starting mix so I can stay busy indoors starting seeds that hopefully will be succession flower plantings, if it ever stops raining long enough to put them in the ground one of these days.

Have a good day everyone, and turn around, don't drown, and all that good stuff.

Dawn
Nancy RW (zone 7)
4 years ago
Nerve-wracking. . . watching Channel 6, Travis Meyer. Lot of activity around Tulsa. Tornado warnings.
Nancy RW (zone 7)
4 years ago
Hard time dealing with gardening because of weather stuff, crazy. Do all of you run to your safe places or shelters when the near sirens go off? We actually don't. . . . here's when I RUN to the safe place. . . when I hear the ROAR. . . I run as fast as I can. And I did that a time or two in Mpls (which is also part of tornado alley). Our near sirens were just going off like crazy for 15 minutes or so. Got a funny story for you. Garry and I designated our safest place was our main bathroom in the tub. So tonight, I went to re-confirm that with him. I said, "Our safest place is the main bathroom, in the tub, right?" And he said, "Yep. In the tub with a mattress over us." I thought this through for several seconds and then said, "REALLY? Are you kidding me? And which mattress would you propose?" He said, "Well, either of them. (One is a queen-size one, the other, double bed--but both are REALLY heavy." I laughed SO SO hard! I said, "Honey. . . . we'd be killed by the tornado before we could manipulate one of those mattresses into the bath tub. How about if we just grabbed some pillows and blankets?" He allowed as how that was perhaps a better idea. I laughed. And laughed. And laughed. And THEN. Picture us getting Titan and the three kitties into it too! Pretty comical.
slowpoke_gardener
4 years ago
I just got back from checking my wildlife garden. Before the rains came in a few days ago I planted about 10# of Red Ripper peas, and maybe a pound of PEPH and Texas Big Boys, and other misc. peas. It looks like I will have a good stand of peas, but if the ground does not dry some I may loose many of them. I also planted about 1/3 pound of zinnia seeds. I am getting a good stand of them also.
Rebecca (7a)
4 years ago
I direct seeded some zinnias, mini sunflowers, cosmos, and a couple other things yesterday, to replace what got too wet. Usually I have trouble keeping seeds damp enough to germinate, but I suspect it won’t be a problem this year.

4 days off this weekend, plan on doing some clean up and bean planting.
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
4 years ago
Nancy, It was horrible last night. We were watching it and thinking of all of you up there....those tornadoes were popping up like mushrooms. And then came the rain, as if anyone needs more rain.

Sometimes I go to the tornado shelter. It just depends. I'm pretty plugged in to lots of extra weather data that is local because we have a FirstResponder GroupMe group here and a Skywarn Spotter GroupMe group and everyone in those groups is sending messages constantly about what they are observing and where, including photos and radar and all sorts of stuff, so as long as we don't lose cell service and I can see the GroupMe messages pop up on my screen, then I generally know what is going on before the NWS even can issue a Tornado Warning. I base my judgement decisions about whether to go to the tornado shelter on this local data first and foremost, but of course I also heed NWS Warnings. One thing that is important to remember is that on tornado-prone days, a tornado can literally form over your head with no notice, so I'm usually watching both the radar and the local reports, and also watching the overhead sky myself during the daylight hours.

Our backup location if we don't want to go out to the storm shelter (only about 15' from our back door) is the walk-in pantry underneath the staircase. The dogs like going in there more than going out to the shelter on a leash, often in pouring rain. The cats hide under the beds or go into a walk in closet.

Larry, I'm happy to hear you got a good stand of peas. Maybe the soil will dry out just enough that they won't rot.

Rebecca, I have a ton of stuff started in paper cups to serve as replacement plants for the ones in the ground that are struggling in excessively wet soil. If I sowed any seeds directly in the ground right now, they'd rot before they could sprout. We aren't even getting that much rain compared to many other parts of OK (I'm not complaining) but the soil remains heavily waterlogged since clay holds on to moisture forever and a day.

Four days off will be a long, lovely weekend. I hope you get good weather for planting.

Our forecast down here looks fine for the next five days, except hot and humid. There's no rain in it until Tuesday. I realize that could change, but right now I love the forecast. Hopefully it will be dry enough to mow and to work in the garden in another couple of days. Right now the ground still squishes when you walk. The garden looks good considering how wet the soil is. We've been eating Early Girl and SunSugar tomatoes like there is no tomorrow, and are about to have the first Cherokee Purples. The snap peas are drowning and the plants look bad and are sluggish, but they are producing peas. We'll probably harvest the first jalapeno peppers this weekend. The flowers all look great---why wouldn't they? They're getting plentiful moisture for sure.

The Red River will crest tonight or tomorrow and start falling. It really isn't flooding badly at all---will barely reach flood stage. All the rain is up there, not down here so we're only really wet, not flooding wet.

Dawn
hazelinok
4 years ago
last modified: 4 years ago
Good evening. Hope everyone is okay. I see there's weather alerts in part of Oklahoma.

My garden looked okay tonight--even the onions really. I do need to get some Sluggo Plus. Something is eating holes in almost everything. It hasn't killed most things, but it's so unattractive especially on the ornamentals.

There are some green fruit on the Sungold plants. And on one of the Early Girls. The other tomatoes have blooms now. Progress. Just waiting for the Juliet fruit to ripen.

Still harvesting asparagus and lots of strawberries. I'm having to freeze the strawberries as they go bad so quickly.

The greens are being eaten up as is normal at this time of year, which is why I wanted a freakin' hinged hoop over that bed. Tom just didn't have time to do it. If we're not doing school stuff, he has been working on fixing his truck. Car issues aren't fun. We really can't afford another car payment right now either. Luckily, he has his truck up and running. And he is taking a few days off next week.. So, maybe this is the start of getting stuff done around here.

Ethan's last school day is tomorrow. Nothing else to say about that.

I found the place the hens are getting out. Finally. So, maybe I can plant the beds around the pen now. A lot of your SF gifts will go in that area. Yes, they are still in their original pots.

The coral honeysuckle is growing but it's not growing enough to make shade for the pen. Also, there are sunflowers growing there. I hope they are the children of the red sunflowers that Megan gave me last year. I still am concerned that there isn't enough shade for the pen. I hate to put a tarp up again. It's so unattractive. But the girls (and Jean Luc) need shade.

The broodies are all laying again. Moving them for a week really did help that situation. I'm still in shock about Peggy and haven't processed it yet. I miss her so much and feel really sad when I stop to think about her. It sucks because...she's just gone. There's no body to bury. There is an empty feeling in the coop now. She isn't there to talk to me. I must get another cochin soon. I hope she will be as sweet.
AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
4 years ago
Ah, I am really sick of binge watching weather. Yesterday evening was really scary. There are 4 ways out of Owasso going south. Hwy 75, Hwy 169, Mingo and a convoluted route that goes past the Port of Catoosa. I guess there is a 5th, but it also uses the port road. Mingo's been flooded. So has that 5th I mentioned. They thought Bird creek might go over 169 and 75 would not be far behind. 169 was grid locked when the storms came in. I'm glad I wasn't on it, but I was on 75 an hour and a half before the storms went through there. Bird creek crested today. Hopefully we have all routes out of town soon.

As far as I can tell, the raised beds look ok. We only got 1/8 inch here at my house out of all the mess last night. I'm ok with that.

You might remember some ways back I found the dog chewing on corn seeds, but I couldn't figure out where they came from. Found it today. I had made a "corn pillow", years ago. It's just a pillow with feed corn in it and you heat it in the micro wave to use like a heating pad. Well, seems that pillow has a hole in it. ::eyeroll::

The peach screamer nicotiana is blooming in it's cup.
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
4 years ago
Amy, I'm right there with you in terms of watching the weather. We have nothing going on down here that would suggest there are weather-related disasters occurring across the state, but I watch the weather anyhow to see what is happening to all our gardening friends, particularly in central, eastern and northern OK. The ongoing flooding is heartbreaking, especially when we see our friends being driven out of their homes. I cannot imagine how nerve-wracking that is or how stressful.

I'm glad you didn't get too much rain, and hope that means your roads won't get worse before they get better. I am laughing about the dog and the corn pillow because it is just so odd. Sometimes we forget that dogs have an incredible sense of smell and can sniff things out.

The so-called flooding down here is bizarre, as in almost non-existent. Every day or two, a Flood Warning pops up for the Red River near us projects flooding out 2 or 5 or 6 days away. Then after a day or so, when it becomes clear the river isn't rising the way they think it should, the Flood Warning disappears without explanation. This just happened again yesterday....Flood Warning for the weekend, and then suddenly it disappeared like "never mind". This has happened so much over the last six weeks that I've lost count. I am not complaining---I just don't understand it, Usually their projections are better and we usually get a flood if they say we will, but this year their projections are way off. I guess it is possible the heavy runoff is carving a wider channel and the river is spreading out more instead of rising. Everything down by the river is very soft sugar sand (no loam, just sand) hundreds of feet deep so it can change channels pretty easily and, since 2015, it seems to me like it has widened out in many parts of the county. Yesterday on the news they said many parts of Lake Texoma are open and ready for business, in contrast to all the notifications I'd been seeing about one marina and campground after another being inaccessible due to flooding. So, which is it? If I was somebody trying to plan a weekend getaway to Lake Texoma, I'd be saying "should I stay or should I go?" I feel like our area down here is in some strange Twilight Zone this Spring because of all the inconsistencies. I do know all the weird inconsistencies are much easier to bear than being surrounded by rising water. I hate floods and would rather just stay home 24/7 and not deal with them, but that's not a practical thing because life goes on and everyone has to go about doing all the things that must be done.

The rain keeps 'missing' us, but in the best way. They'll forecast huge amounts and we'll get little bitty tiny amounts. I'll take a half inch or three-quarters of an inch over 2 to 4" any day of the week, but it is just strange that they are so far off every single time. I won't say we're drying out or getting dry, but we surely are not getting inundated by heavy rain like we had been a few weeks ago so I think that for us, the rainfall pattern is shifting into summer mode already. That is a good thing but in the most peculiar way, I'd rather the rain would fall here and flood us a little (or more than a little if needed) instead of continuing to fall in the same parts of central, northern and eastern OK, flooding those areas a lot. Our lakes and rivers can handle a lot more rain than our watershed is getting, but the rain keeps falling over the watershed that can least handle more at this point.

I'm going to go out to the garden and weed this morning until the heat index gets too hot and I can't stand it any more. Our temperatures have been near 90 every day pushing our heat index into the low to middle 90s. I don't like heat indices in the mid-90s. That feels too much like summer.

The daylilies have started blooming and it feels too early for that, but I bet it isn't. I bet the perpetual rain and clouds are making me feel like it is earlier in the season than it actually is.

Dawn
Nancy RW (zone 7)
4 years ago
last modified: 4 years ago
SO ticked off, lost my post.

I'm going to go in reverse order of my failed post. Last, I was talking about the flooding in Wagoner County. AHH. Lucked out. Right after I was writing my post and lost it, I was answering a friend's email asking how we were doing here. (He's in SC.) I've had emails or phone calls from WY and MN and CA asking how we (not even necessarily GDW and me--but more, our Oklahoma neighbors) are . . . very gratifying.

It’s flooding in at least part of our county today—I’m not even sure how much. And even some flooding in Wagoner. I think they said 6/8 (?) families so far out of their houses. But they’re expecting more. As for us. . . hard for us to even comprehend, as we would likely be one of the last places to have our houses under water. We live on very rocky ground which is also sloped from the west down to the east (the lake). The lake’s a mile away from us. And though we are, at the present, surrounded on all sides by water (not as dramatic as it sounds, since we’re always surrounded by water on 3 sides), we do have a road/levee to cross over to, to, to. . . .more flooding land! LOL Nahh, probably better off right where we are! The Red Cross is using our church's offices and gym for a shelter. The limit is 50. I expect other fine churches will step up as needed. And MANY MANY fine neighbors who ranch have volunteered to pick up stranded livestock to shelter, from chickens to cows and horses. God Bless these people!

Today painting railings and steps to the deck and missed spots—Dang! Lotta wood here—and catch-up weeding for when I’ve been painting all week and listening to tornado and flood warnings. SHEESH. I think I'm beginning to get in shape. Takes some time when gardening hardcore season begins. But to actually have spent 3 hrs weeding after 3 hours painting?? I'm doin' good. BUT. MAJOR error. I actually only have 3 pair of jeans that fit right now. And one of those pair, I ruined while painting the deck. So forever more, they were to be my painting jeans. THEN this morning when GDW pointed out I could be painting the steps (I was musing over things to be done), I jumped up and began painting immediately (cuz I like to paint). And 90 minutes later realized I was painting in an acceptable (formerly acceptable) yellow summer Tee and jeans. Now I have TWO pair of painting jeans and, sadly, two painting T-shirts.

I was so happy to have Amy, Eileen, and Rebecca last night when things were so crazy. I remember there were 3 tornadoes going on at once in larger Tulsa--west moving NE, SW moving NE and SW moving NE. What a freakout. Then one of them said something like Nancy--alert, and then the sirens went off here. It's funny now, wasn't the least little bit funny then. And Dawn, thank you for worrying for all of us! :) And then the flooding. . . . It's very interesting and almost, what would one say. . . exciting/titillating even when it is YOU in the cross hairs.

I'll share a story--and it's not a tear-jerking one. It's about reality. When Russ, my son, was 16, he was being a pain in the butt. We'd recently moved to MN from Sheridan, WY, when my pilot husband (not yet) asked me to marry him, and he seemed like a good guy for my 2 boys, as well. Well, this is not about that, it's about Russ. So the boys and I moved to Mpls and I married the pilot. Then a year later was when Russ became a big pain in the butt. Angry, moody, slept all the time, Picked fights with his year-younger brother. He was just hateful, in general. I was so so worried about him. And then, in August before school started, Russ and his brother had a knock-down drag-out in the basement, knocking a hole though the door to the rec room. I knew I had to do something extreme. Did NOT want these teenage things to mess with a new marriage. So I took each son, one at a time, into my bedroom and said, "This is not acceptable." Either you will promise me right now it will never happen again, or I will call your father (in Wyoming, who had never had custody, nor would I have wanted him to) and explain that you are coming to live with him.: Well younger son Wade said of course he would promise me that. Stubborn Russ said, "Mom, I love you, but I can't promise." So then we talked about it. . .And Russ pointed out, rightly, that perhaps it was time to kind of get to know his dad better. It absolutely broke my heart. My boys were EVERYTHING to me. And so I called his father that night. We had Russ on the plane a a week later. And a month later, he was air-ambulanced from the mountains in WY to the Univ of MN Hospitals. . . leukemia.

Well finally to the point of the story. Russ was air-ambulanced from the mountains of Wyoming (Thermop--in dangerous weather, very scary) His father back there, me back in Mpls, and probably the entire air ambulance crew---thinking, "If he (WE) survive the flight it will be a miracle."

The ETA was 5 am at the Univ of MN hospital, ER entrance. We got there at about 4:55 a.m with mapquest, never having been there before. . . walked in to the elevator banks and there was Russ. Russ and I just laughed and hugged and kissed. So, somewhere in the first 5-10 minutes of our conversation, I asked him, "So you know you're in big trouble, right, but did you think it was pretty exciting and cool that you were going through something like an air ambulance flight? Did you kind of feel important? He laughed and said, "Mom, totally, all of that."

AND, PS, Russ got to know his dad better. It all turned out so well, really.
hazelinok
4 years ago
I like your story, Nancy. Thanks for sharing it.

It's raining here. We've been fortunate to have a couple of dry days.

You know, I'm annoyed. Most of my plants have holes in them. They are chewed on and holey. Some are ruined., like my kale. Otherwise they would be healthy plants. How do people keep their plants from being chewed up? Not everyone uses insect netting. I'm really confused about this. My cabbages are large and growing well, other than they are being eaten by little green worms. Even my okra seedlings are being chewed on. What critters other than worms chew on seedlings? I don't see anything on or around them.

I see (on fb and other places) these rows of plants in large gardens. No holes. How do these gardeners pull this off? What is the secret? Some of these are organic gardens.
dbarron
4 years ago
My three day drought (three days without rain) was broken at 4 am this morning. I had thought about possibly having to water things in pots, but no more.
PS This is sarcastic...overkill with water this year.

I had gotten seedlings sowed just before the last rain and most of my asst flowers are popping up now. I hope they manage to not drown before getting big enough to tolerate standing swamps.

Of course, at least my house is in no current danger of flooding..that's something.
Eileen S
4 years ago
HJ, my cold season greens have some holes too, but not too bad. However, there’s something that has been eating all my pepper seedlings in one of my raised beds. I haven’t found anything, and the tomato plants are fine in it. I tried replanting them, and the same thing happened again. Thankfully I have lots of spare ones, but I have given up growing them in that raised bed. I replaced them with other random plants that I would be fine losing. Would birds fly down and chomp on seedlings? Haha, I hope I don’t sound silly.

I have been feeling anxious from all the rain and flooding. My house is a house away from the FEMA 100 year flood zone. I have so much to learn about the lakes, dams, rivers and creeks near me.

Anyway, I got to go. Planning to go look at a lady’s garden this morning. I found her on Instagram, and I think she’s part of the Tulsa Herb Society. I love looking at people’s gardens though I wish it didn’t rain yesterday night.

Also, thanks for sharing Nancy. It certainly feels like he was meant to spend some time with his dad, and you try to make the best of all situations.
Nancy RW (zone 7)
4 years ago
Oh my gosh. . . I checked out the forecast for this evening and got to feeling sick to my stomach. Got so much to share, but can't til tomorrow. Blessings.
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
4 years ago
Nancy, I saw where they were advising some folks in Wagoner to evacuate, and that kind of surprised me, but then when you look at the rainfall map for the month of May, maybe the big surprise is that the whole northeastern quarter of OK isn't evacuated already. Yes, there's so many good people doing so many things to help the people, livestock, pets, wildlife, etc. It is touching....like fire stations offering their use of their 1 or 2 showers to people whose homes have lost power and/or water....and people who are just showing up with cases of bottled water, figuring somebody needs it for drinking water. Shelters popping up, volunteers coming to staff them, restaurants feeding the first responders, and on and on and on. That's the Oklahoma Standard, isn't it?

Like you, we're on high ground, so while the Red River is on three sides of us, it never could flood enough to reach us. I had a few doubts in 2015 when we got 80" of rainfall and the river seriously flooded (including washing away two homes not that far from us--but at a much lower elevation--but water never got close to us. We could drive a couple of miles and sit in the parking lot of the McGeehee Catfish Restaurant and watch the incredibly high water go by, but then we drove back uphill to get back home. Everyone said the creeks might back up because they couldn't drain into the river, but they really didn't. They ran high after heavy rainfall, but they always do, and even then, the water would have had to rise 12-15' to make it up the hill to our yard. There was never any chance of that happening. Our road never has flooded at the creek, but there's been flooding to our south and to our north, so we might temporarily be trapped at home for merely a few hours. We almost bought riverside land at a much lower elevation, and I am so grateful we didn't---although we would have had incredible neighbors. (We also have incredibly wonderful neighbors here.)

I paint that way....forgetting myself and ending up with a new set of painting clothes too. I don't think it is that I don't know I'll get paint on me, just that in my excitement about getting it done, I forget to go put on clothes that already are dotted with paint.

Thanks for sharing the story about Russ. I'm glad he had the chance to get to know his father better.

Jennifer, First, congrats on Ethan's high school graduation! That's such a monumental point in a young adult's life (and in the parents' lives as well).

Everything eats seedlings. Caterpillars, snails, slugs, flea beetles, army worms, pill bugs and sow bugs (they are decomposers but I find them eating plenty of green plants as well), and I could go on and on and on. Most plants outgrow it, but the brassica family plants need to be treated or the cabbage loopers and cabbage worms will destroy them. There's just too many of the little caterpillars and they munch until they become big caterpillars. Bt 'kurstaki' is the answer. Many of the pests that will eat kale, broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower really, really prefer collard greens or mustard greens, so often I grow those on the edge of the garden so the pests will flock to them and not bother my other crops so much. That works pretty well.

The non-organic gardeners spray with synthetic pesticides. I have friends who do that. Their plants always look perfect. They use stuff like Bug-B-Gone and Liquid Sevin, and in the olden days used all sorts of heavy-duty stuff like organophosphates like diazinon and malathion. I'd probably give up gardening before I'd ever use those, but using them doesn't bother some people. Guess what is missing from their gardens though? Lady bugs, green lacewings, butterflies, dragonflies, hover flies, flower flies, bees, and often....anything that anyone would consider a pollinator, so they end up having pollination issues.

The organic gardeners often spray with organic broad-spectrum pesticides too. I'm not going to fault people for doing that because it is their garden and their choice, but I just do not like spraying a broad spectrum pesticide all over everything. I feel like it isn't worth (to me) the risk of running off or killing all the beneficial insects. Still, I'll never say that I absolutely, positively never would use these products because some day something might happen that pushes me to that point. There are many broad-spectrum organic pesticides available---Spinosad, Neem, Organocide (soybean extract, fish oil and sesame oil), PyGanic (pyrethrins, so can be deadly to felines), Safer Insecticidal Soap (Potassium Salts of Fatty Acids), Safer Tomato and Vegetable Spray (Potassium Salts of Fatty Acids + botanical pyrethrins), Take Down spray (Pyrethrins and canola oil), Hot Pepper Wax (more of a repellent) and Garlic Barrier (also a repellent), Zero Tolerance (herbal oils like rosemary, thyme, cinnamon and other oils), and Beauveria Bassiana (when you need to bring in the big guns---it is a mycoinsecticide that is a fungus in a Liquid Emulsifiable Suspension used to kill soft bodied insects and a few hard-bodies ones as well). I bought Beauveria bassiana last year when I felt like the grasshoppers were winning the war over who was going to harvest from the garden, but then they disappeared (I think birds were eating them) and I never used it. I probably wouldn't have sprayed it on my garden plants but was going to spray it in a 10-12' wide band all around the exterior of the garden fence in the hopes that the grasshoppers would make contact with it there and would get sick and die. Every time that I think that I could and would and will and am going to use a broad-spectrum pesticide to combat some horrible thing in my garden (hmmm....leaf footed bugs or squash bugs or stink bugs, for example), I think about all the living creatures in my garden that I like seeing there, and I just cannot do it. I guess I am a total failure as an organic pesticide user because I cannot use the above products. I will use some narrow-spectrum ones---like sometimes Bt on the brassicas or Semaspore for grasshoppers (it is a bait) or Slug-Go/Slug-Go Plus (a life saver when you have a heavily-mulched garden full of pill bugs and sow bugs), but cannot bring myself to use the broad-spectrum ones. If holes in your kale or cabbage or whatever do bother you that much, then why not find the right product and spray them? Bt should take care of most. Little tiny grasshoppers are just now beginning to hatch out here, though I have not yet seen that many, and they eat holes in everything. I don't think I'm seeing enough of them to make me worry though. Not yet. I usually have a bottle of Take Down spray in my shed so I can spray it directly on hard to catch things like leaf-footed bugs, but I've been out for a couple of years and just haven't bought another bottle yet.

It is your garden. If the thought of holes in things bother you, spray with whatever pesticide you're comfortable using. I've just gotten away from doing that and hardly notice the holes in leaves any more.

dbarron, Ha! I have had to water my containers the last 4 days. That's what we get for having a combination of strong winds all day long and temperatures in the upper 80s, sunshine (finally) and no rain (oddly). I won't complain and say the rain is missing us, but we aren't getting anything close to what everyone else is getting and May is barely above average rainfall at all compared to other months over the last year. Our ground is starting to dry up some (woo hoo!) and there's no rain in our forecast until Tuesday.

I'm glad you're safe from flooding. That's one less thing to worry about anyhow.

Eileen, With regards to your pepper seedlings, yes, birds will do that sometimes. Usually it is mockingbirds and they do it only to tomatoes and peppers. I have no idea why. They don't eat them. They just cut them off and leave them lying on the ground. It could be something else---there are some climbing cutworms that will climb a plant stem a couple of inches and then cut it off. I have no idea why. They always seem worse in wet years.

I hope your house will be okay. There are some limited 100-year flood zones directly alongside some of the creeks in our neighborhood, but I've only ever seen the creek come up into the yard of one house on our street, and it sits quite a bit lower than us---I think they are actually in the 100-year flood plain while we're well above it. Of course, we had the good sense to build on the highest point of our land, not down in a low area beside the creek, and that helps too. Out closest neighbor to the north put a mobile home way back in the woods right beside the creek. Perhaps they should have taken a clue from the fact that the old farmhouse on that property was built on its highest point of ground but apparently they did not. Still, that house didn't flood in 2015 either.

I am sure that if I lived up there in your general area, I'd be feeling anxious about all the rain too. The images of all that water everywhere is mind-boggling. So is the forecast. Rain keeps falling and falling and falling, mostly over the watersheds that can least handle more rain. I feel pretty good about the Red River near us and Lake Texoma right now. They've been releasing water from Texoma for several weeks now, and it is to the point where they're finally releasing water from it faster then new inflow is coming in, so the lake held steady yesterday and should be dropping beginning today. The Red River is high and running fast, and absolutely wall-to-wall (i.e. bank to bank is full) which is not all that common here, where it often is so low you can pretty much walk across it---and, sometimes, in the summer you can walk across it without touching water, but as of this morning, it still was within its banks.

We had the unexpected pleasure of a weekend with our oldest granddaughter, so today was kid stuff--shopping for summer clothes, going to the playground, to the movies (Aladdin) and then home for pizza night, playing games and watching some TV. We tortured her by forcing her to watch two episodes of Gunsmoke (in black and white) with us. She thought it was funny---especially because it was in black and white. One guest star was Kurt Russell, playing a kid about 12-13 years old, and she asked me if he was Elvis. I told her no, but that later on, after he grew up, Kurt Russell played Elvis in a movie about his life. She thought it was cool that she picked up on his resemblance to The King.

Everyone has gone to bed now except me and one cat, and she's lying here beside me trying to sleep. The house is quiet. It is a nice time to reflect, and Nancy's beautiful description of how Russ reconnected with his dad has me thinking about cancer. A few weeks ago we lost one of our neighbors to stage 4 cancer of the nervous system. He went so quickly after his diagnosis that it was mind-blowing. Today, we found out that a family member of his to whom we are quite close was diagnosed with stage four cancer in his spine. This is such devastating news. He soon will begin a very long chemo regimen. It is hard to understand, sometimes, why some families get hit again and again by diseases like cancer.

I didn't work in the garden today, but expect to be able to do a little work out there tomorrow afternoon, and possibly on Monday. It has been so wet that I've largely stayed out of there, except to water stuff in containers. I did a little deadheading and weeding the other day, but not nearly enough. I am keeping up on harvesting. We are very far behind on mowing.

Neil Sperry had a great reminder in his newsletter this week that it is chigger time. I'm glad he reminded me. I've been walking through the taller grass in the yard without insect repellent on (I hate spraying it on my skin!) and am sort of surprised the chiggers haven't gotten me already.

Am I the only one wondering what happens to the insects in the heavily flooded areas? Like the areas along the Arkansas River where floodwaters are 3 or 4 or 5' deep in neighborhoods, cities and homes? Do the insects get swept away in the floodwaters? Do they die? Do they fly away or crawl up high into trees and survive? What about the earthworms? How about the crawdads? Did they get enough warning to flee to higher ground like they did here in 2015? I mean, I have no idea what does or doesn't survive in this sort of flooding. I do know that mosquitoes become a huge problem even before all the water recedes, but what about everything else? It is something to ponder, is it not?

Dawn

May 2019, Week 4

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