Talk about irony.... today they posted a red flag Fire Weather Warning for parts of MA, CT and RI. I hope that means at least that the soggy areas will dry out faster. ---------------------------------------------------------- Fire Weather Warning Statement as of 12:21 PM EDT on April 07, 2010 ... Red flag warning remains in effect until 6 PM EDT this evening... A red flag warning remains in effect until 6 PM EDT this evening. This warning is for much of Massachusetts... northern Connecticut... and northwest Rhode Island. There will be an enhanced risk of fire spread across the warning area through this afternoon. Southwest winds are expected to increase with frequent gusts around 25 mph. In addition... minimum afternoon relative humidities are expected to drop to between 25 and 30 percent as temperatures rise into the mid 80s. Precautionary/preparedness actions... A red flag warning means that critical fire weather conditions are either occurring now... or will shortly. A combination of strong winds... low relative humidity... and warm temperatures will create explosive fire growth potential. ------------------------------------------------------ Claire

We feel left out here. All wind, no rain. : ( I'm glad y'all got rain and Moni got her tomatoes planted too. Isn't this supposed to be our "good week" for planting? I hope so because I intend to get it done. For the first time in months we have water in the big pond from the rain that fell earlier last week. Granted, it is just a couple of inches, but Biscuit, our old dog who loves to swim, promptly went to the pond and "waded" in it. Maybe he'll get to swim again one of these days. Okiehobo, I hope, hope, hope we get a month or two of good weather before the summer heat arrives, but there's no guarantee, is there? Dawn

Thanks for the tip on the Tecnu. I often get itchy spots. The trumpet vine will get me if I pull it by hand. I got just enough rain (thunder and lightning) to decide not to go to the Seneca fireworks last night. We still have the front coming; maybe that high that blocks everything will let it through this time. At least the pattern has changed a little.

The rain that missed us the last two days has caused problems all over. THE MIRACLE RESCUE: When the powerful storms hit near New Braunfels in central Texas and dumped up to a foot of rain, one family was swept away from their campsite by a huge wall of water that came from somewhere upstream and seemed to come out of nowhere. The mother held on to a tree for a couple of hours before being resuced, the 11-year-old daughter put on a lifevest/floatation device that came floating by (believe in miracles?), and was in the water for over 2 hours before a retired firefighter from Colorado rescued her.The father, himself currently a Fort Worth firefighter, was swept 32 MILES downstream by the waters before he was rescued. It was several hours before each family member learned the others had survived and they were eventually reunited. Yesterday the flooding continued just south and east of Dallas, including in the Hillsboro area where flash floods closed some highways and one county announded the entire county was underwater and travel was impossible. Imagine that! Now that same storm has moved across Arkansas where I understand it has hit another campground like the one in New Braunfels. I don't know if they've found everyone yet. I was so frustrated when the rain missed us, but then horribly relieved we didn't have the very heavy rains here and all the problems that come with it. I hope they find all the folks from the Arkansas campground. Moni, I caught tons and tons of rain (about 600 gallons) from the last big rainstorm here in mid-May, using my one rain barrel, 5-gallon buckets, tons of cat litter buckets that I've save for years, Rubbermaid roughneck totes....anything I could find and set out to catch the water. I thought that 600 gallons would last forever, but with three weeks of no rain and a couple of acres of plants to water, it didn't last long at all. My poor old rain barrel has been empty for so long now. Our granddaughter doesn't understand why the ground is 'broken' (cracking clay) and offered to fix it by pouring dirt, water and birdseed down it. I told her that I thought we should just wait for rain to come and fix things. The question is, when is that rain going to come? We have fairly good subsoil moisture from rain earlier in the year, but the top 6" or so are drying out pretty quickly. No matter how much I water, just a day or two later you can't even tell I watered because the ground is as dry as a bone. I am sure this dryness is going to result in reduced yields from the veggie garden. At least the trees and shrubs shouldn't suffer because we have great deep, deep moisture from last year's near-record rainfall. That's how it is here for us with rainfall---feast or famine. Already, some of the gardeners here that we know are saying they won't water....if rain doesn't fall, their gardens will die. Water is so expensive and it takes so much to keep clay well-watered (once it is dry, water just rolls off of it like it is concrete) that they feel like they'd spend more money on water than their garden produce would be worth. I have hit that point before, and sometimes as early as mid-June if the drought began in winter, but I'm going to try to keep watering as long as possible...at least until mid-July. That's assuming no watering restrictions. Some folks who water with well water are having trouble maintaining enough water pressure to water. That's not good. A lot of Oklahoma is getting rain, but we aren't, and it doesn't seem likely to improve. Ironically, I've decided I don't want for any rain to fall here until after I harvest the peach crop at mid-month. If a heavy rain falls now, it will water down the peach flavor and make the peaches and plums split. Since I don't 'need' or want rain this week, watch it show up now.