My family is safe, for now. With all the people coming back into the Houston area, things may go from bad to worse. There are power lines down. Most of the stores are closed. There are no utilities in many areas of Houston and Galveston. No water, unless you stored some. No gasoline, except at a couple of stations. There have been shootings at gas stations, 'fueled' by those who took more gas than they needed and left none for others, maybe even people more needy than they. Other people are doing ruthless things to get to the front of the long lines and get in front of those who have waited hours in line for gas. Some lines are a mile long. The dam for the city lake has been weakened from the storm. The high winds caused big wave surges on the lake, which pushed the boulders that hold the earthen dam to the point that it is threatening to give way. All that holds the water back now is the earthen dam. If that happens, the flooding below the dam would be catastropic. Their is a whole community built down there below that dam. (Now how stupid is that?). So the city alerted people that they had to release massive amounts of water on the morning after the hurricane and again the next morning to lower the lake so they can make repairs and shore it up. They went door to door and told them that it would most likely flood the homes closest to the river and that they had to leave. Once again, some people refused to leave their homes - the water was released. My son and his family had been preparing for the probable advent of big, bad hurricane since Katrina hit, so they were well prepared - enough to last for weeks, he told me. To some people, it is a game, evidenced by the signs they paint on the boards over their windows. To ride the "big one out" shows you are gutsy, and not afraid. Good grief! I am glad my kids are more mature and responsible than that. Nonetheless, I have not had much sleep all week. We talked for hours every night on what they could do to get out of there, and then when that became hopeless, what they could do to survive a direct hit - at that time, the projected path was directly through Galveston and Houston and would have followed I-45 North...right through their house near the Woodlands. It always floods there and the tall pines tend to fall over on houses and make formidable projectiles in the band tornadoes. They boarded up their house cleared the yard of any thing that would be projectiles and taped cardboard over the windows on the inside to keep glass from shattering on them. Then my son and his brother-in-law went to other areas in town to help some elderly folks board up their houses, too. I was proud of them, but I was more than worried, let me tell you! Even after the hurricane shifted, they still got the edge of the eye bands with 100+mph winds, which the news did not mention or played down. The bands were weird. They would come through out of the north, and then in a few minutes come back through out of the west. In between, it would be calm and the sky would even clear and there would be rainbows. Then the next band would blow in with 100-80+ mph sustained winds. This pattern repeated from 2:30 a.m. Saturday morning through Saturday afternoon when the winds finally calmed down to about 15-25 mph. The Houston-Galveston officials kept warning people not to return to their homes. There is known structural damage to high- rise buildings, and they are worried there is more unknown. There is the potential for electrical fires from damaged lines and maybe gas fires. Power poles strew the streets and big trees lay everywhere. WHole walls of buildings collapsed and some may yet collapse. Potentially hazardess materials may be on the ground in some places and the water may be contaminated in some areas. There is limited available food, and no water, no electricity or other utilities in most areas, and then the potential flood danger in the Trinity area. The fallen trees on houses and in the streets of housing areas add to the problem. There will not be any trash pick up until Tuesday or so. No sewer in areas. SO the city officials need time to check things out and make sure it is safe for people to return. But, many people did not listen. They no longer have faith in the officials and leaders, and who can blame them, I guess. And yet, they need to exercise an ounze of freaking common sense, something that most Americans just don't seem to have anymore. Still, there is the fear that there maybe many more deaths in the aftermath. And oh, by the way, my DH got a job offer from a company in Raleigh, NC. Uh....just what I thought I really, really wanted all summer - to move to the Carolinas, so we could be closer to my daughter and closer to his folks who live in SC, and where I would be in gardeners heaven and be around all you really groovy people I have come to adore....and maybe even get back into my art, and start painting again. Uh,....what's that old addage - "Be careful what you pray for, because you just might get it?" - something like that. Tell me that the Raleigh area is not in the hurricane zone. Uh, Waaaaaahhh. ~Annie

Thanks for the words of encouragement and photo ideas grannybj65, I have a really nice digital camera and plan to take LOTS of photos all along the way as I develop the garden. The photos linked here were taken by a good friend. I have an eye for good snapshots so once I'm down there I'll be taking dozens of photos from all angles and different weather conditions. The joy of digital photography - you never run out of film. LOL One of the things I like to do is take a series of photos from the same angle all day long on a sunny day to get a general idea of where the shady and sunny spots are. Doing that a few times throughout the year as the Earth changes kilter I'll perfect an image in my mind of where best to place different plants based on their light/shade tolerance. Looking at the photo of the front of the house dead-on, I just got a great idea. Facing the house, the living room is on the right side with the single window and the kitchen is on the left side with the double windows. In front of the double windows inside is the kitchen sink, so it is not a spot that will have tremendous "looking out the window" appeal. So, as the cogs turn in this hard head of mine, I'm visualizing lattice from the center pole on the porch going to the left corner, then around to where the porch meets the house. Then cutting a rectangular window out of the center of the front of the lattice and framing it a bit so there is a clear view out to the road from the kitchen window. And then I can visualize the lattice painted white (or more likely light gray as I'm not too fond of white outside) and covered in Scarlet Runner Bean and Clematis with maybe some "Joseph's Coat" (Amaranthus tricolor) in front and some dwarf Cannas with some "Love lies Bleeding" (Amaranthus sp.) along the side. The scarlet, violet, purple and deep reds and burgundys will all be in harmony with one another, at least until I decide on a totally different look down the road. I can have a nice metal frame rocking deck seat out on the porch hidden away behind the wall of vines where I can sit and enjoy the shade - and a good spray from the gardening hose on all the vines will create a nice cooling breeze. Well, it's a thought anyway. :) I saw on eBay this evening someone in San Diego California is selling several batches of Tillandsias (the common T. ionantha). They are offering them as a box of 50 child fist-sized clumps of them for around $20 if I recall - quite cheap. I immediately thought how neat it would be to buy 50 or 100 clumps and then carefully wire them to a wire-frame wreath for a living, blooming front door wreath, especially once the front porch is semi-latticed in and well shaded. A few sprigs of Spanish Moss draping down from the wreath here and there would further kick off the effect. It would live on the wet air, constantly regenerate itself with new growth, and bloom off and on throughout the year. During the colder months I could bring it inside and hang up it in the living room window where it can get plenty of bright indirect light. Ok, I'll shut up now.

Jan, I assumed they were under contract but given the important role they're filling in the lives of those kids, I bet your son and daughter-in-law wouldn't pack up and come home tomorrow even if they could. I so admire the work they're doing and hope and pray they remain safe. I am glad your volunteer firefighters were able to stop the fires that burned onto your place from doing worst damage than they did. I appreciate all our volunteer firefighters too. I see them put themselves on the line time and again to stop a fire, save people from dangerous situations like fire, flooding, icy highways, etc., and even venture into lakes and rivers to search for drowning victims. They have a remarkable kind of courage and "can do it" spirit. Through my involvement with our fire department, I've met so many remarkable heroes from all over our county and from outside our county as well. Down here along the Red River, it is not uncommon for firefighers to cross the river to help their fellow firefighters on the other side of the river, and I know that is true in all border counties as well. When I take our firefighters cold drinks, snacks and meals, they always are so grateful that someone is looking out for them. I tell them over and over again that we appreciate them and that making sure they have cold drinks and food is just a tiny way to say "thank you" for all they do. I am in awe of their willingness to protect not only people but also their property and wildlife as well. Carol, Tim uses OKFire a lot, and I've used it for other info, but haven't used the satellite maps much until the last couple of days. When you're at the OK Mesonet page, clicks on the "Programs" category. From there, click on "Wildland Fire Managment" and that will take you to the OKFire main page. Once there, you can click on "Satellite" and use the menu it brings up to see various satellite images of fires. I haven't spent enough time on those pages to understand what all the data shows, but I could tell it was showing us a lot of fires and smoke. We have used the Prescription Fire Planner pages before, and I often use the OKFire page to check the fire conditions from my phone when we're out at a fire and the Incident Command officer is wanting to know windspeed, humidity levels, etc. The satellite stuff is new to me and I'm going to try to figure out more of what it shows when I have time. Dawn

We got .78 inch of mail and most of it fell in a 15 minute period. The thunder woke me around 5:30, and about 5:45 the rain hit EXTREMELY hard. Some of my tallest potato plants were just laid over on the ground but I suspect they will stand up again when the sun shines. My remaining transplants were outside on a picnic table and I wanted to go bring them inside but there was too much thunder and lightening and the rain was unbelievable. They look pretty good except for the few that were still in soil blocks. I had moved the blacks from around them to plant yesterday so the blocks kind of flattened out from the heavy rain. About the time the heavy rain ended and turned to a lighter rain event, the weather radio went of for Springfield. We never did get an alert for Oklahoma. Larry, my tomato transplants were just about perfect except for the ones in the cups. Even with spending a lot of their life under lights, they were the perfect color and very lush, and none of them were leggy. The ones in cups had some brown leaves, more space between branches, a lighter color, and few roots. They looked as good as a lot of the transplants I have seen in stores, but they didn't look nearly as good as their neighbors in pots that had lived under the same conditions. It was weird.