Can you say snow? lol! Just a light dusting but the ski area nearby has over 4 inches so far. Crazy! It's not unusual for us to get a light snow the first week in May but not this late. It's perfect timing though because my roses are finishing up their first flush and ready for deadheading anyway. Good thing since half of them are hanging on the ground. lol The tornadoes were about an hour south of us in Moreno Valley. We have several friends who live there and they said it was quite a sight. They almost thought it was a joke when they got the warning on the tv. We just don't get many of those out here and basements are almost unheard of unless you live in a very old home. And my DH experienced the CO. tornado via telephone. A business colleague had just phoned him from Greeley when the roof blew off the building he was in. He and several other guys were on the staircase and decided to stay put. Everyone was ok but DH said he could tell the guy was shaken up. Crazy and weird and COLD! Whaa! Give me back my heat wave! : ) Thanks for thinking of us all! Diana Here is a link that might be useful: tornadoes

I am concerned about what comes next if y'all have a dry winter and spring in 2014. It is hard for me to imagine y'all suddenly having a lot of moisture falling in the next few months, especially since the drought outlook says to expect continued drought the next few months in the parts of OK still in drought and also warns that those of us who are barely out of drought may see it return this winter. I want to see a drought outlook that tells us all to start building an ark! We need a good El Nino pattern next winter that will bring us oodles of water. I thought of you and your region on Sunday when the Dallas Morning News had an article about how the reservoirs that are used to provide water to the Dallas-Fort Worth area are about 10% lower right now, on the average, than they were at this time last year. They made it sound very dire, and yet most of those reservoirs still were at least at 60-70% capacity, although the main lake used for the North Texas Municipal Water District (which is Lake Lavon) sits at just under 50% of its capacity. I cannot even imagine what they'd be talking about if the reservoirs were at, let's say, 20-30% capacity. Just because their lakes have water in them, though, does not mean that they are in great shape. The water district that supplies Fort Worth just switched over from one reservoir to another, and the water is being piped in from east Texas. Since those pipes apparently hadn't been used lately, there are complaints that the water tastes bad and smells bad, even though it is treated with chemicals and is safe to drink. As you've already learned there, "safe to drink" doesn't mean it is pleasant or enjoyable to drink. Big Spring,TX, has its reservoirs at only 14% capacity and so they have built a treatment plant that cleans sewer effluent so efficiently and so well that it is returned to the system as clean and usable drinking water. I understand that Wichita Falls either already is building something similar or is in the planning stages to do so. I probably wouldn't rat out anyone who was watering during water conservation periods, but I can understand why people who are following all the rules get frustrated with those who aren't. It is unfortunate, perhaps, that it takes shaming to get some people to comply with water restrictions, but nowadays there's so many people who think that the rules don't apply to them that maybe publicly exposing their actions and shaming them is what it takes to get compliance. We had roughly 10" of rain this past fall (it was as wonderful as it sounds to see actual raindrops falling from the sky), which brought our year-to-date rainfall right back up to our annual average. Unfortunately, most of that fell after everything was dormant or going dormant, so we didn't really green up too much. Sadly, though, even with all that rainfall, the water available at 4" below the soil surface is just barely, barely, barely enough for us to not need to water. At least it did put some water back into the ranchers' stock tanks so they aren't having to haul water to their cattle. Having moisture in the ground at planting time is good, so I feel fairly good about the cool season crops, but we need for some more rain to fall before I can feel happier about planting a lot of warm-season crops. The last summer that we had where I didn't have to water all the time like a crazy woman was 2010 and I've almost forgotten what it was like. I even redid the layout of my big front garden last winter so the drip irrigation lines could water it more efficiently. We changed it from a layout that was more like a potager (although the purpose of that layout wasn't to look attractive, it was to reduce runoff and erosion in our sloping garden) to straight boring rows so the drip lines all could run in straight boring rows. I don't like how it looks now, but it is more efficient to water it effectively with the least amount of wasted water. January is always my county's driest month (and that may be true of all of OK, but I don't know that for sure). Here we are halfway through the month, and we have had something like 0.23" of rain. Maybe it is 0.27". Either way, we are a long way from our January average of 1.74". We need to get some good rain in the next couple of weeks, or we'll be slipping back into drought in the blink of an eye. Dawn

This time of year is the WRONG time to plant. You need to plant it out in April after danger of frost / freeze to give it a FULL growing seasons worth of time to develop its root system / establish itself. You would also likely need to protect it further than just xmas lights alone. You would probably need to wrap the palms trunk in burlap, and possibly partially wrap it even up to its leaves. I have seen several methods done for this. You would also most likely want to keep the top protected from rain / snow. Keeping as much moisture out of its crown as possible will help. Siting is another issue. I do not belive they like to be in very wet locations. I would ensure that palm will not be in any standing water for any length of time. A well drained location is best. The palm should also be in a location that is protected from the strong north winter winds. Ideally close in to a building on the sout/ souteast side is best. Any location that helps to retain heat, or has a "microclimate" because of buildings/ concrete / structure will be beneficial. As for the size, well that is mostly up to you and what you wish to pay. If you are looking for a tree like palm right away, youll want a larger one. They generally run around 100 bucks per foot of clear "trunk". (below the leaves) There is a nursery here that sells windmills with 8-9 clear feet of trunk for around 800 bucks. They are pretty large and impressive trees. The older plant you pick may be more slightly cold hardy, but most of that is going to depend on getting it very well established before its first winter, as well as siting, and winter protection. The nursery here is in a zone 7b/8a and they do have thiers outdoors in very large pots year round, however they do protect them by "tubing" them, and may also use xmas lights or some other low heat source to keep the pots from freezing. Though, pots that large in this area would likely never really freeze anyway. Once windmills are a bit older, and become established,they can put up 1- sometimes even 2 feet of trunk in one growing season. Good luck with it!

We are home and fine. Tired, worn out, sore (from walking) and wet, but home. We were in the Roanoke, VA area off I81 at Natural Bridge, so not near the tornado/campground issue. However, we did have terrible rains Wed. night which caused my tent to flood. Then as we were adding additional tarps on Thursday afternoon, more torrential rains with winds. Spent time under the awning keeping it from flooding. Saturday was lovely, but lightening was seen around 10pm. I checked weather, but it said only 10% chance of rain for Sat night/Sun. so I went ahead and removed the extra tarp (for more air, and pre-packing to go home Sun.) WRONG MOVE! around 3am had a horrible storm come through. Took out one of the awnings we had up, and flooded the tent again! While taking refuge, I was able to check radar and turns out there was a Severe Weather Alert for the area...and no immediate end to the rain. So the little girls & I moved to the truck, I packed up the remaining things in the tent to keep them dry (big kids were in their own tent that didn't leak). Packing up this morning was NOT fun! Everything was wet & muddy, and it was still raining. We will definitely have stories to tell about this trip! But we are home now, getting all cleaned up, and waiting until tomorrow to figure out how to dry everything out. Thanks for worrying about us! You're the best!