Dawn: I'm glad you got some rain...and were safe! The news channels were all talking about the May 3 tornado outbreak last night.

We finally caught a dry spell here in OKC, which was a good thing! We have been getting a bunch of rain here. A week or two ago I went out after a storm and stepped into a bed to grab a weed and sunk up to my ankle. OOPS! I hauled myself out and stayed on the grass after that.

A couple of weeks ago we had almost five inches in my neighborhood in a matter of a few hours. We don't have proper storm drainage in my neighborhood, all the streets are slanted to run the water to a central ditch. A friend of mine drove right into the thick of it and just about totalled her car. She just this week got all the water out of the padding.

Lisa

Lisa,

It was sort of scarey watching that rotating cloud overhead, and later on, as we were driving up to the fire station to go to an automobile accident call, it was nerve-racking driving on the flooded roadways. And all that time I WAS thinking of May 3rd being the date and remembering the 1999 tornado outbreak.

We sure needed the rain. Last year we had a big April storm that dumped over 8" in four hours. Around here, it seems we either get nothing at all, or a lot all at once.

I'm hoping for a dry weekend.

Dawn

Oh Dawn...was the hail you got very large? Any damage to your plants? I was thinking of you when our weather radio went off and later when I listened to weather updates and hoping you didn't get the large hail they mentioned or bad storms.

I have been in watching Channel 4 news and watching a tornado form and touch ground up near the panhandle. It kept to the farmlands it seemed so hopefully no bad damage. Other than possibly someone's crops of course. ugh

We have had good amounts of rain here in Ardmore too. In fact I am ready for it to dry up a little. But don't want it to just stop raining either. If we get many days like today with all the wind we had here at my house today it won't take long to dry things up.

Okay I am heading for the LR and a comfy place to relax now.
G.M.

I'm glad I didn't see the refection of the 1999 tornados on the news! I don't need to add to my tornado-anexity. I grew up in Nebraska, so I've seen a couple of tornados, alothough no where near the strength or frequency as it is here in OK. I've been in earthquakes and a hurricane, and I am still more frightened of a tornado than any other weather event!!!

We've hid out in the shelter a couple of times already. The little man likes to play in the "tunnel". What is it with men having to stand outside and look at the clouds? I swear when the sky turns THAT color, every cloud looks like a wall cloud to me!

We've had a fair amount of rain lately, it's been the nice and easy sprinkles. Not the "Frog strangling gully washers" as DH likes to say. I've been just tickled that the wind has let up a bit... that has definately been the hardest thing for me to adjust to here. The snow and cold was temporary, and growing up in NE, I didn't think that it was all that bad. But the wind! Does it clam down at all during the summer? I'm geting a lot of exercise moving all of chair cusions in and out of the garage. I guess I should be grateful for all the calories I'm burning :)

G.M., We were EXREMELY lucky because our hail was about pea-sized and there wasn't much of it, but we are several miles south of Marietta. I have been told that people in parts of Marietta, and in the rural area due west of Marietta, maybe 2 to 5 miles from town, had some golf-ball sized hail. I am not sure how widespread it was, but you know how damaging hail that size can be to a garden!

We were at a dinner party last night at the ranch across the road from us. There were maybe 40 people there and most all of them live in the Marietta/Love County area. Many of them were watching the rotation in the clouds the previous evening. Based on location we think there were at least 3 different ones in different parts of the county. Many had hail. Some had fairly large hail. We all had that torrential downpour, but the streets and creeks flooded the worst west and south of town. Everyone was either in their shelter with the door open, watching and waiting as I was, or (mostly the men) standing in the yard in the rain watching the clouds. One woman told me that the people west of her had their gardens pounded to a pulp by the hail. Some of the guys recorded the cloud rotation on their cell phone video cameras.

Our yard is so wet it just squishes when you walk on it. My garden is too wet for me to even think of doing any work in it. While the rain is nice, the high humidity is bad for the tomatoes--it inhibits pollination by making the pollen clump and it tends to lead to foliar disease. Oh, well, I guess I'd rather deal with those problems than with last year's drought.

Courtney,

I think it is better to go to the tornado shelter and be safe rather than sorry! I keep mine stocked with stacking plastic lawn chairs, beach towels (you can dry off with them if you got wet on your way to the shelter or use them as pillows/blankets if you have to stay in there a while), bottled water and snacks in a plastic bin with a tightly-fitting lid, a flashlight and a battery-operated radio. The longest we have ever stayed in the tornado shelter was a couple of hours. Sometimes a couple of neighbors come over and join us!

Does the wind EVER quit blowing in Oklahoma? Well, not for long. Just when you think you have had all the cold north winds you can stand in the winter and spring, the weather pattern changes a little and you get wind out of the west that brings turbulent weather in April and May. Then, when you are just sick of that and hoping for relief, late spring arrives and with it you get strong winds out of the south. Of course, that is a generalization of what we see here. I have noticed in our part of Oklahoma we seldom get winds out of the east. The south winds we have most summers are very drying winds. If you don't have a good windbreak of trees and shrubs on your property, you might want to plant some!

Oh, the wind does stop blowing somewhat. It seems it blows least from mid-July to mid-August when you are just dying for a breeze of any sort to cool you off!

Dawn

We got some dime size hail Thursday along with the downpours. It knocked the doves nest out of the plum tree. Don't know if it's a young bird with bad building skills or all dove get an f for nest building.

There is still water standing in the back yard.

randy

Dawn I am so glad you didn't get the hail. I was really worried for you and even told DH I was worried about your gardens. God was good! We didn't even have a drop of rain at the time all that was going on down there. Saw a lot of mean looking clouds though in several directions and I could hear thunder coming from the east. My sister who lives out toward Dickson had hail.

It is usually me who will stand out watching the clouds. haha. We don't have a storm shelter though...inner rooms or closets will have to do for us. I don't like going below ground anyway but I would if I needed to.

Randy was the baby still in the nest when it got knocked down? I hope not. I had a dove in my yard a time or two this week. And yesterday a baby sparrow who was trying to fly in the back yard. As far as I know it never did get any higher than about 6 inches off the ground. We have lots of sparrows. They have taken over all my bird houses.

I have not had my wrens this year! I have been watching for them and they are just not around. Do any of know why that might be?
Our neighbor has diving pidgeons who are loose all time do you think perhaps those frightened the wrens away?

Oh and Grackles.....How do you get rid of them? I hate grackles! Ugly noisy things.

G.M.

Randy,

I hope the hail didn't damage your plants or greenhouse, but you would have mentioned that if it happened, right?

And I haven't heard a word from you about the state meet since it was held? I hope it went well.

G.M.,

I don't know if your neighbor's birds frightened away the wrens, but think they could have. We have wrens, but not as many as we do most years.

Grackles? I hate them and short of having someone stand and shoot some sort of gun or cannon to scare them off, I don't think it is possible to drive them away.

Dawn

G.M.

There were eggs in the nest. They are now fertilizing the tree.

Dawn

All of my plants are outside now and under shadecloth so they were protected from the hail. I've lived in Oklahoma all my life and have learned nice container plants stay under shadecloth until about June. Then they get moved out into the yard.

I shut the greenhouse down this time of year. Doesn't make much sense to pay good money to vent a greenhouse when everything does just fine outside.

Amber had a good meet. The breaks went someone else's way this year though. She did help her team win state.

A couple of stills from our cam corder.

Although I'm not that wild about it, she's doing a little modeling now for a leo company. Here's one of the shots.

randy

What a beautiful young daughter you have, Randy. Amber is really growing up fast. I'm glad to hear her team won state! Enjoy every minute you have with her now. She'll be grown before you know it (and maybe move off to Dallas like my beautiful daughter did). Ahhh, the lure of the bright lights and big city!

We've had a ton of rain here, too. I am just dying to get out in the garden, but it's absolutely too wet. This clay soil we have now sure holds the water longer than the sandy soil I'm used to gardening in. We need to till up a veggie bed, but it's never dry long enough to break out the tiller. I broke down and bought some tomato plants the other day. DH didn't want to, as he said we have no place ready to plant them. I told him I'd plant them in my tropical bed (but I lied). I like tomatoes, but I love my tropicals even more! No way those plants are going in my gorgeous tropical bed. I may put a couple of my pepper plants in there though. LOL. Can you tell I'm a pepperhead?

Thanks Dawna.

She is growing up fast. We "camped out" last night in the back yard in a tent we bought recently for our annual church Father Daughter camp out. Time is flying by and I cherish anytime I get with her now. Still daddies little girl as one of her favorite places is plopped down in my lap at night watching a baseball game with me.

How are you liking the new place?
randy

Dawna - peppers make pretty ornamentals, too, though, and so does okra. So, growing them with tropicals is probably not going to detract anything from the beauty of your flower bed. Actually, I am planting my tomatoes in the middle of my flowers, too. I found a couple of Hardy Cherry tomatoe plants, and the foliage is gorgeous, kind of a blue green and very thick and substantial. Of course, I grow mine for the sphinx moths anyway, so if I don't get any tomatoes, that's okay. Lots of veggies are ornamental in appearance.

Gosh, Amber has grown so much since I last saw a photo of her, Randy! How old is she now? She's absolutely gorgeous!

I'm so, so sorry about the dove's nest. I just hate that. I have house finches that live in my yard and the are so funny to watch. I have about 4 families of them now. I used to only have one family, but over the last two years, they have increased in number. Wonder why? The males are so pretty with their red throats and heads. I haven't seen my hummingbird lately, but the Japanese Honeysuckle is in full, beautiful bloom right now. Don't worry - mine is contained. That stuff is so fragrant, though!

Susan

Randy,

Thanks for the update on Amber's meet and for posting the photos! It is great that the team did so well, and I am sorry the breaks went someone else's way. She is growing up so fast and she is simply beautiful! One of these days you're going too have to take to sitting on the porch with a shotgun to keep the guys away.

I keep most of my container plants in sheltered locations, too, until we get into June, since our worst months for hail seem to be April and May . We've only had severe hail damage once since we moved here in 1999. It seems like we had severe hail damage about once every 3 or 4 years in Texas.

Dawna, I have planted both pepper plants and tomato plants in beds with tropicals and hot-colored annuals, and most people didn't even realize what the pepper plants were until the peppers began to color up.

Susan,

I bet you will get tomatoes if those plants get enough sunlight. Did you know that, in this country as well as in Europe, tomatoes were grown as ornamentals long, long before they were grown as edibles? That's just one "interesting fact" I learned from reading Adam Smith's history of the tomato in the U.S. (OK, it is a fact that is interesting to me, and maybe to nobody else!)

Still drizzling here.

Dawn

Susan

Thanks. Amber is 12 turning 13 this fall. She is a very pretty little lady.

Dawn

Thanks. You can't always be All Round state champion, but that's what she sets as her goal every year. 2nd place this year in her mind was really just first loser. She really should have won again this year too, but judging is sometimes questionable at best and all it takes is one low score to take the gold away. Not that big a deal. It was a great season with a good ending and there's always next year.

The team goals are really important to the gym though. They love having that 1st place banner hanging on the wall for all the younger girls coming up in the system. That's 3 in a row for this group of girls, level 4, level 5, and now 6.

Amber and I have had a lot of casual conversations about the period in her life when boys start growing their horns. She knows I'm all bluff, but all boys will be told her daddy has a shotgun and he's not afraid to use it. :-)

I've had hail disfigure large crassulas and force me to defoliate big sago's. After a couple times of that shadecloth seemed like a good solution.

randy

After the years of losing so much money & effort on plants that died no matter how much time I spent dragging around the hose, after the years of having to find a way to water trees EVEN in Winter! After all the years of being terrified of the how dry all the open fields were neighboring our house, I refuse to say it is "too much rain". At some point you have to just be grateful for what mother nature gives you. Maybe only hate one thing (hot weather, or cold weather, or dry weather, or wet), but not ALL.
The local channels think any day that isn't like San Diego MUST be a horrible day! This is ridiculous.
Our neighborhood pond is finally getting full...a well-over 70yr old pond that I feared was destined to be dried up in 2 years if dry pattern persisted.
This state should bless every drop it gets, we are on the edge of a desert area to the south & southwest and in this state you never know when, once the rain ends in the spring, when it will rain again. Will it be in July or August when it is 108 degrees? Maybe not until October. Like any state we should be prepared for flooding, as well as for drought. And these past years you might have found me praying for the rain to start, but you won't find me praying for it to end...

Sagenscotties,
Amen! I will certainly take too much rain over too little rain. I'm dying to get out in my garden and put about 300 - 400 tropical plants in the ground. But they can sit in pots until the ground dries up enough to plant them. Then, let it rain, let it rain, let it rain. :) What a joy it would be to see 20' tall banana plants.

Randy,
We are loving our new place. I miss the seclusion and the view at our old home, but the new house is wonderful and we love being only three miles from DH's job, instead of 40. The pastures here were eaten down badly in the drought last summer, and we should have replanted them this spring instead of hoping the Bermuda would come back on its own. It is coming back, but oh, so slowly... My horses definitely miss their rocky hillside with prevalent grass as compared to this mudhole. :)

The landscaping here leaves a lot to be desired, but I am working on it. The pine trees are beautiful but the gardens are very lacking. I will love it more after we get our greenhouse moved here, hopefully in the next month or so. After 20 years at the old farm, we still have a lot of stuff to move. I call our new place "End of the Trail" because I am NEVER moving again. :)
I sure hated to hear about your dove's nest, too. I was hoping to see pictures when the eggs hatched out.

Dawna

Sagenscotties - you are so right and I am so very, very grateful. Probably because it will be another 30 years before we see this kind of spring, and never have things been so lush in my garden as they are this year!

Dawna, how are the wolves doing? They are so pretty! I still love going to your website just to look at them.

Do you have any aroids up? I have an unknown alocasia (I believe) coming up. I will post a pic when it grows a bit more. My arisaema triphyllum is blooming, and another arisaema is up - this is an unknown I got from Randy and Sherm. My seedlings of A. sikkokianum came up again this year. In two years, they should be blooming size. My typhoniums are up - the little ground cover ones? I think they're so cute. So far, not proving to be invasive at all. I need to pot up my Amorphophallus konjac and remember to fertilize, fertilize, fertilize!

Susan

Sagenscotties,

I really am grateful for the rain, but I hate seeing floodwater in a neighbor's home, only 1 year after they had to redo everything after last year's flood. (Of course, I would not have built a house in a flood plain like they did.) Our weather here seems to consist of one long drought interrupted by the occasional flash flood. I've never seen anything like Oklahoma weather, and I grew up in Texas where the weather is not much different, but maybe a little bit more moderate, instead of swinging from one extreme to the other.

I do wish the rain would come along more evenly spaced out, instead of almost no rain for 2 months, and then 4" in one week, but I am glad to see the rain falling. What I guess I truly miss is the sunshine. I could handle having rain every day if only the sun would come out now and then. :)

Dawna,

Many of the pastures here were overgrazed the last 2 years (out of desperation, I am sure) and they are slow to grow and recover this year too. I, too, have been wondering how the wolves handled the move to the new place.

Randy,

I know Amber is disappointed, but that kind of disappointment is just a part of competing, isn't it? It is good that she has set high goals and expects the best of herself. Her gym must be so proud of how well the girls have done these last few years. I know all the girls' parents must be proud too.

Susan,

Where in the world did the unknown alocasia come from? It sounds like everything is growing like mad in your yard.

Dawn

Susan & Dawn,
The only aroids I have up, other than in pots from the greenhouse are a couple of colocasias and the Arum Italicum which stay green all winter. They have been blooming like crazy. None of my Sauromatum venosum or Konjacs are up yet. I sure hope I didn't lose them over winter. They've never been this late coming up before. None of my callas are up either, except for the Giant white or Hercules, which I thought I had lost in the drought last summer. I was so shocked and thrilled when it came up in late March. I sure hope the voodoo lilies come back or I'll be replacing them. I really love Konjac! It has been hardy for me the past few years so I'm still hopeful it will show up.

We're down to only two wolves these days. They have been dying off the past few years of old age. I lost three last year at ages 15, 15 1/2, and 16 years. So they lived good, long lives and were happy. The two I have left are 6 and 11 years. I sure hated moving off and leaving my large, wooded wolf enclosures. The enclosure we built here is small and ugly. But I gave the wolves 25 years of my life, and decided it's time for DH and me to come first for a change. (My mom would be sooo proud. :) When these last two wolves die off, that will be it. I'm getting too old to take care of them (and all these plants too)!! I know there is something wrong with me that I constantly come up with ways to create more work for myself. I think I need a shrink... :~)

Randy how blessed you are to have such a beautiful and talented daughter! She is precious!

Our oldest two grand daughters just turned 10 and one is heavily involved in all sorts of sports and activities. Anywhere from dance to gymnastics and now golf of all things...lol.

The other one her age is more laid back as far as activities but smart as a whip in school.

We have 6 grands....4 girls-2 boys....all in Michigan! They are all my step-grands actually but no less precious to me. My son has not provided me any of my own yet...still single at 35. The girls seem to scare him off every time things get serious. Some day perhaps? Time will tell...haha.

Thanks for sharing the photos with us all.
G.M.

Dawna,

I am so sorry to hear that you lost three of your wolves last year. I know how hard it is to say good-bye to a precious pet.

There is nothing wrong with you. I think almost all people who have a true passion for gardening just can't stop. You know what I mean. It isn't an illness to love growing plants and to keep adding more and more, and landscaping more and more, and so on and so on. It is hard to find a way to say OK, enough is enough, and to stop.

I know that as I get older, physical limitations may slow me down, especially with regards to gardening excessively as I do. But one thing I have noticed, living in a county where I am surrounded by old farmers and old ranchers is that the ones who 'retire' and sit down in their rocking chairs tend to become ill and pass away in their 60s or 70s. The ones who keep ranching and keep farming because they truly love it are still going strong in their 80s and 90s. I think there is a lesson there. I hope to keep gardening passionately and still trying to grow too much and do too much until I drop dead (probably while out in the garden).
I wouldn't want to live any other way.

G.M. What a big bunch of grandkids you have! I bet having grandkids is fun. My son is only 22 and single, so I don't think I'll have any grandkids for a while. I'm ready, though.

Dawn

Dawna I am also sorry to hear of the lose of 3 of your wolves in only one year! No matter how old a pet is....it is still hard to let them go.

And I am very bad about creating more and more work. So if you need a shrink I do as well....lol.

Dawn...I am too young to have all these grands....lol lol. But yes for DH to only have two girls they have done well. One of them has four kids the other one has the two...one is just over a year old.

I tell everyone I was only a baby myself when my son was born...18. So now I am giving away my age...hahaha. No matter to me...everyone thinks I am older so I get a kick out of letting them know I am younger than they may think, that life has just been hard.
It is from too much sun you know...lol.

G.M.

"While the clouds were rotating over our heads, I WAS in the tornado shelter, with the door open, watching them, and ready to slam the door shut if the funnel began to descend to the ground. Where was my DH? Standing in the yard, fire radio in one hand and cell phone in the other, updating the county's Emergency Operations Center on the status of the rotating cloud and updating me with remarks like "The NWS says they see the rotation too, but it is nearly stationary and not a worry at this point." Well, maybe it wasn't a worry for the NWS guys, but it was rotating right over our house, so it was still a worry for me. As you might guess, I am the only one who heads for the tornado shelter. My DH and DS head out with their radios to do storm-spotting and reporting."

************************************************************

I was out feeding my pig. One particular bolt of lightning hit the ground no more than 100 yards away from me. I haven't run that fast in years. This was the third time in my entire life when I actually had a real fear that I might die.

Still, I have to say that if I ever move away from Oklahoma, the thing I will miss most is the weather. Never a dull moment.

I've seen roiling green skies, lightning behind snow and leaves on the ground go straight up into the air -- meaning that the wind was coming in equal measures from every direction.

Cityboygonecountry,

I am glad that you are OK. I have never had lightning strike that close to me when I was outside. I think I would have been so petrified that I would not have been able to run.

Droggie, I know. Weather anywhere else would be quite dull after living in Oklahoma, but sometimes dull is good! That lightning behind the snow means you were having 'thundersnow storms' as our local weather guys refer to them. Here we have also experienced 'thundersleet storms'.

Our property has only been hit by tornadoes once, and that was over 50 years ago. We have them all around us all the time though. My tornado shelter is well-stocked with chairs, blankets, bottled water and food, flashlights and insect repellent. We have really only had to sit down in that shelter and wait out a storm twice. Both time tornadoes did touch down within a few miles of us, but we were quite safe and only had minor wind and hail damage.

It appears Oklahoma is having a wild weather year for its centennial!

Dawn