Hazel, I'm glad they stopped the fire before it got to y'all and glad your place (and your friend's place) are fine. I suspect it was a scary day for a lot of people.

The 200+ firefighters and support personnel from over a dozen departments did a monumental job of saving as many structures as they possibly could from this fast-moving wildfire. I watched chopper video from some of the news stations and it was astonishing how close fire came to many homes---burning right up to the homes on 3 or 4 sides, but firefighters at each home kept the fire off the homes themselves. Doing this over a period of hours means firefighters rushed from home to home to save each one, and it is a very tough job for the Incident Command personnel and firefighters to pull off that kind of feat because it requires such careful attention to each and every home. Kudos to all of them for doing such an incredible job!!!!

We did this same thing with a 15,000 acre wildfire in our county in April 2009 and it is the worst kind of fire, where you methodically go from home to home in advance of oncoming flames to save houses because the wind-blown wildfire is unstoppable at that point in time. The hard part is having enough fire trucks available to run from home to home over a large area protecting each and every home. It is sort of an endless round of protecting one home, running to the next one, protecting it, running to the next one, etc., until the fire gets past all those homes. It is all the more remarkable because y'all had dozens of trucks being moving around in poor visibility and with flames approaching them, and as far as I know, no fire vehicles ran into one another while operating in those terrible conditions. Knowing how hard it is to do this makes me doubly appreciative of what your region's firefighters achieved yesterday. Now, let's hope Mother Nature brings on the rain to help extinguish lingering hot spots and burning trees and such that could continue to create problems for days if rain were not to fall. I feel bad for everyone who did have vehicles and other personal property destroyed and for the residents of the two mobile homes that burned, but also feel grateful that it wasn't worse.

Kim, Moni lives fairly close to Lisa, so I don't think either of them or their homes were in the path of this fire. It didn't get close enough to Paula and Ken's place for them to have to evacuate, as Ken assured us all on FB last night, and we already know that Hazel's place is okay. I am sure other folks from southeastern OKC will check in when they can. I would imagine that there surely was some damage to power lines and power poles, and some folks may have been without power last night.

Hopefully this week's forecasted rainfall will keep fire danger low for the rest of the week.

And, in that way that Mother Nature has of renewing herself, the grass and many plants in the burned areas likely will green up earlier than the plants in areas that did not burn. While we'd never wish a fire like this on anyone, fire itself does often renew and revitalize grassland as the carbon released during the fire helps to feed the plants. Fire also, of course, removes a lot of invasive brush. Sadly, this fire also damaged or destroyed a lot of landscaping, but Oklahomans are resilient and will replant their landscapes if some of their plants did not survive the fire. I hope everyone got their pets and livestock out of harm's way in time to save them.

I am glad the Governor already put much of Oklahoma under a burn ban and, undoubtedly, the fires this weekend would have been much, much, much worse without that burn ban in place. Until there's a lot more green-up of the existing vegetation, fire risk will remain a big issue. We usually aren't green enough for the wildfires to stop until the end of March or early April in a typical dry year. The fire season can end earlier if we green up earlier than usual, but that requires a lot of rainfall.

Dawn

We have rain, so thankful.

Thanks, everyone. I thought of Paula and Ken too! But they are a mile or so to the north of us, although they are further east. Oh well. It's over now. The fire fighters were amazing. They worked so hard.

I'm not fb friends with any of y'all. I think I see y'all posting on the OK garden fb page though. Each of you have your own unique writing style and often the fb names match.

I don't know the OK fb. I am on fb and so is my garden under Caprock gardens.

Facebook needs a button that says FALSE. Since DH doesn't read this forum, he's a little behind on whats believable on face book. Kim, I followed Caprock Gardens ;)

I was wondering who that was. I am slow today. We are cold and rainy. Love the rain. I am not on fb too much but I do use it as a business tool.

I can relate to having to walk away, at times! The no-filter portion of FB can be a bit of a pain. The youTube educated newbies bother me a little, but the ones that drive me bonkers are the ones that have obviously been doing this stuff for years and still refuse to let go of unproven or debunked ideas that go against sound advice!

Kim, or anyone else for that matter can check out our small but fairly active group, Oklahoma Frugal Gardening. While we chose to put Oklahoma in the group name, anyone from anywhere can join. Will, we have a tendency to be very careful when vetting profiles from foreign countries or any that seem to have nefarious intent!

The idea for the group developed after seeing questions and comments from people wanting to get into gardening but are daunted by what it can cost to get started. Providing a place to compile money saving ideas seemed to be the logical choice. This led to an influx of creative ideas for commonsense sourcing, repurposing of discarded items, and alerts on local sales. For the first few months after it started, it was so fast paced, I had a hard time keeping up! Had it not been for adding some good admins to help out, I'm not sure what I would have done! I don't have an exact count, by I'd say we have upwards of 20 Master Gardeners as well as many very accomplished gardeners in the mix that have been extremely helpful. Of course, I jumped at the chance of adding Dawn as soon as she joined FB! (With her permission, of course)

Rather than edit the youTube comment, I'll just add this. There are tons of fantastic videos out there that are a very good source of reliable information. There also a lot of them that aren't! Some of those are based on one-off experiences that may have been successful one time and never seem to work that well again, yet viewers take them as gospel.

Since this and my last post have been way off the original topic, I'll just add this to try and help nudge it back that direction! When I see or hear about fires, I can't help but think about the damage and destruction that occurs. I would never make light of the impact on those involved, but, I try to think about the positive side. Nutrients released back to the soil along with the rain will create a masterpiece of green over the next few weeks!

That is true. The burned area is now being rained on so it will flourish this spring with new life. Thanks for the fb invite I will check it out

I'm hoping the rain reaches us, but I'll be happy for any of us that get some relief!

Amy, That's a great idea. I'd like to have a false button to push.

Kim, Is snow still in your forecast? I had to come inside for a while this morning when we got rain sprinkles, but I went back out after they went away. I worked until dinner time. I am sure I'll pay for it with stiffness and soreness tomorrow, but I wanted to do all the work I could before the rain arrives.

The QPF showed 3.5" for my area over the next week. That was the last time I looked at it. It updates several times a day. So, if I assume we are going to get that 3.5", then the soil will be awfully wet for a while. I wish some of you who need rain more than I do could get that 3.5". My garden soil is still pretty wet from the rain we've had so far this year, which I think also is about 3.5". We're above-average so far, and if we stay above average for 2017, that would be an unprecedented three years in a row. I can't handle having above average rainfall for another year as I'm much more used to us getting below-average rainfall.

Bruce, I agree. Oh well, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. People just won't change their mind about things they're invested in sometimes, even if you can show them why what they're advocating just isn't a good idea and isn't good gardening.

I love the Frugal Gardening group. So many people have found so many different ways to save $ while gardening. Sometimes it amazes me what people come up with.

I never, never, never go and watch the YouTube videos. Never have. Never will. I'm afraid I'd have a fit over some sort of stupidity there and start a war, so I just stay away. Anyhow, who has time to watch someone else's videos? Once gardening season starts in earnest, I don't even take the time to watch the morning, noon or evening news....and I like watching the news and knowing what's going on, but in gardening season, there's just no time for that.

Today a vulture was circling me while I was working in the garden. I hope it was just picking up on the scent of bone meal or blood meal or something (which seems likely) but that vulture did make me nervous....I hope someone in that garden (like me, lol) is not about to drop dead and just doesn't know it yet.

I freely admit that, as a gardener and a native plants type person, even when we are AT a working grass, brush or wild fire, my mind is racing ahead and thinking about all the renewal that follows a fire. I love watching cedar trees burn. (Ha ha ha!) The hardest part for me, when we are there, isn't seeing plants burn---it is worrying and fretting about the wildlife, assuming that we already know all the people and livestock in the area are safe and accounted for. If you've ever seen an animal run out of a wildfire and the poor thing is on fire itself, you know what I'm talking about. I do try to stay focused on what we're doing, but at the same time, even though we are trying to stop the fire, there's times my mind is already picturing how a woodland will come back better than ever after all the greenbriar and poison ivy burn off, or how a grassland will be improved after a lot of the invasive brush has burned. I hate to look at a black charred landscape, but at the same time, I can close my eyes and picture it greening up again (usually very quickly) and making great growth after the fire.

Many of the ranchers here use prescribed burning to burn off brush in pasture lands, and some of them do it every year. If they don't, the brush completely takes over in no time at all. Sometimes, though, they burn on days that are too windy and lose control of their fire and that's when the VFDs have to ride in like the cavalry and stop the fire. Our firefighters work too hard during the winter fire season, but every one of them believes in their mission and wants to fulfill it. Look at the awesome job that 200+ firefighters from more than a dozen departments did last night on the fire in OKC. When you view the photos and see how close fire got to many homes, it is amazing that the homes were saved. Hopefully everyone gets good rain tonight and tomorrow and we get some good greening up of the fields to help slow down the fires.

Dawn

Love, love, love the rain. Except driving home from Edmond after trombone lessons during rush hour. That was awful.

False FB button. Haha, Amy. I love that in so many ways and mostly not for gardening. lol

I like the gardening YouTube videos. I find some of them very fascinating especially the ones that show how people are transforming small urban yards into gardens that feed their families during the entire year. Even in the colder states. One Yard Revolution is a favorite. It's amazing to me what he's been able to accomplish over the years with his cold frames and green house and other things. Some of them have done it for many years. The gardens in other countries are fun to watch as well. Even the beginner ones are interesting to me. Many of them will say that they're not experts and ask for opinions and welcome advice and thoughts. I love how people are passionate about learning to feed themselves. I like to watch their progress and growth. I started making videos last year, but not as an expert or "how to" advice...more as a journal, sort of. I didn't post them anywhere because we started the home remodel.

The women in the Frugal gardening are terrific. The gaslighting from others is atrocious.

Just don't think too much, it'll be well. lulz

Thank you for the FB heads up, Dawn and Bruce! I had just deactivated my account not too long ago for a while. . . and now you post this! Hahaha. So of course I had to go reactivate it. Yes, we've so been concerned about the lack of rain here. Have not seen too many fires yet. And hallelujah, it is RAINING and supposed to be raining into tomorrow. So thankful for it!

Starting to see new members! Hope you guys enjoy!

As with any group of any size there are always a few that can be a little brash! With the no-filters thing I mentioned, it's inevitable that someone will pop off or state erroneous information. When it causes problems, I try to step in and fire a shot over the bow, so to speak. By rough count, I'm in close to 30 groups and the Oklahoma Gardening group and the Frugal group are by far the best behaved.

On another positive note, I got RAIN! More than some, but less than some, but it's still a blessing!

We got a lot of rain slush snow sleet which all counts for awesome moisture !!!

Kim, I'm glad you got the moisture, even if some of it came as slush, snow and sleet. Too many years, the moisture in your area can be lacking, as it can in ours, so we have to take our moisture whenever we can get it.

I was hysterically entertained yesterday by the fact that local folks begin bombarding our 9-1-1 Dispatch center with phone calls yesterday morning (before I even got out of bed!) wanting to know if the Governor's Burn Ban had been cancelled since rain was falling and could they go outside and burn stuff. Really? I felt sorry for the Dispatchers having to deal with folks who have so little respect for the Burn Ban, which is scheduled to last through February 24th and was not cancelled just because a little rain fell. I understand that ranchers need to use prescribed burning to control brush growth in pasture land, but I think we have too many people here in our county who do not necessarily take weather conditions into account when burning stuff and that leads to miserable winter wildfire seasons for the firefighters and increased danger for other residents when people burn during a time when fine cured fuels (like dead and dormant winter vegetation in the fields) are incredibly dry, as they are now after the single digit temperatures in January froze every last bit of moisture and green out of every fine fuel still standing in a field. Cured fine fuels like pasture grasses that are dead or dormant do not absorb moisture in the dried grass blades, for example, and can burn just a couple of hours after rain stops falling.

Why anyone thinks that an inch or two of rainfall changes the current fire danger overnight is a mystery to me. You'd think the widespread media coverage of the 900-acre grass/brush fire in OKC, which I think ran wild enough to also be considered a wildfire, would have made people more aware of how dangerous it is to burn vegetation under the current conditions.

My plan is to get most of my cool-season plants hardened off and in the ground as much as possible right before the burn ban ends 9 days from now because I believe/fear my county will be aflame beginning February 25th and we'll be too busy with fires for me to get my planting done after that date.

While there are trained personnel available to assist landowners in coming up with a prescribed burn plan, there simply aren't enough to go around. All too often, these burns are executed at the absolute worst time by inexperienced individuals, resulting in a disaster! Many of them either don't have the equipment to remove excess fuels and disk or plow a properly placed safety zone around the desired burn area or they simply don't do it.

Even the experts with all their training and monitoring equipment can't control the weather, so there is always a certain amount of risk.

I agree, Bruce, and I will add that some of our worst wildfires in this county, including the worst one ever (15,000 acres in April 2009) and the worst one so far this year (with wind-blown flames at least 30' tall) originated from prescribed burns that got out of control, and in several cases, including the one I just described from a couple of weeks ago, the prescribed burn was being conducted by state employees on Wildlife Management Land or by professional companies paid by large landowners to conduct the prescribed burning for them. Sometimes, even when a firebreak is plowed and water trucks on onsite, the fires become such beasts that the persons in charge of the prescribed burns lose control and have to call for help. One reason this can occur is that once fires reach a certain point, they create their own wind. I have no problem with that sort of escaped prescribed burn. It happens, and some years it happens constantly.

I do get irritated at the kind of person who just goes outside and lights his or her place on fire with no plowed firebreaks in place, no water source on hand, and no regard for the weather.....and often they fail to call the county 9-1-1 Dispatch center and notify them that they will be burning so when the fire is reported by someone who sees it, the Dispatcher pages out firefighters thinking it is a wildfire. Anyone who thinks they are going to do a prescribed burn when the wind is blowing in the 30s and higher had better do more than just walk out the door and set their place on fire with no preparation. Sadly, too many people do just that.

We've already lost one home in our county this year because someone was burning a brush pile in town on a windy day and lost control of it. While the loss of even one home is tragic, it could have been worse. When we first arrived on the scene, we were shocked to see we only had one home burning, though others were very close to going up in flames. In a different similar incident a week or so prior, one landowner who was at home (and his family members, and eventually the firefighters) saved his own home and outbuildings from burning when a neighbor lost control of his burn pile, but another neighbor lost a building despite the fact we had many firefighters and firetrucks on the scene and more rushing to the scene. Sometimes the fires just move too fast before the firefighters can arrive. The landowner who saved his home and outbuildings and his livestock is a friend of ours and I am so extremely proud of him. From the moment he spotted the fire, he did everything right and mounted a valiant effort to protect his property. When we got there, I couldn't believe he had been able to protect everything as well as he did. Everyone is not always so skilled or lucky. Had he not been at home and outside that day, I think this story would have had an entirely different ending.

When we lived in Texas, prescribed burning was much more regulated---with limits on how low the humidity can be when you burn, how low the wind must be, etc. and I thought those regulations worked well at the time. But, rules like that only work if people observe them!

I always jokingly tell our firefighters that if a wildfire reaches our place, they should focus first on saving the garden and then the house because the house is insured and the garden is not. They laugh and promise they will, but I know them well enough to know they're only humoring me---they'd save the house (and rightfully so) and let the garden burn. Some of them might think twice about letting the garden burn, though, because they know that's where the supply of salsa originates.

Our place is really greening up fast, and that gives me hope, but all the tall dry stuff still is tall and dry. If people would mow that stuff down as much as they can, that would help a lot too.

Dawn

As often happens, I'm sitting here chuckling while reading your comments! Knowing how much your garden means to you, in the event of a fire, I and I'm sure several others in this forum would drop everything and come running to help protect your garden!

I also know untrained personnel can be more or a detriment, so we'll just hope and pray it never comes to that!

At one point, I knew the 'standards' both the state and federal employees used as a guideline when it came to minimum humidity and maximum wind velocity. I do remember the federal boys were a lot more conservative. Not sure how much of that has changed over the last few years?

I remember years ago, around 2000 or 2001, the Mission fire that burned a huge area in the Durango/Pagosa Springs area of Colorado. Because of the shear heat and wind it generated, it spawned multiple fire tornados in the area around Villecito Reservoir. Entire herds of Elk and other wildlife that had taken refuge in draws and other low lying areas, died. The fire would jump across the draw not even burning the foliage in that area. It was theorized when the fire went over, it pulled all the oxygen and suffocated them, never so much as burning the hair on the animals.

I know all that is pretty useless knowledge, but it is testament as the power that can be generated by rapid oxidation.

As a result of the massive and devastating fires that took place around that time, caused an entirely different approach to land management throughout the forested regions of the western United States and Canada. Efforts were made to reduce huge amounts of understory. Some was utilized as biomass in some of the co-gen projects and some was simply left to decay and provide nutrients back into the soil.

Our fellow firefighters do know me well enough to know I'd rather be in the garden...or protecting the garden. I know that you, all of my gardening brothers and sisters on this forum would be rushing here to help, but realistically speaking, I am way too far away from y'all for anyone to be able to get here in time. I appreciate the thought and the willingness to do it all the same though.

Once we were at a wildfire on a ranch across the street from our place, and I was there ahead of the fire units, trying to keep the fire off my neighbor's dog kennel with a water hose. I chose to go straight there instead of going to the fire station because I saw the flames racing across the fields towards the house and dog kennel and knew it was most likely the fire would reach the kennels before a fire truck could arrive. The first firefighters to arrive headed straight to the fire to try to stop it, making entry through a gate I had opened before they arrived. The next unit? It included a fire chief from a neighboring department who suggested I should run home and "protect your place". By that, of course he meant 'protect your garden' because he knows me that well. I laughed and told him that when I left, it would be to bring them food and drinks, not to hover anxiously in my garden, water hose in hand. He seemed shocked, and then I told him I'd already checked the wind speed and the angle at which the fire was moving and calculated that my place was safe by at least 100 yards but the place next door and the one across the street were not. Silly man! Did he not know that the third thing I did was to calculate the path of the fire in relation to the location of my garden? (The first was to open gates and the second to protect the kennels, while my neighbors were at their barn preparing to evacuate horses and cattle if needed.) We fought a hard fight that day, containing the fire to only a portion of two ranches. No structures were damaged and no livestock was harmed. It did take hours though, as the fire smoldered endlessly in the wooded tree lines along fences and creeks. And, I did calculate correctly and our place never really was in the line of the fire.

It takes a village to raise a child, and in my neck of the woods, it takes the whole firefighting community to keep everyone safe. At times like that, I'm amazed the men and women of the fire service even think of me and my garden....except that I am their connection for Annie's Salsa. (grin)

For so long in this country, we did have the wrong-headed view that we should suppress fire. As you know well, that 100+ years of fire suppression in national forests and such led to many of the current wildfires by allowing decades of fuel to build up. We will be paying for those mistakes for a long time. So, I have no quarrel with anyone conducting a prescribed burn to keep their place free of that sort of build-up of brush and fuel. I just wish they'd do it in the right way and the right circumstances and would take care to burn responsibly, which some people do, but others do not.

As much as it pains me to say it, fire is necessary. It cleans up tons of overgrown brush. It renews pasture land and farm land. Of course, we prefer the fire be controlled and contained, not out of control and running wild.

If my garden ever burns, I'll just start over again. We started here at this place, beginning from nothing but an empty cow pasture once, and we can start over again. You know that better first-hand than I do.

Fire suppression changed wildlife habitat as well, and threatened some species that didn't thrive in the overgrown understory. When I was birding, we always gritted our teeth when the pastures started burning. We knew the ranchers had good reason for doing it, but they often chose to burn when birds were nesting there. I suppose there is no ideal time for all involved. Before humans arrived no doubt fires were started by lightning (well, and still are).

I agree, Amy. And, you know, when we're at a wildfire and it is pretty much out, if I get a chance, I walk through the area a little and check on the wild things. Sometimes it is surprising---like, I'll see little rabbits sitting in the their holes a few inches below ground. The fire has burned over them and they are fine, undoubtedly scared, and they'll likely have to travel farther than usual to find food, but they are fine. Deer usually can outrun fire, adult birds can fly from it (or run from it in the case of the roadrunners that live here alongside our roadway) but the nestlings are not so fortunate. Sometimes wind pushes wildfire through an area so fast that the trees don't burn too much although the brush beneath them does. There really isn't an ideal time to burn. Most of the ranchers here prefer to do it between January and March, generally before things green up too much. It is unfortunate that the time that's best for them is also often the height of the winter fire season when the fine cured fuels burn so easily (which is why they want to burn them at this exact time).

I just walked down to the mailbox. A couple of observations....except for the cold wind, it is gorgeous out there with all that lovely blue sky, sunshine, little green rosettes of wildflower plants popping up everywhere and new bits of green here, there and everywhere.

And, I smelled smoke. Yes, that kind of smoke. I stood still and looked around and couldn't find a smoke plume anywhere, so my best guess is that someone near us and upwind from us is burning trash. They shouldn't be, but they are. I hope they're keeping an eye on it.

About an hour ago, I went to the OKFire page via the OK Mesonet and checked the fire danger for my specific county. Usually I do that first thing in the morning, but today I didn't feel the need to know early in the day since we were dripping wet with big puddles everywhere. Well, our fire danger still is High and our Spread Rate at that time was 58 feet per minute. Even worse, our Relative Greenness has fallen from 22% last week to 19% this week. Based on all the green I'm seeing erupting around me, I think it will go up again next week. At least I hope it will. I'm happier when we are greener than we are now.

There's tons of birds out, and I saw a Purple Martin scout bird sitting on top of the Purple Martin house. I had heard one last week, I thought, but couldn't see it. Well, today I saw it.

My garden is pretty muddy but not so muddy that I won't be out there working in it either tomorrow or the next day, depending on how quickly the puddles of water in the pathways dry up a little bit.

I think fire danger will creep up again as we warm up, and I'm grateful for the burn ban every day that our fire pagers don't go off. I'm getting a lot done here at home without any distractions and interruptions this week.

....except that I am their connection for Annie's Salsa.

hahaha

Bon, I thought you'd get a good laugh out of that.

So much for my feeling that our governor would keep the burn ban in place and let the weary firefighters rest up and repair trucks, etc.

The Governor's Burn Ban has been cancelled. Now, the only counties with burn bans are those which had them in place before the Governor's Burn Ban was enacted, and some of those burn bans were only for a week or two so have ended anyhow.

I am so disappointed. I hope people burn responsibly so we don't get really busy really quickly.

Here is what firefighters know: any wildfires that happen in areas where rain fell now likely will be harder to control than they were before the rain fell, in one sense, because anywhere that had heavy rainfall will be so muddy that fire brush trucks will tend to get stuck in the mud, restricting their use somewhat until the ground dries out more. We had a lot of trouble with that here in our country already because January had so much rainfall.

My dream of getting a lot of gardening done before fires start up again just died.

Dawn

To be clear, just because the governor of our state lifted the burn ban, that does not mean the risk of fires is low. The risk remains high and, on some days, will go to very high, critical or extreme. All it means is that most days the risk will be merely high, not extreme or critical.

Having said that, today there is a Red Flag Fire Warning for several counties in extreme northeastern OK where the combination of weather conditions and fine, cured fuels (like dry, dormant or dead grasses) will cause fire danger to reach critical levels for part of today. For the rest of us, the wind should remain low enough that our risk is only high

I was very disappointed that the burn ban was cancelled. Obviously someone doesn't really understand the risk or was influenced by people who don't care.

There are not many, if any, politicians in this state that will implement a burn ban and stand firmly behind it. Politicians don't like taking any flack from their constituents, so often waffle and backpeddle on burn bans almost as soon as they pass them. Burn bans are always controversial in the winter fire season because so many people use prescribed burning as a land management tool, and every single one of them is convinced that he, she or they never will lose control of their prescribed burns. It is always someone else who loses control of their prescribed burns and who is the problem, so "they" don't want a burn ban. They just want for everyone else to be as careful as they are. In reality, anyone can lose control of a prescribed burn at times. It happens. Burn bans mean it happens less since folks can't burn as much.

And, for your amusement folks, our VFD has already been paged out to one grass fire this morning. It happened almost more quickly than I thought it would. I thought we might have one good day before the county started burning. Luckily this is a very small one, located in the highway median, and should be easy to control. Probably won't be the only one today, though.

What I miss most is the CLEAN air we had during the burn ban. I was so tired of having nonstop smoke all day long, and half the time all night long, from tons and tons of prescribed burning. Now we'll have crappy air quality for the next month or two.

A firefighter in a neighboring county was injured yesterday while fighting a grass fire and had to be taken to a hospital for treatment of his burn injuries. I hope he makes a speedy recovery. That highlights another problem with dry, windy weather in the winter fire season---it is just flat dangerous!

It's sad that you and yours are fighting those grass fires, Dawn. I hope everything has calmed down and that ya'll will be given a break soon.

After the rains it dried up really fast. I knew the feeling. A blazing sun and upcoming winds made eye-ball the garden mulch closely for any areas that might have been exposed to the elements. The soil is damp and cold, but I want to keep it wet more than I am concerned with warming the soil up for transplants.

It rained this morning. It didn't rain enough to speak of, but it got wet which tells me the humidity is still sufficient where clouds that do roll in and try to put down precipitation are more likely to hit ground. Mostly cloudy all week long, I might put all my baby transplants in the cold frame as it gives them a chance to acclimate before full sun.

The fire problems have been more at the north and west end of the county than down here at the south portion, but we've done our share of going to help them, and we don't mind going when they need us. We're all hoping the icky, misty, foggy, drizzly crap we've had all day plus the rain that's expected tonight will give us a break for a few days. We'll see. The smoke over the Red River Valley was heavy last night from so many prescribed burns and not everyone manages to keep their prescribed burns under control.

I've been hardening off plants as much as I can, but it is hard when the weather is alternating so much from sunny to cloudy and back again.

I dread the coming of the March winds, Bon, and they aren't that far away. With so much of the state still in drought, the combination of dry vegetation and strong wind combined with too many days with above-average highs---it is just a recipe for disaster. I keep thinking to myself "at least we aren't flooding", but then I don't know if dry wind and dry soil across the state are any better than floodwaters. Six of one, half a dozen of another....

I bet you're getting hammered right about now.

The storms flew through here so fast that the hammering by thunder, wind and lightning was brief and the rainfall even more brief. I think our weather radio went off maybe 5 or 6 times, and all but the first time was within a tight cluster of less than maybe an hour. Mostly the severe thunderstorm warnings and such were for the western portion of our county or adjacent counties. In our part of the county, rainfall was light and the wind wasn't bad at all---maybe a gust or two in the 30s during the brief, heavy rainfall. I am excited the weather wasn't worse. Much of the rain fell in other counties, not at our place, so I feel like maybe the rain fell most where it was really needed, and didn't fall here where we already had mud and massive rain puddles. I'd rather not have rain during the week or two that I'm planting onions (those are all planted now) and potatoes (they'll be done before the end of the week, depending on when some of the mud dries up), so getting less rain than was forecast is a joyful event this time. Last night they had us in the 1-2" rainfall category. It didn't happen. I haven't gone downstairs and checked the rain gauge yet, but based on how brief the rainstorms were, I'll be surprised if we even got an inch of rain.

Yesterday, Tim looked at my mud-stained, dry, irritated, unhappy hands....with fingernails a total mess and ground-in dirt I had to scrub off with a hand brush, and he said "why don't you just wear your garden gloves?" That sounds sensible. Maybe I'll try it sometime. Right now, though, I love the feel of the cool (but not cold), moist, compost-rich soil against my skin. If it was cold clay mud, I'd happily wear my gardening gloves but with ample moisture and warmer than usual soil temperatures, working with bare hands is more appealing to me that working with gloved hands. Today might be a day meant more for garden boots than my usual athletic shoes though.

I hope everyone who needed rain got plenty, and I hope this week's warm temperatures and not-yet-March-strength winds make it pleasant to work outdoors. It feels unnatural to work in the garden in short sleeves in February, but it isn't the worst feeling in the world either. As soon as the rain ends, we'll likely see fire danger go up again. Our best hope now is for an early green-up because that slows down the grass, brush and wild fires more than anything else at this time of the year.

I'm glad it wasn't severe at your place. OKC had a lot of trouble and I'm wondering if Lisa is okay with power and such.

I think I need that contact with soil from time to time. When I first started digging as a gardener I loved it. But when my hands were stripped of all natural oils and hurting I decided to get some gloves.

But I was thinking as I was reading. My hands were particularly stained, yesterday. Yep.

I was chasing little man around the garden the other day with wet muddy hands. He couldn't believe I stuck them in gloopy mud on purpose. The look on his face was delightful

Never gardened with gloves before two years ago (And had dirt under my fingernails from April-September. Duh.) Wouldn't be without them since my close encounter with a rattlesnake. Granted, they probably wouldn't save me, but FEEL safer. And I kinda like not having as much dirt under my fingernails.

I already had looked at rainfall totals on the internet before I came downstairs this morning, so I knew our mesonet station had recorded less than an inch, and that heavier rain was more common in far western parts of our county and lower rainfall amounts in the central and eastern portions, which include our place. I was kinda relieved, as too much rain at potato planting time is not good. I was okay with a lower rainfall amount as it means I can plant later this week, and I can do so without stomping around in mud or planting potatoes in soil that's really too wet for them.

Imagine the horrified expression on my face when I opened the back door to go outside and there's huge, huge, huge lakes of water (too big to be puddles!) everywhere. Just everywhere.

We have four rain gauges scattered around and I've long known that all 4 of them can record vastly differing amounts of rain. The rain gauge closest to the back door recorded 1.5", which explains the lakes of water, since we already had large puddles even before this latest rainfall. The electronic rain gauge 50' away recorded 0.91". The two rain gauges in the garden, which are about 20' from one another recorded 1.1" and 0.9". It is bizarre how much they differ, and I had checked the three in-ground gauges and made sure all of them were empty before it rained.

All I know is we're mud city here today, and there's no appearance by the sun yet, so it is not going to dry up substantially today.

At least there's no decision to be made on whether to attempt to work in the garden today or not. Clearly it is too wet. Now, I'll just be watching how quickly everything does or doesn't dry up, and will plant the potatoes as soon as the conditions allow.

We'll be hot and windy later in the week, so we'll see if that helps make the garden soil more workable more quickly.

It's not really muddy here, but really soaked. We got between .6 and an inch. We'll take it! Good day to go get some blood meal, coir, and peat moss. (No way is Walmart going to have coir, I bet. :) )

Wal-Mart just might. They've come a long way in the last few years and I even can find some of my favorite organic fertilizers there now, which saves me an 80-mile one-way trip to Mike's Garden Center in Southlake, TX, to buy those fertilizers. Although, of course, I still go to Mike's because I love buying plants there, but when don't go there as often as we did years ago when they were the closest source for Espoma organic fertilizers.

Yesterday when Tim and Chris came into the garden to replace some rotting boards on one of the oldest raised beds, it smelled "horrible" in there to my son because I'd just added Garden-Tone to an adjacent raised bed. Apparently the aroma of a fertilizer composed of poultry manure, bone meal, alfalfa meal and other ingredients is offensive to some people who aren't gardeners. I kinda like the smell.

I am always amused when I use bone meal and blood meal because in less than 24 hours (sometimes almost instantly), we'll have vultures circling in the air above our place trying to find the source of the blood and bone scent. It makes me laugh. Fish emulsion has a similar effect but it attracts raccoons and cats.

Some of the water has soaked in but not much of it has yet. The puddles will last forever. Before this rainfall, our YTD rainfall for 2017 was about 150% of average, so now it will be even higher/even worse and the already-saturated ground will stay saturated for another week or two. I'm not really complaining. There's too many years when there's too little rain.

Kim, it's he's so sweet. I wish my kids were tiny, again. Now they are yard apes. I lectured them the other day how important it is for them to learn to grow their own foods.

Nancy, I've used large chipped choir directly in the soil in planters and it is a beautiful thing. If I could afford it every year I'd stuff it everywhere.

Dawn, I know it's a hassle, but I cannot help but think happy for you that it is not so terribly dry. So hard for you to work in a quasi desert environment. Not to mention the water bill during those years ..

After two very wet years, and now entering a third that's starting off very wet, there's a tiny part of me that wishes it were more dry---not drought, of course, but how about a year in which the rainfall is just average?

The older I get, Bon, the less I enjoy the heat, and the less I enjoy the heat, the less inclined I am to keep trying to water my way through a huge dry spell. I think nowadays, I'd be more inclined to stop watering instead of running up a big water bill, and then whatever happens just happens. You know, using row covers and very early planting helps me beat the heat, so once I have filled up all the canning jars and freezers, what's the point in watering to keep the produce coming? Maybe I just let the plants struggle in the dry spells and harvest whatever we get and decide that's good enough. As I age, I'm trying to work smarter, not harder. Those big water bills hurt too, so I'd like to avoid them in the future. As the soil gets better each year, perhaps the garden will do better on less water.

When I think back to how hard it was to keep the garden alive in 2003 (less than 19" of rain for the whole year), or 2005 (less than 25" of rain for the whole year) or 2011 (no explanation needed for anyone who lived here then and remembers), I am amazed I even bothered. I was just too stubborn to cry uncle. Well, I did in 2011, but that was as much a function of being at grass fires, wild fires, brush fires and structure fires night and day and day and night all summer long. Even if I had watered endlessly, no one was home to harvest, eat or process the produce. Looking back, I don't know how we survived it. I know there were some days we probably were gone 16-18 hours a day, and the few hours we were at home weren't necessarily all together. You might be home long enough to take a shower and change clothes, and put your smokey clothing in the washing machine....and then you'd get paged out again. I hope we never have a year like that again! As a gardener and as a member of the VFD, I'm not sure I could handle that sort of drought again.

This constant warming trend of each winter being warmer than the one before, and each winter's hot days becoming more and more frequent worries me. Heat in summer---it is normal, we are used to it, we have coping mechanisms. Having this heat in winter? It just isn't right or normal. Unless it is the new normal.

The water has soaked in a little more this afternoon. You know, it is sad but true that wet clay soil will absorb water more easily up to a point than clay-that-is-baked-to-concrete-hardness will. So, in that sense, rain right now isn't the worst thing on earth, but I'm glad I didn't sow any seeds in my sloping garden this past weekend or they all would be floating down the Red River by now.

Another 2011? A big nope. I've been working on being more resilient, positive and consistent and making depressive moods go bye-bye, but if another year like that were to roll around, I'd not be so resilient. Yet, I think the impact of 2011 wasn't just the fact that it was so extremely dry and hot, but that it came after years of persistent drought while we were teetering on the edge of "it'll end soon". That feeling was capped by an absolutely deplorable dry like I've never know.

IF it happened again, I probably wouldn't freak out like I did that year. Progress. ha

Bon just wait till you have grands It is amazing.

I think if we'd known how bad 2011 ultimately would be, we might have been freaking out from day 1. When even the native oaks and cacti are dying, that's a tough summer. Hopefully we won't see one of those again in our lifetime, but I sort of think we will. I don't think it will be this year. I think we'll have enough rain this year (unless California hogs all the rain for themselves).

I try to avoid letting the summer heat control my moods/happiness, but I'd be lying if I said I'm always successful at that. Sometimes when it gets so danged hot that I want to turn around and go back inside about as soon as I reach the garden, it can feel depressing. I remember that I had far too many tomatoes in 2012 and often would spend a whole day just picking them. Chris would come out to the garden to try to talk me into coming inside and getting out of the heat, but he always expected I'd refuse to come in, so he'd bring me a big, cold drink to at least ensure I was drinking enough. As miserably hot as it was in 2012, I was so starved for time in the garden after 2011 that I probably did stay out in the garden too long each day.

Down here, the drought of 2011 was followed by drought in 2012, 2013 and 2014. I got to the point where I wondered if we'd ever have another rainy year again---and then in 2015 we got more than 200% of our average rainfall, and there was my rainy year. I didn't expect 2016 to also be wet like that, but it was, at least until about the end of June or first of July. We had the Red River flood more times in 2015 and 2016 than it had flooded in all our previous years here combined. We're due for a dry year again, but I don't necessarily think it will be 2017. We've had above-average rainfall in both January and February so far, which probably explains why we're in the tiny portion of OK that has escaped drought so far. Based on the weather we've experienced so far in 2017, my best guess for this spring and summer is that we'll be hot, humid and wet. Other than the fact that such weather encourages a lot of plant diseases, it might be a really good garden year.

I have a really good feeling about it. Yep.

Yes, grandkids are special. We have one on the way ;)

Amy, Congrats! We had a step-grandchild for a few years and it was so much fun to spend time with her. We're still in touch with her mom, but haven't seen her in a few years. The years that they were a part of our daily lives were wonderful years.

I am trying really hard not to put pressure on Chris to remarry and give us grandchildren, but it is hard. I hope someday he meets the right woman and we do get to become grandparents. My sister has six grandkids and they're all more fun than a barrel of monkeys. She has at least some of them, and sometimes all of them, with her every weekend. I don't think she ever sleeps. Sometimes I have to remind myself that my dad didn't become a grandfather until he was 65 years old. Tim's only 59 and I'm 57, so hopefully we have a lot of years left in which to become grandparents and enjoy having grandkids---Lord willing and if the creek don't rise.

Bon, I have a good feeling about this year too. I don't know why. Sometimes you just have to trust your instincts and my instincts are telling me it will be a great garden year. Let's hope we're right about that.

I'm already growing a bumper crop of bindweed and bermuda grass. Oh, and chickweed, annual bluegrass, shepherd's purse, dandelions, henbit and Carolina geraniums. Except for that stuff, there's also tons of desirable things popping up like dill, fennel and chamomile. I'm going to work on pulling all those weeds this week as soon as the soil in each area is workable.

Then, on Thursday, I'll just do my best not to blow away in the wind or dehydrate in the heat. I'd like to think that the critical fire danger stays well west of us and we don't have wild fires that day. As wet as the ground is, getting trucks stuck in it (ha, kinda like a gardener getting her shoes or wheelbarrow bogged down in wet garden soil....not that I've done that this week...yet).

I'm loving this sunny, warm weather so much. It is incredible to be working outdoors in April temperatures in February. I don't think it will last and I dread the return of the cold.

Dawn

Hmmm, Dawn, my daughter is single ;)

Lol. And I bet she hates matchmaking as much as my son does!

We just got in from a fire, and I couldn't help noticing that one of our female firefighters noticed a 'new' firefighter from another department. Her mom and I were laughing about it. We aren't sure if he is new, or if we just haven't crossed paths with him before. Our young lady firefighter did not appreciate our comments on his suitability as a love interest. Oh well, maybe they'll get to meet again and talk with one another when we old fogeys aren't there to spoil it for them.