Lee, Thanks for the heads up. You always keep us grounded and aware when a big change in the weather is coming, and I know we all appreciate you sharing your expertise.

I remembered that a while back you cautioned us that something was likely near the end of this month, so I've been behaving myself and not planting anything except cool-season plants. It has been really hard to behave too!

I know it is too early to believe winter is over, but it sure has been lovely planting onions in 70-degree weather instead of 30- or 40-degree weather. I can handle a return to cold temperatures because, after all, we're not sitting on the side of a hill in California beneath a burn scar, and being evacuated because of anticipated mud slides and flooding. All in all, toughing it out through a little cold weather is nothing compared to what some folks in Cali are enduring right now. I guess we can always count our blessings because no matter what the weather is doing here, it likely is doing something worse somewhere else.

Dawn

I will slow down I will slow down.

Our Temps this week range from 86 to 26 so I will hold off on some stuff I had planned. I believe we will get a chill in march. Thanks for the heads up from everyone

Kim, Our weather will be just a little less extreme than yours. The last time I looked, which was last night, I believe our warmest day is forecast to be Thursday with a high around 81 and then our coldest night is forecast to be 35 (so I'm expecting anything from 27-35 given that our microclimate tends to get colder than forecast).

The wind, especially on Thursday, is going to be a beast so fire danger is going to be Extreme or Critical in some places. That sort of high wind is hard on young plants too. I've been hardening off a lot of cool-season plants and a few warm-season ones this week, but I might just leave them indoors on Thursday to avoid that wind.

I'm going to put some kale and lettuce plants in the ground today and might plant potatoes tomorrow. I even might sow carrot seeds tomorrow, figuring this week's warmth might help them germinate quickly. I didn't want to sow them before the rain because I was worried they'd wash away, and given how hard the rain fell, I'm glad I didn't sow them.

I don't want to slow down, but then I'm only planting cool-season stuff, and the things I'm planting can handle the weather. Well, they might not like the 81 degrees but they'll survive the low temps this week.

I'm okay with it if March is cooler than February has been because this much heat this early just is not a good thing.

Dawn

Oh this completely puts my mind at ease being a little behind. I just want some consistency. Is that really extremely too much to ask for?!?!?! Oh ya, it's Oklahoma.....what was I thinking.

We don't do consistency well here, and you know it! Where else but Oklahoma can you have Summer on Thursday and Winter on Friday? Somehow we and our plants will survive it.

How's your mother-in-law doing? I hope her treatments are going well.

Consistency is just a word we dream of right?! lol

My mil is doing good. She had her surgery last month and they had to remove 15 lymph nodes. She had some issues with the drain tube and has had to go back a few times because of it. She developed lymphoma as well and they are trying to get that resolved so they can move on to treatment. They have suggested chemo then radiation with an 80% chance cancer doesn't come back and a 74% chance it doesn't with radiation only. I think she's decided to do radiation only. She did get sick last week and I keep warning her about going out and about everyone, especially with the flu being so rampant this year. I understand we have to do things, but she has a special circumstance. Good thing she's not staying here with us.....she might beat me from overprotection lol. Thank you for asking Dawn.

Today is supposed to be 80!! I am so grilling steaks today. No time to wait for summer.......let's just live for today!!!! Who knows, next week I might just have soup and hot cocoa.

Here's to life and enjoying every little bitty piece of it!! <3

Oh Melissa, I wish comfort for your mom and everyone involved. So rough for her :( I'm glad you're going to BBQ. Sounds like a good idea.

Melissa, I am glad that the odds are in her favor. I do wish she'd listen to you and try to stay home while the flu and colds are running rampant right now. Many cancer patients do not understand how much fighting cancer weakens their immune system. I hope things go well for her.

It is a lovely day to grill steaks! We did that on Sunday afternoon. I hope y'all enjoy grilling in today's lovely weather

Today we've had two fires so far, so I'm definitely not in a grilling mood. We're already hot, blackened and smokey. (grin) Tomorrow likely will be lot worse.

I got a funny feeling this morning as the wind rose a little and the temperatures were climbing fast....so I went out and brought in the plants that were hardening off about 45 minutes early. Ten minutes after I brought them indoors, the fire pagers went off. I think it pays to listen to that voice in your head that we call intuition or whatever because this time I was ready to go to the fire without having to run around like a crazy woman rushing to move plants indoors.

I wonder how close our county will come to 90 degrees tomorrow. At the beginning of the week our forecast high for Thursday was 79. Now it is 84. So far today, with a forecast high of 79, we've hit 83. I'm just shaking my head. Could our weather get any more odd than it has been this year? It isn't that we are setting new record highs daily, it is that we are above average almost every single day. Staying so high above average for so long just eventually, over a period of years, raises your average temperatures. That's happened a lot, it feels like, in the 2000s.

An occasional extra-warm day in winter is a nice reprieve from the usual cold weather. A long string of them feels oddly wrong.....or something. I don't like it.

Dawn