Heard that on the news this morning, Chicago's first dust storm in 90 years. Yikes. Apparently there was one in 2023, but it was just outside Chicago- this one included the city.

On the other side of the lake- we got less than an inch of rain. No hail, thankfully. But the winds ripped things up a bit. A lot of power outages, we were out for 18 hours maybe. Other areas are still being repaired into tonight, and might see 48+ hours before being restored. Hot and sunny yesterday, next cold front pushed in last night and it's stiff breezes in the 50's.

I guess I'm kind of thankful I ended up working a few extra days at work. The delay pushed my seedling planting back by a few days. They would have been freshly transplanted and pummeled by this. But I had to get the tractor started and mow before gardening while the weather was fine... then storms, lol. Get to finish up the mowing today while it's dry. It got too hot in the afternoon sun yesterday.

On the hosta front... my little bitty limelights are finally popping up :) I have no idea what the names of my other hostas are. A mid-sized with pointy leaf one in varigated cream and dark green- kind of common around here. And a couple of big kinds with rounder leaves the size of salad to dinner plates in deep verdant green and a bluer kind of pine-ish green. All of them have been popping and going for a while. I had a couple oooold clumps of the bigger ones that I broke up and moved a couple years ago- this year looks like the first year of real plush growing in for them.

And in that bed- a hastily transplanted in the heat of last summer hellebore not only survived- it gave nice blooms this spring :)

I am near you west of Chicago. We have had no rain for at least three weeks, the storms either go around the area or fall apart before they get here. Yes we had a dust storm here yesterday and temps over 90 for two days in the middle of May😱 Wind has been constant at 35mph for almost a week with higher gusts.

i hand watered half of my gardens yesterday, so much fun in the wind, sprinklers would have been almost useless. I am giving up on ”normal ” weather.

Sherry