My garden is an ice rink. Looks like I'll be replanting quite a few things :-(. -Grainlady

Bless her heart! I have wondered what the puppies do during winter.

Your snow is pretty though; I'd take a little because our AC isn't working again and we are burning up here.

Cruel, Cathy, just plain cruel. Mean too.

We have had heavy rains since Monday, and temps in the low 40's. Weatherman claims this will last through next week. It chills you to the bone so I have been making soups and other comfort foods.

Peppi, But, but, but the snow is so pretty and you can wear more clothes. Here it's just too hot, why do you think we have so many nudist communities here.

Beside, if you look closely at the lily, you can see that the bugs have already arrived and have been munching on them.

On Feb. 3rd, they all hop aboard a charter flight to Florida and are still sunning themselves poolside as I type this.

I've never seen a ground hog - I don't think they live in Texas, and I haven't seen any in Californa, but then I spend most of my time in the cities or near the beach.

We've had a lot of slugs trying to eat some of my flowers - in particular my blood lily - see photo below. I have to pick the slugs off the stem, and I even picked one off of the top of the flower. It's pretty much finished blooming by now, however, as its season is generally late March. The other orange flowers are ice plants, and that's as close to getting ice as we have. You can see that we are behind on pulling weeds as well.

That picture of Zada in the snow looks really surreal to me. It reminds me a bit of the salt flats we visited in Death Valley back in February.

I'm sure your snow and ice will be gone in the next day or so, since it is already April.

Lars

Cute, aren't they, Ruthanna? Destructive little buggers, though. Well, frankly after yesterday's weird heat (high 80's), I will take today's weather of mid 60's any time. I hate the heat. I hate snow, too!

Thunderstorms went through and the power was out for a few hours during the night. I slept right through it.

Last year at this time farmers had the corn all planted and were working on getting the soybeans in. Gardens were being planted flowers were up and blooming. Now Ice is still on the lakes, frost just went out of the ground, yesterday BIG snow storm blowing and drifting heavy wet white stuff. Now two weeks in a row 8 inchs of snow, the Robins are thinking about going south again. When it storms I cook, made strawberry pie, popovers, savory herb Aspargus bread pudding and individual meatloaf. Thanks for letting me vent, I did keep it a little about cooking. Patty

Well, the ground hog is under my storage shed in the back yard along with, more than likely, 4 babies. We have the trap set but in spite of our attempts to bait with everything the internet suggests we just can't catch the thing. The other day he was sniffing around the trap and then just sat on the step going into the shed. You have to be "smarter than a ground hog" to catch him and I guess we're not.

Anyway, I do have radishes, and lettuce up in my garden and my yard is spotted with daffodils, so spring is in the air, along with a little snow today.

I agree with Peppi, Cathy that is cruel. I would love to be back in Florida today. 40 and windy here.

Karen

My suburb got 14" of snow in the last 24 hours and it's still snowing. Shoveled last night when I got home....got up before 4:00am this morning and shoveled again. A really heavy, wet snow. Who needs to go to a club for a workout?

More snow predicted for the weekend. Last year I had tomato plants already.....in smaller pots so they could be brought in from the deck on cold nights.

We've been spoiled for about a decade now. I even had my first ripe tomato on May 23rd one year. That will not be happening this year!

Just in case you did not believe me .........

Yes, indeed...... What a weird year for weather. I guess I don't have much to complain about, but two nights ago we had alerts for our area that included - tornado watch, flood warning, severe thunderstorm and ice/snow.

Since I planted potatoes in March we've had 3 snows and one ice storm, and now it's too late to replant them. Even early varieties will end up with "heat stroke" from being planted over a month late, so now I'll be sure to plant lots of sweet potatoes in May and hope for a successful fall crop of Yukons.

As with each gardening season, it's a crap shoot trying to figure out what will be the harvest winner.

-Grainlady

Different weather all over, that's for sure. I'm not complaining after last year's heat, I'd rather have it be below freezing forever than to have it over 90 all the time, ugh.

Here it's flooding. Lots of it. Red Cross has set up a shelter, we're in a state of emergency. Grand Rapids is evacuating hundreds of people, they figure it will be thousands before they are done, 150 had to be taken out by boat. Hotels along the Grand River are pumping water out of their lower floors, roads are flooded and impassable. The Muskegon River is still rising and will continue to rise until at least Sunday, I haven't seen the water this high since 1986. It's too wet for farmers to get into the fields to plant, not that it's warm enough to grow anything anyway and I had to go buy hay today, usually I have the animals on pasture by now, but there is no pasture, it's at least 10 degrees below normal and has been all month.

I checked with Peppi, her basement is flooded, her backyard is flooded. Expressways in Chicago are also closed and underwater and a sinkhole swallowed up a couple of cars. Closing expressways in Chicago is a very big deal indeed.

Oh, and right now it's 31 and snowing but my only flooding is the swimming pool, which is definitely overflowing from the 5 additional inches of rain. I think the drought is officially over!

Annie

Here is a link that might be useful: Flooded

Oh CARP, that's all Peppi needs right now.

Sorry about all the weather; we are on the other end of that thermometer and it's way too hot.

LOL! Being the cooking forum, when I first saw the title I was like, you mean someone doesn't know what ground pork is???

teresa, what a beautiful shot...but not for April!

Don't go by this ground hog forecast thing. If he sees his shadow, he gets scared and it's 6 more weeks of winter. If he doesn't, then spring comes in a month and a half!

Instead, go by the wooly bears.

Last year they had a large segment of black followed by a large segment of orange and then a tiny bit of black at the tail. That means a long fall, a long late winter and a short late spring. That's exactly what we had. The year before, when we had no winter, they were solid black. So I go by the wooly bears...but don't ask me how they know!

Look what I saw!!!

Annie, hang tight and dry!

I just had the nicest call from L2C46, offering to help us clean up. Thank you!!!! You made my day!

we had more rain on Thursday then we had all last summer, over 7 inches in one day. At 4:30 am, the storm woke and I saw the water rushing around the house from the street. I went down and the first stair was water, so I knew. I woke Dad and we had a pump going by 6. Water out, but at about 9 another heavier storm hit and we flooded all over again.

Thankfully all appliances are working and we got hot water started on Friday evening. Now we are scooping and mopping up mud, washing shelves and canned goods, sorting out savable. Laundry up to wazzoh. Koi are back in the pond as we got the water out of the yard.

But we were lucky. Other have water up to the ceiling with finished basements and appliances that are goners.

Oh, and I woke up to snow all over.

Oh Peppi, I'm glad your appliances are all OK, but I'm sure sorry you have to do all that cleanup. At least you have the koi corralled for now!

So much for that new system to keep the house dry, I suppose. (sigh)

You're about a week too late, you know Linda, Sherry and I would have stayed and helped you clean up.

Annie

Pep, I can only imagine how much work was involved!!! I'm glad the Koi are okay; I know how special they are to you and dad and how much work you both put into the pond.

(((Cathy)))

Peppi, that is terrible! I am glad that things didn't get worst.

I am sure you will have enough to do for many days to get back to normal.

Just in case:

1. Get a few big fans to dry out as soon as you can to avoid mold growth.

2. Turn you house heat higher will help dehumidify.

3. Get a dehumidifier.

4. If there is a way you can buy a small air conditioner, a portable air conditioner, or if you can remove a window air conditioner, run the air conditioner in doors. An air conditioner is the same machine as a dehumidifier. If you do that make sure you tilt the A/C a little so that water can drain out from the drip pan. (on the condenser coil side of the AC). Some AC units have a drain plug. AC units are designed to splash the moisture on the condenser coil to save energy. You want to make sure it is not doing that by draining away the water.

Running the AC indoors will not make your house cold.

Good luck.

dcarch

This post was edited by dcarch on Sun, Apr 21, 13 at 8:49

DC:

I have had 4 large fans going since Thursday evening, and we are now nice and dry.

furnace was the first thing I started up and we have run it higher than normal buy 3 degress and the de-humidifier has been set at 50 %. I have now moved it to 45% and she starts and stops as needed. The end is in sight.

Cathy and Annie, thanks for the good thoughts. All of the nasty wet stuff is either washed or trashed.

The city is installing new sewer lines on out street and they are much larger than the ones from 1910 so I hope this really helps our block with future storms.

Some towns are still under water, some people are still pumping. And some have had to leave their homes. I am very lucky......

Oh Peppi, I'm so sorry about your flooding problem. That is such hard work to clean up after. I too am glad your Coi are okay. The ground is just not capable of handling 7 inches of rain in one day and doesn't benefit much from it either.

Glad you are cleaned up and settled. Spring is coming, I just know it is!!!

Karen

Translation: " I think I lied to you, sorry "

I had the best laugh of the day at the pictures of the groundhogs. Thank you for the cheer up. My heart goes out to all that are having flood problems. Patty

Oh Peppi....that is terrible! Yes, we certainly would have been up there helping you had this occurred a week earlier.

Erin just got back home tonight. She didn't mention any issues, so I hope they are all okay there.

That much rain and frozen ground are not a good combination! The water has nowhere to go.

We got about a foot of snow on Thursday. The clutch went out on our snow plow truck so our quater-mile driveway is treacherous, because the snow got mushy then it froze overnight so the ruts are trrible! Supposed to get up to 60 by Friday tho.

Global warming...yeah, right! LOL

Linda

From the winter marshmallow world of central Kansas...

The ground hog is now in a witness protection program - as reported on the radio this morning.

On this day (April 23) in 1989 we had the high temperature in the U.S. of 105-degrees F. Today we are expecting 3-4 inches of snow, which is the highest measurable amount of snow ever for April. About one inch so far. The record low for this date may also be shattered - the forecast is 22-degrees F.

-Grainlady