Amy, We were laughing about that same sort of issue the other day. Usually, we are dry and the clay contracts and we have a hard time getting doors to shut and lock properly. Tim is always having to make little adjustments to the hinges and locks to keep them working well. Beginning with last summer's and autumn's rainfalls, the clay expanded and the house was more or less back to normal and everything was working. Now, with continual rainfall for months on end, the constantly expanding clay has the doors getting harder to close again, but in an opposite way from when the problem is caused by contracting clay. You have to laugh about it or it would make a person crazy. We spend most of our time either extremely dry or extremely wet, and precious little of it "just right". I hope drier weather is coming. At our house, we how are just a smidgen under 35" of rainfall for this calendar year. Our mesonet station is about 4" behind us, but even so, it has almost a year's worth itself. Normal or average rainfall for us is 34" based on all the years the Mesonet station has existed or about 38 or 39" based on the 30-year-average. I cannot imagine what we'll end up for this entire year if the rainfall doesn't drop off drastically. George, Been there, done that, with the water trying to suck the boots off my feet. I'm gonna need a boat if it keeps raining. We have sunshine today, y'all, and have had it for at least a couple of hours so it is hot and muggy outside where Tim is mowing and indoors as well, where I've been in the kitchen blanching and freezing oodles of snap peas and snap beans. At least it is a good year for legumes. My food processing is up for the day, so now the kitchen can cool off but Tim will be out there making mud ruts in the lawn with the mower for a while yet. I hope to be outside in the garden tomorrow morning picking tomatoes, and probably more sugar snap peas. Of course, that depends on whether or not it rains tonight. There's tons of wildflowers blooming all over now, on both sides of the river, so at least the bees, butterflies and other flying things should be thrilled. This morning we had a blue bird world out in the yard with all sorts of the birds coming for their birdseed breakfast---we had indigo buntings (which I've only seen a handful of times, mostly in the last year), painted buntings, bluebirds and blue jays. There were tons of other birds, most notably mourning doves and cardinals, but I was enthralled by the many kinds of blue birds all visiting at the same time. In every direction that I looked, I could watch blue birds flying here and there, jockeying for position in the area where I'd scattered some bird seed for them. Dawn

NW Arkansas. it never got above freezing yesterday and then it started to snow last night, which wouldn't of bothered me, we'd just stay home, except my husband has a trip to Kansas today and I don't know what the roads are going to be like between here and there. I'm supposed to be driving a friend to the big city for a dental appointment and I'm not looking forward to it at all, since we live in the hills and they don't take real good care of the roads around here. Fortunately I have four-wheel-drive but even that is not enough. I kind of wish her dentist would call and cancel her appointment before we head out. Of all times for it to snow. Unpredicted, too.

Congratulations on your retirement!! My Mother In Law just turned 80 and retired this year after working the same job for almost 60 years. She was a micro biologist and molecular biologist at a hospital and had only worked that one job. Like other hospital employees she had to work whether it snowed, was a holiday or they needed extra staff on her days off. She loved her job but sadly they restructured at her hospital and the new management worked daily to try and push her out because of her age and the fact that she was one of the highest paid people in her position because of all of her years. She finally decided enough was enough and retired though she probably could have worked another few more years she is in excellent health and you would never know her age if she didn't tell you. I understand about needing the house cold. I have a neurological issue that makes it difficult to regulate my temperature. I keep my house at 68 during the day and 65 at night. If it isn't low enough I over heat and I can not cool down. I sleep in a tank top and shorts and my poor housemates wear sweatshirts and socks. I feel bad but it is so hard for me to cool down. I live in Florida now but when I lived in Mass I would leave the windows cracked at night in the winter time even when the nights were in the 20s and 30s it was perfect for me. Right now here in Florida our nights have been in the upper 60s and days are still in the 80s. I wish we would get some rain. My grass misses those summer storms we get and is looking a little dry even with running the sprinklers 2xs a week.

North of Chicago along Lake Michigan. We may have already *had* our winter -- lots of snow. (Kidding.) Today's high may break a record of 55F, but then we go back to the twenties tonight. Happy to see our driveway again (dark gravel, but north-facing). Blue skies here, decorated with FAST-moving clouds out of the west. DIL's sister and family were delayed coming in from SLC yesterday. Hard to get TO the airport in a storm, then two hours on a plane that cancelled, then more time waiting in the airport for an eventual flight to ORD. (Well, I *think* they got here; saw flights moving later in the day. To those living in the Dakotas: Didn't the native Americans *go south* in winter? Something to think about? LOL