It's going to be interesting here.......the temperature forecasts change as often as the peso to dollar. We have extensive plantings in trees/shrubs/flowers/fruits/vegetables. Far too many to ever even think about protecting. I have ten or twenty types of shrubs in bloom now. An extraordinarily lovely fruit set this year for peaches and apples. Blueberries almost sized up. Strawberries starting to turn red. Brambles all in bloom. Grapes starting to get little bunches on them with new vines planted. sigh. I spent all day on the veggie garden. I put it in three weeks later than last year, and just finished the plantings (all but the melons) yesterday. Guess who saddled up at ten this morning haying in the rows of potatoes so I wouldn't get foliage die-back. Hot capping tomatoes. Covering the cukes and beans who are already budded and about to flower. I did also cover the strawberry bed. It's each man for his own now and keeping fingers crossed that they'll be off a few degrees too high. I am a serious food producer.......flowers can come again next year, but I have an empty pantry to fill and I sure as ..........don't want to have to replant everything.

Linda I want to see your Hungry Caterpillar quilts when you get them finished, my son loved the Hungry Caterpillar book when he was little. Sue I hope you enjoy your trip. I am starting to hand-quilt row #4 of my parents' Card Tricks quilt this weekend. Last week I collaborated with my good friend Christy and made plastic templates for a Kaleidoscope Quit that will be scrappy quilts for her and me to work on in the future. This week we are going RVing and will be taking a few Granny Square quilt blocks to hand-piece that will be part of a baby quilt I am making for my cousin's wife who is due this fall. I have a sinus infection and have started antibiotics for that and M-I-L who lives with us is sick with really bad back pains so I am on full kitchen and laundry duty this weekend. School is out and we are getting to sleep in in the mornings, ... all in all not a bad week, and I have the motorhome almost fully loaded, the bulk of it is done anyway other than just needing to load some last minute things the morning of the trip. Hope everyone enjoys their weekend. Best to you and yours, Sandra

No, from Phx to Long beach you want to take the 10 to the 91. You do NOT want to take the 10 in and then go south (there is no going over and up when you're coming in from AZ. The Green River/ Yorba Linda area (by Corona) is always backed up- any time if day, any day if the week so you'll have to resign yourself to it slowing through there or somewhere else if you pick another route. It's just traffic. ;) I'm from Phx and live in SoCal, I've done the drive a million times. i would leave Phx early Sat morning and plan on 6 1/2 hours. I personally love the drive through the desert, the AZ desert is beautiful.

It was a dark and stormy night and our weather radio went off for at least 4 hours nonstop as tornadic circulations danced through the skies near us, but not many made it to the ground. A tornado touched down near Ringling in the county adjacent to us and headed towards Wilson, Healdton and Lone Grove. After spotters confirmed power flashes and a tornado on the ground near Ringling, they got a Particularly Dangerous Situation Tornado Warning and that got everyone in our county stirred up. And, that was the way it should been because all those communities at risk are right along the Carter-Love county line, so folks living near there should have been watching and even heading for shelter. We had spotters out, lots of traffic on our GroupMe app and radios, etc. but all we got out of this was hail, rain and wind as far as I know. Our final tornado warning, for the one seemingly headed towards us, was abruptly cancelled when that supercell abruptly jumped the river and headed away from us. Then we got pounded by a severe thunderstorm that dropped 1.25" of rain (more than we'd had the whole month of May so far) and, in some parts of our neighhborhood but not here, hail. I was more worried about hail than tornadoes because I have some huge onions bulbed up above ground but not yet developing soft necks. I had to resist the urge around midnight to run yank them out of the ground for their own good as big hail approached parts of our county. I found no damage in the garden except for 1 onion with a snapped neck (it wasn't at the soft neck stage so the wind merely broke its neck early), a rain gauge blown over and lying on the ground and another rain gauge totally missing. Ok, I'm out for the day. Y'all have a good time and let's be thankful that the wicked weather seemingly did little damage and missed most all of us. I hope the folks who haven't checked in are okay. I haven't watched the news yet to hear how folks outside of OK fared. I hope the damage across the country isn't as bad as they feared it would be. From watching TWC last night, I suspect there is a lot of wind damage in some areas across the country.