Okay...I will "play". I live in northeast ohio...right now we are getting a mix of rain and snow...by the weekend they are predicting a high of 18 degrees!!!!

Do you always have warm sunny weather?

yeah - temp changes from 85 to 95 during the day and 70 to 80 at night all year round. We usually only get a couple of weeks of humidity during Aug/Sept - high hurricane season for us.

It's 49 here tonight Stx...We've had several weeks of unusually warm weather. It's supposed to be about 75 degrees. I Love IT! But, I've developed really nasty cold. Finally went to doc today and he gave me a Z-pack, 3 days of prednisoe and codeine cough med.
It is supposed to turn COLD again this coming W/E. Yuck.
I'm so jealous of Stx...and all that WARM WEATHER!
Stx, do you scuba dive? I'm PADI certified, but haven't dived in about 5 years.
Kimmy

18 degrees...hasn't it been nasty up there lately?

Funny thing, a man from Cleveland moved down the road from me last year.
He loves the weather and his wife misses the adult children and grands.
My mom and dad have kind of taken them under their wing...helping them adjust to eastern NC. I'm sure it is some rather severe culture shock. Man's family originally from the area. He moved north when he was 9 or 10.
Kimmy

Yep,
Mr. Shorty is gone for good, I think. Sent to Disney. Committed a serious GW Faux Pas.
He emailed me.
He also said he had found a major slumping site in which he was definitely the newbie.
I think he found a new place to play. I'm sorry. I think he and his work were totally cool.
Kimmy

Love to snorkel...am working on the PADI thing..don't know why I have put it off soooo long. I am orginally from Montana so I have a VERY long memory of COLD/FREEZING weather. It did take me a couple of years to not *look* for the seasons...but life here is very good, slow and great weather. I do get *rock* fever now and again.
I think I miss access to everything easily the most! I have to plan and order and wait.
I have been to Ohio only once and never to NC.
Sorry about the cold...I use a product called Zicam..the minute I feel it coming on - it works great. Also the local remedy is aloe/orange juice and honey and bath in the sea water.
Sorry about Shorty...

Hey Stx,
Are you a gardener, too? If you are, what kind of luscious tropicals do you like?
Do you have Angel Trumpets (Brugs), too?

Kimmy

Yes - LOVE fruit trees!!! Sounds silly but the Brugs grow everywhere here and considered high maintainence cuz of the trimming factor. Poinsetta bushes in everyone's yard..very interesting coming from cold country
Here are just a few of my fruit trees
Pink Grapefruit - eat one every day
Tangerine
Valencia Orange
Carambola (star Fruit)
Strawberry Guava
Regular Guava
Banana - both finger and regular
Plantain
Manlangos - type of plantain
Key Line
West Indian Lime
Meyer Lemon
Passionfruit
Governor Plum
Mangos
Avacodas (did I spell that right???)
Barbados cherry
Many local plums
sugar apples
custard apples
Peach
Nectarine
Pomegrant
and on and on and on
I use the flower bushes to fill in...I am REALLY bad with names though. I like to use jasmines and gardenias around the house.
Do you have any fruit trees?

Stx

You live in a true 'tropical paradise'. Do
you ever miss the states? The snow here can
be bad, but it is only one season of the
year.

Actually ..lol.. I have lived here all my life
so I guess it has only bothered me more as I
have gotten older. By the time I am sick of
it Spring arrives!!

It must be wonderful to have all those fruit
trees!!!

Hi,
Today we're looking at clouds and light rain, high temp of 48 F, low of 41 F. Pretty typical Dutch winter weather, perhaps a bit on the mild side. Can't wait for spring. A few bulb shoots are already starting to pop up in the garden, but for now my bottle tree is the only thing providing much color.
Barbara

Stx,
I don't have any fruit trees...but I absolutely love Key Limes!!!!!!
I desperately want a pomegranate bush....
I would love lemon and orange trees...I could do it here, but that would be extremely high maintenance. One of GW buddies has them. But, she babies them...I don't have the time to, right now. I work part-time and have a 16 year old stepson. I somehow manage to stay very, very busy.
Go ahead with the PADI thing...
Diving in NC was really cool...until I went to the Bahamas and the water and sealife just blew me away. I was told to dive off our coast for as long as I could stand it...if I ever went into Caribbean, I wouldn't want to dive in NC...and I didn't.
Kimmy

O'mom - yes sometimes I miss the conveniences of stateside living - glass shops, thrift shops(just finding a bowling ball to mosaic), traveling long distance by car (I have to take a plane to get off the rock), the low cost of traveling by car opposed to plane travel, just the opportunities of workshops,museums,plays and family gatherings. However....I don't miss the cold! Did the first couple of winters...but I love the sunshine!!!! The hardest part is that growing up in Montana we took advantage of the sunshine in the summer....so down here after work I stay outside usually until sunset!
Kimmy - I actually like the West Indian lime better than the Key Lime - we have approx 50some citrus trees of all the varities. Very lucky cuz they require next to no maintainence here. I also do some container vegetable gardening cuz I can't decide where to plant a garden and my dalmatian (who is no longer alive) used to eat every kind of vegetable and fruit..so I was fighting him for the *fruits* of my labor.LOL
Snorkeling is the most wonderful thing here...I can snorkel for literally hours without realizing the time. It is very relaxing. I understand that diving is even better. Just need to finish my course...but right now the water is too cold :o).....I know it is warmer than up there but it is one of the side effects of living here...your blood thins out.

ahhh Mona...
the trials and tribulations of your blood thinning out...what's the water temp there, now?
I'm a tropical kind of girl...There are lots of nice people who are from the north, but I'm as cold here as I want to get. The mere thought of feet and feet of snow for months on end would drive me totally batty.
It's 74 here today and I just want to be outside. I go out a while and come in a while and try to do something constructive.
Had some issues to deal with this am so I'm trying to do laundry and a few other things. I'll probably be outside this afternoon. Got some yard work to accomplish.

I hope that I either get a green house or a serious sun room house addition in the not too distant future. I'm going to do some lemon trees then.

I'd just about give my right arm for conditions to grow the key limes or the other limes that you were talking about. I like to make Key Lime Pies and I just got a recipe for Key Lime Cake...
Every once in a while the Wally World has a bag of Key limes, and I scoop them up. Every once in a while, Food Lion Grocery Store has Key Lime Juice. I buy every bottle I can when I see them.

Kimmy

Well, Kimmy just came back to the office from the jobsite and I would guess it would be about 85 (we don't even own a thermomete LOL), the Christmas winds are active so I feel a little cool and have to wear sleeves instead of my usual tank top. Never thought I was a warm weather person but love the sunshine. When we have a rain day (maybe ten a year) the island pretty much stops..everyone wants to stay home LOL. I also don't think I ever would have enjoyed gardening as much as I do here cuz everything grows so FAST!!
But Barbara....I really do miss tulips and daffadils (sp?)!!oh and lilacs.
At one point I had strawberries, rubarb and a Bing Cherry tree going but lost them in one of the hurricanes. Hurricanes one of the down sides of living here!!! but hopefully they only happen every four or five years :o) the price you have to pay to live in paradise.

by the way Barbara - I was lurking over in GJ and saw your bottle tree...it is beautiful!!
You should have seen the look on DH's face when I told him I wanted a bottle tree and bottle wall in my yard.
There is an old local man on the island that collect every kind of bottle imagineable and displays them in his yard...it is an amazing sight...I will try to remember to get a picture and post it someday.

barbara and mona,
I have blue bottles...I have a very cool column that I painted...I want to combine them and have a bottle tree.
Gonna have to stay after my DSS about drilling a hole in the bottom of my column for rebar... Gotta have that tree before spring.
Kimmy

Mona, it would be great if you could get a pic of the yard.
I keep meaning to take my camera out on walks and take pics of some of the neighbours cool stuff!
Most of the cool stuff is packed away in garages, etc. right now.

Today we had freezing rain which resulted in one son coming home from school early because of no power (boy was he happy!!!)
But there is a lot of problems driving and since we still have power I'm spending part of my day on the computer and working on a landscape.
ann

COLD here! well, -5! okay I'm a winter wimp! I just can't seem to start on any projects, what's wrong with me!!!! Haven't found any good junk lately either, boo hoo! I'm seriously thinking of having my 8 & 6lb dogs stuffed and placed beside the computer for show, the beasts are bored of staying inside and are being no-good-nicks! Maybe I'm part bear and am supposed to be hibernating! ha!

Stxmona, it would be lovely to see your neighbor's bottle collection. Bottle trees are very soothing and comforting... I highly recommend them! To you and Kimmy and anyone else contemplating this: Go for it!
I went to the garden center today and got lots of grape hyacinth and narcissus bulbs, and put them in pots for inside blooming. They are already selling beautiful bunches of greenhouse tulips here now, but I'm going to hold off.

Well it's 8:32 pm and the outdoor temp here is 70 degrees. It's blowin' a gale outside...there are tornado warnings to the south of us.
It's been blowin' all day here. The clouds and the wind are scary creatures to me...forwarning of tornadoes...Had to make a 50 mile trip this afternoon for DSS and kept thinking how 'tornadoy' it was looking.
Anyone in GA, SC and NC, TAKE CARE!
Kimmy

Yesterday and today it was in the mid 60's...with rain...
forecast for tomorrow is the "teens" with highs maybe
reaching 24 degrees!!!! And of course SNOW!!!!!

Gotta love Northeast Ohio...windows open today, snow
gear tomorrow!!!! roflmbo

Anytime Spring arrives is okay by me!!

okay I have to admit...my weather is pretty boring...pretty much the same today as it was yesterday :)
Ohiomom...are you anywhere near that flooding???
annsb - I have a friend who lives on the island now but grew up and lived in Kapuskasing and her parents are currently in Wingham. Is that anywhere near you?? All her family is still up there she is the only one here.....
Kimmy - tornados scare me a lot more than hurricanes so hold tight and keep your eyes open!!

Yea stx,
You can prep for 'canes, but tornadoes are a different ballgame.
We don't get them often, but when it happens, it's usually ugly.
We can't dig storm cellars here...sandy land with water too near the surface. If it get's scary, you hit the bathtub...
Kimmy

No, I live up on a hill, the flooding is folks
that live near the rivers and down in the
Ohio Valley.

I am in northern Ohio, and far enough from the
lake I don't have a problem...

-32 wind chill here this morning and just two days ago we got an inch and a half of rain at 55 degrees . . . . .

It seems like the end days are coming . . . . very odd weather.

Mona, Wingham is about 3 1/2 hours east of us and Kapuskasing is quite a bit further up north.

Tech and Linda... this has been a crazy winter so far..hasn't it!
Two days ago we had freezing rain.
Yesterday it was warm and people put their spring jackets on.
Today we are back into a deep freeze.
I bet this will be a bad year for my garden...I had to shift a lot of my garden to make way for a small extension so they really didn't have time to set their roots too deep and then we get these killer freeze/thaw cycles!
Not good for the health either.
Wish we would get a nice blanket of clean white snow that would just stay!!
ann

The weather is 'crazy' all over the world. Like
Janie getting SNOW on the Gulf of Mexico.

Wednesday and Thursday here was so warm I opened
the windows...today SNOW!!!

About four years ago we had such a warm December
my rose bush bloomed!!!! A friend of mine had
all his gladiolas bloom...needless to say, they
did not bloom in the spring of that year!!!

Maybe 'mother nature' is telling us she doesn't
like what we are doing with her precious earth?

The burning of fossil fuels has really contributed
to the problem, not to mention the rest of the
pollution we put out!!!

I totally agree with O'mom about the fossil fuels.

We have the capability of producing fuel from things we can grow...
and yet, we keep burning oil...I think we're all kind of dumb...
We are just making the oil producing countries and the companies that exploit them RICH...

Kimmy