The California rain finally reached us here in Kansas! It collided with warmth from the gulf, and we had quite a storm Sunday night. We were driving home from Arkansas and got caught up in a blinding downpour. One of my rain gauges says 2" of new rain, and the other one blew over in the storm, so I'm going to assume the 2" is correct. Our route home was through Missouri, so we missed the huge hail in Oklahoma.
Three of my new roses are still sitting outside in pots, and they all look like they survived the cold spell. The newer evergreens have suffered the most from the sudden extreme cold. The past week was so nice that we were able to paint the eves of the house! Usually it's too windy to climb a tall ladder here. I really wanted to hang some Christmas lights while I was up there, but we didn't get that far. We did build a giant fake tree out of an old antenna with a flower basket on the top and 24 strings of blue lights hanging off it. It looks beautiful even though it is made of junk!
Tomorrow we're installing a wood burning stove insert in the fireplace. This house has 4 fireplaces, and we don't use any of them. We decided to get an efficient woodburner because it's only a matter of time before we have an extended power outage. We've been lucky so far. We need a big whole-house generator as backup.
Friday I'm getting knee surgery so the pressure is on to finish all my tasks! I have bulbs to plant, a tile shower to finish, and I want to decorate this year. ALL the kids are coming home! Yay!!! With step and step-step and their 2 spouses, that's a total of 8 20-somethings. The California daughter just might be bringing wine and roses!
After spending 5 months alone this year, it's going to be quite a change. Also, my husband and I decided to base our business here so he's not gone for months at a time. That's a wonderful change for me.
Happy dance.
