Break In The Weather

Well, the weather for the past couple of days has been beautiful; funny how that happens with the worst storms. It's been cool enough in the mornings to make me throw on some long sleeves.
I finally heard from Daddy Rabbit and the other guys. They are safe and unharmed although in the midst of about total destruction. Daddy Rabbit's field clerk is a young lady who attends the University. Her roommate was killed. Last I heard the deathtoll in Alabama was around 210. Ol' Hippie (whom ya'll may remember) had a large tree fall through his house. Other than that, I don't think any of my guys suffered any worse damage. Talked to Head and some others and they are all okay. Thank you all for your concern and well wishes. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy! Seriously. I'm sorry I did not or have not been able to answer everybody's comments one by one. Even though I have power, my phone and internet connections have been on and off. Sometimes I have them, sometimes I don't. Mostly lately I don't. It seems to be doing okay tonight, so maybe things are straightened out.
So, the rest of us just count our blessings and continue on. Above are some seedlings I must get planted this weekend. Tomatoes, eggplant  peppers and watermelon. Yes, I am going to grow some more watermelon but this is a different variety; Black Diamond this time.

Here is the current state of the garden: zucchini and squash are the most recent additions and going strong. They were blooming today. Well, I also planted two rows of Red Pontiac potatoes recently. They have not come up yet. Onions and garlic are doing very well.
The blueberries are doing very well this year as are the strawberries and raspberries. All the fruit got a good dose of compost and an organic fertilizer for fruit early this spring.

The broccoli is still chugging along. I get enough to make a side dish about once a week from 8 plants. They have all long since produced their main center head and these are just the side shoots now.

Even my grapes look like they may produce this year, now that I have relocated them inside the fenced garden.
This recent horrible storm has also had the effect of confirming in my mind the advantage of being somewhat self-sufficient. Or at least, not so dependent on the stores. Now, make no mistake, there is no way to prepare for a dead-on hit from that size tornado, short of a underground concrete bunker, but for the ones not hit there are still potential problems. A lot of people scoff at preppers or doomers and say it's stupid to worry about such. Well, I'm not a doomer by any stretch but this is a prime example of why you should be prepped. For example, most of the surrounding counties have been without power. No power in the stores mean no gas and no food. So, guess where they all came. You got it, our town has been overran. Couldn't even get in the parking lot of most gas stations and lots of food items were sold out. Fortunately, since I have prepared somewhat, it hasn't affected us. I have plenty of food and we have gas. And due to the ever increasingly erratic patterns of weather, you never know when some crap is going to happen. It's not just about some end of the world scenario that is probably never going to happen anyway, it's just regular world stuff that screws up most people today. For instance, I read about another blogger who hurt his back pretty bad and was down flat for 3 weeks. His wife didn't and couldn't drive. Had they not done some prepping and been self-sufficient they would have really been in a bind. Turns out they did fine. Makes me all the more anxious to get more of my stuff going.