The Prom

Jacqueline's Prom was Friday. We had begun planning for the Prom months in advance, having purchased a dress and building from there. One of our cousins who lives close by did her hair, nails and makeup. She looked great. She was very excited about the Prom, and I'm very glad she was able to attend this year. If she had skipped it this year I'm not sure she would go next year. Daniel, her boyfriend, is going into the Army and so who knows where he will be at Prom time next year. Although I took a few pictures before they left for the Prom, I am anxious to see the pictures that were taken by the professional photographer.

We had some concerns about the Prom being canceled or postponed. There was severe weather in the area during the day on Friday and in fact there were several tornado warnings issued for some of the surrounding areas. The bad weather moved out of our area in plenty of time to allow the Prom to proceed as scheduled, thankfully. We had some very warm weather all last week, but after the rain came through temperatures fell quite a bit. Several nights last week saw us sleeping with fans on and or windows open. Overnight lows since Saturday night have been in the 30's with frost or freeze warnings each night. It got down to 31 last night and tonight it's supposed to be almost as cold. Things are slowly beginning to moderate however, as tomorrow nights overnight low temperature is expected to be in the 40's.

I'm sure this cold snap has been a problem for crops again this year. Hopefully things won't be quite as bad this year as they were last year. Last year this area lost many crops due to a freeze. There were fruit trees that had already begun to set fruit. The fruits of peaches, pears and figs were about blueberry size when the freeze hit. Of course the freeze killed those fruits for the year. While we don't own any fruit trees I know a number of people who do. Where yields in previous years might be measured by the bushel, last year those yields were non-existent or measured by the handful. Orchard owners who had enough trees to take their crop to market still couldn't have made much of a profit, despite the high prices paid by the consumer for the few fruits that did manage to survive. Farming has always been a gamble, some years the odds are just higher.