If ever you're in Austin, you simply must visit the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. This homage to Texas wildflowers was our first stop on Garden Bloggers' Fling this year. I also visited the center in 2014 and 2008, the year of the first Fling. Since this was our 10th anniversary of the Garden Bloggers Fling, it only seemed right to write about one of my favorite places again. A blue agave stands in the center of a bed in the courtyard at Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. A large gust front was bearing down on Austin as I quickly worked through the garden. I kept one hand on my camera and the other on a weather app with radar on my iPhone. In spring, people in Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas rely on weather radar to make outdoor plans, and even then, we are sometimes taken by surprise. Most of my...

Below is my daughter, Megan's, eulogy for her baby, Harper Gianna Secrest, who was born on April 20, 2018, at 4:24 a.m., and passed away at 4:25 a.m. Robert and Megan wanted to preserve Harper's eulogy from the funeral here. I've closed the comments, but we appreciate everyone's prayers and kindness toward our family during this difficult and beautiful time. The first time I spoke with Robert on the phone before we had ever met in person, I remember him asking me about my "intentions" for a relationship which I thought odd, but when he said, "I'm doing this to get married and have children," my heart was equal parts nervous and happy. I quipped back, "Well, I won't marry someone who isn't Catholic!" Robert became Catholic in 2015, and I fell in love with him that year as well. When we were preparing for the sacrament of marriage, I remember Father...

As I write this Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, it is 29°F this morning. Yesterday was a howling, cold day with a high of 43°. We burned another fire in the fireplace, and I was grateful not to be a settler or one of the native tribes who lived in Oklahoma around the turn of the last century. Every time the wind howled, it reminded me of wolves. The smoke from the fires out west made our prairie sky red at night. My daughter took this photo of the sun from our car when we were out to dinner. The western Oklahoma prairie has been on fire for several days because of a stray spark and that howling wind. Two nights ago, the wind blew the smoke from those prairie fires into the central part of Oklahoma, and we could hardly breathe. I feel for my neighbors in Vici and Woodward, along with everyone else...

For the 2018 freeze tonight, to cover or not to cover is the question. The forecasted low for Guthrie, Oklahoma, tomorrow morning is 24°F according to Oklahoma's Mesonet. The state of the rest of the state isn't much better. We've already had two 32°F lows this week which killed off some foliage, but it wasn't a disaster. I've lamented about tomorrow's low all week on my Instagram feed. I'm surprised anyone still follows me.  I keep showing pretty pictures and telling myself and the rest of the world it's going to be okay, and part of me believes that. Rain began falling about midday. So, again, to cover or not to cover. My garden is about an acre and a half these days. I'm not worrying about anything near the house. If you decide to cover, whatever you use should either reach the ground so that the heat from the...