I didn't mention, we had a hailstorm here early this morning. At 6:15, I was lying in bed, awake and contemplating getting up, when I heard it start.

I smugly thought of how I had put my car in the garage last night. The hail was about 1" to 1-1/4" where I live. But one of my colleagues south of town said it was golfball to softball sized where he was - he showed me his "new" used truck, it looked like someone had taken a ball-peen hammer to it.

Alas, he had land that I was going to survey for milkweeds and he said they got the heck beat out of them - it looked like his area had been brushhogged.
Panicked, I ran out to my field site - there was some damage to the green milkweeds but they do still have flowers and some have started to set pods. AND: the butterfly milkweeds are just now beginning to flower! And I found another small population of them.

And, more good research news: I'm finding some useful info for this old-field succession paper, despite trying to wade through hugacious studies in the journal Ecology.

I didn't mention: last night I dreamed about knitting the Sitcom Chic. However, I have decided I am going to finish a few more projects that I have going before I take on anything new. I want to finish the snake (it's more than 1/2 done now), the Lightning-Bolt family sweater, and the Beaded-Rib socks before I start something new. That sounds ambitious, but I think I'm close to done on a lot of those - the Lightning-Bolt sweater, I almost have the front done and then it's just the sleeves (which I plan to do two at a time because they are identical; I find that a faster and less frustrating way to knit sleeves), the socks just take some buckling down and knitting, and, as I said, the snake is close to done.

I am thinking if it's pouring again tomorrow morning I may decide to take the day off and stay home and knit. Or maybe go in for the morning, work hard for a couple hours, and then come home at lunch and knit.

the problem is, for simple knitting, I like to watch tv and knit and so much of tv has sucked such big rocks lately.