Today is a pretty day because it is raining all day. Last time this
happened was last Spring, and since it
is 23 July, I will cease worrying about rain for the plants this year
as the midpoint of summer is long past.
I will now make plans for Autumn. Pack up the hoses and drop the
watering schedule.

The past two years were horrible for they were summers without any
rain. This year we had one
dry spell of 3-4 weeks or one month without rain.

My best advice to people who have to battle summers without rain is a
great mulch that keeps the
evaporating moisture in the soil. The very best I have found is
asphalt roof shingles for they stay in
place and not interfer with mowing. Some of my shallow rooted plants
like my currant bushes would
not have survived if not for the shingle mulch. And this year,
especially, it is my currant bushes
yielding the most fruit all thanks to the excellent mulch of asphalt
shingles provide.

I changed my mind on the choke cherries. I am going to try to harvest
them as a juice concentrate.
Where I add no water and slowly boil the fruit and discard the pits.
So whenever I want a cherry juice
drink this winter, I simply add some concentrate to water.

Now I am going to experiment to see what the easiest way of separating
the cherry from the pit, whether
mechanically or applied heat.

Archimedes Plutonium
www.iw.net/~a_plutonium
whole entire Universe is just one big atom
where dots of the electron-dot-cloud are galaxies