Can somebody clarify measures & weights? When it says "8 cups tomatoes, peeled, chopped and drained" is that a before or after? I always thought "8 cups tomatoes, peeled, chopped and drained" is different than "8 cups peeled, chopped and drained tomatoes," am I right? How do you measure 8 cups of something bigger than a cup without cutting them all up? About how many pounds of tomatoes is "8 cups tomatoes, peeled, chopped and drained" and is that before/after? I know that would change depending on the type of tomato if "before" but maybe that's one reason some are getting 7 qts vs 6qts. Thanks for any help converting. Ken, the red IRT plastic mulch you are talking about does work, however it is mainly effective for determinate type, early varieties of tomatoes planted in rows with enough space between plants for the sun to penetrate around the plant canopy & reflect. using it with main season indeterminates you may not see any benefits and just a small area of cover isn't effective either--you would need plants spaced maybe 4ft or more apart I think, which isn't possible in my yarden. Plants spaced closer, say 2ft apart, the canopy of the plant would fill in between plants and the mulch would rarely see the sun to reflect it. Mark

When I was a kid on the farm we had two chicken houses that housed about 300 Rhode Island Reds and Leghorn Chickens. (They are about two to three times the size of the chickens you buy in the grocery store because commercial meat chickens are only 44 days old when they go to the slaughter house) The Chicken houses were plain wooden bldgs about 24' square with an 8ft ceiling on the front side and a low pitched flat roof (abt 3/12pitch)covered with tarpaper. There was a little sliding door on the front of the bldg that allowed the chickens to go out into a 24 x 30 fenced run area during the day. Inside it was just one big room with about 24 nesting boxes built against the far wall, and it had windows on thr front side facing the fenced area. On the back wall it had 2x4's attached from the wall joists down to the floor at about a 30deg angle and there was 6 rows of 2x4's running horizontally that the chickens used for roosts at night. Across the middle of the room there was a feeding trough for laying mash (chicken feed) and near the front wall another small trough for crushed oyster shell, (needed by the chickens to provide grit in their gizzards). We had five 3gal chicken waterers sitting on the floor between the feeding trough and the front wall. Every morning and again in the evening one of us boys had to carry water about 200yds from the spring to the chicken house and fill the waterers, then carry a 50lb bag of laying mash about 300yds from the barn to the chicken house and fill the feeding trough. We would then carefully collect about 200 to 250 eggs from the nesting boxes and put them in a water bucket and carry them to the house. (keep in mind that this was in addition to our duties of milking 35 cows then feeding all the cows, 13 draft horses, and 15 or 20 huge hogs, and all of that had to be done before we could sit down to breakfast at 9am. Once the eggs were at the house we had to load the eggs in the egg washer. Now for those who have never seen an egg washer it is a little machine that has a round plate on top about 12" in diameter. You put a galvanized bucket of water on top of the machine, then the eggs are placed in a wire basket that will just fit in the bucket. Put about two tbsp of laundry detergent in the water and turn the machine on. The machine gently rotated about 2" in one direction, then reversed and rotated 2" in the other direction repeating the cycle about 20 times a minute, which just gently rocked the eggs in the water. As soon as we were done eating breakfast the wire rack of eggs was lifted out of the washer and the eggs were rinse with cold water, then put in a cardboard egg crate that held about 48doz eggs and it sat on the floor in the dining room until Grandpa would take the eggs to the egg packers about twice a week and sometimes he took eggs to the Amish Country Store where they just put them in a large wicker basket on the counter. (Usually we sent the white eggs to the packers and the brown eggs to the Amish Store). In addition to those chickens we had about 500 Bantam chickens that free ranged around the barnyard, and we had to continually look for their nests in and around the barn. Bantams are smaller chickens and they produce eggs that are about the size of those sold as small eggs in the store. We did not sell Banty eggs so when we found banty eggs they were free game to eat as many as you want. My personal record for eggs at one sitting was 13 fried sunny side up, with a side of homefries, home made bread with lots of butter & jam and coffee..But my brother outdid me with 17. Our real treats came in the spring time when our geese and ducks were laying. I love two or three goose eggs for breakfast. Here is a picture of a Rhode Island Red Rooster & Hen, although the hen in the picture is very small. The hens get as big as the roosters. To see a size reference note the bench in the background. That is standard size garden bench. (Commercial meat chickens are 8lbs on the hoof when they dress them and they will yeild about 3 to 4 lbs dressed weight, the mature Rhode Islands will dress out at 8 to 9lbs)

Synchronicity is working. This morning on Face Book Birders someone posted a video of a hummingbird taking a bath and someone else found out where the shallow opening, recirculating resin pot fountain came from; answer is Kmart. If any readers here are interested in providing shallow-depth bathing for the hummers this year, watch the video below. A shallow bowl with a small pump affixed with a fine nozzle floating inside a larger pot to hold the water will do the trick. The fountain in the video would fit into any garden at just 17" high and weighing 7lbs. I have my answer. Jane Here is a link that might be useful: Youtube- Humming bath

Wow, very strange!!!!! I copied this from the answers upthread. It's in front of FOAS where he said he doesn't see my answers. A-1 You win some, you lose some A-2 Doctor on Call A-3 Behave B-1 Ducks in a row B-2 Family function B-3 Crimson and clover, over and over C-1 Pecan pie (again) C-2 Time after time OR Double time C-3 Pretty please, with sugar on top D-1 Square root D-2 Don't sell yourself short D-3 Center of attention And.......Apart