I did the whole automated rain water thing for a year before I had to rip it all out because of moving to temporary house. I did learn that the best spray heads were the ones that send out 8 streams water in a circular direction and each head can be adjusted for optimal flow. On 15 gallon pots and smaller 1 spray head was plenty but needed to be adjusted depending on how big the pot was. On my big 30 gallon pots I used 3 spray heads and dialed them back to achieve the desired wetting pattern. I got a 2.5 hp pump to run it and it did fine for 10 plants at a time. My timer was set up on 3 zones, 10 plants at a time. I had to run the discharge pressure at 40-50 psi to get enough flow to the plants. To achieve the desired pressure I had to install circulation line with a valve coming of the discharge back to the rain tank and adjust the valve position to get 40-50 psi going to the plants. After toying with it a while and getting all the spray heads adjusted properly it was very nice!!!!!!!! I will never go back to hand watering again once our new house is built and every things automated again. One suggestion is to have a manifold with a 200 micron screen/filter for every zone. I had to clean the screens once every couple months with a tooth brush. I hand watered 50 something plants every day for several years and I'm here to tell you that automation is the way to go!!! I will never look back. Stay away from drip. Rain water is too dirty and you will have nothing but problems with drip. 1/2 inch Polly tube and the little 1/8 hose to a spray head that adjusts flow on a stick is the only way to go. The spray heads need to be the ones that send 8 individual streams. I can't stress that enough as all the other fan heads and bubbler heads clog up all the time.

They said they were seeing a few 90's in Texas a few posts above.....well Oklahoma has now also seen their first 90's this last weekend as well. So the warming trend is moving north. I have some trees stuck up north waiting on a truck and I expressed my concewrns to the grower that I was getting past my comfort zone on planting time for conifers. Like most folks in the north he told me not to worry because the trees were still dormant due to the cold weather they were still in. What I try to get most northerners to realize is it's the shock factor that worries us.......not just the fact this tree will have to endure so much more heat that it has been used to throughout the summer, but nothing turns a tree into a crispy critter faster than for it to come from nice cool cloudy growing conditions and drop it right in the middle of a heat wave of 90 - 100 degree temps and full sun. mark

Ilene, Our worst predators for the young keats and chicks are chicken snakes and rat snakes. They are persistent and will work and work and work to get into the guinea house and/or brooder. In previous years, we have lost most of a year's "crop" of keats to snakes or even all of them. This year they are in a cage made of 1/4 inch hardware cloth, and I still am not sure the doors cannot be breached, but we'll work on that today. Sometimes a persistent snake puts itself across the door to the guinea coop like a "bar" across the door so I cannot open the door without letting the snake in. (I don't open the door, but it takes a while to get the snake to go away.) DH and I am in constant (gentle) conflict over the rat snakes and chicken snakes. I want him to shoot every one that gets into the guinea house or hen house while we have keats or chicks. He doesn't want to. I have to convince him that the darned things are going to keep coming back until they have eaten every baby bird we have. Who is right? Of course I am. If you don't kill those predator snakes they will eat every single baby, and have done it over and over again, so he might as well be ready for them. I am thinking about buying a bag of sulphur and putting a band of it around the guinea coop to help repel the snakes. A lot of people swear by it, but I am not sure it helps. Still, it might be worth a try. I checked on the keats every couple of hours today. One died. It was very small and I couldn't get it to eat or drink. (You have to dip their beak in water to "teach" them to drink, and most drink water as soon as you do it. This one wouldn't.) I knew it probably wouldn't make it. So, from 20 to 19 in the first day. It makes me wish we'd bought 25 or 30. Guineas are the best garden helpers, so it is worth the effort to raise a new batch. My three adult males are baffled by the sudden appearance of babies. LOL Carol, I so admire the charity work you do. It sounds like such a wonderful project, making clothing for the needy. We live with such abundance in the country, and how often does one of us complain "I have nothing to wear!" when we have closets and dresser drawers full of clothing? It is humbling to think of people who truly have nothing to wear. Now that the heat is cranking up, I find it harder and harder to spend a lot of time outside. I like to go out as early in the day as possible--often just at sunrise, and then come in during the worst of the heat, and then...back out to the garden after 3 or 4 p.m. or so....I can work in the somewhat shady northeast corner of the garden in shade from about 3 p.m. on. I often stay out until dark. I start putting up tools, etc. while it is still daylight, but by the time I put all the birds in their coops, feed them, let the dogs out of the "dog yard" to run and play before they go into the garage for the night, put cats inside so the coyotes and bobcats won't get them, etc.......well, it is usually after 9 or 9:30 p.m. before I get inside. I often skip dinner because I am too tired to cook. Then (like tonight/this morning) I wake up when DH gets in from work between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m., and then I get up an eat a bowl of cereal or something else simple. On DH's days off, I keep to a more regular schedule and either he or I or both of us make dinner on those nights and I am usually in before dinner. He also helps with the evening animal chores. Once the big harvest of tomatoes, onions, potatoes, beans, corn, etc. kicks in, I like to harvest early in the day. Then, during the heat of the day I can be processing the veggies and freezing, canning or drying as desired. Storms to our west tonight, but they all stayed west of us and missed us again. When the weather radio went off tonight, it was for the county to our west--Jefferson County. It stayed clear, dry and warm here--is currently 79 degrees outside with a heat index of 85 at 2 a.m. No wonder it feels like it never cools off! Dawn

Apart from the big rain we had a few weeks ago we have had nothing to speak of apart from 2:5mm one day then another 1:5mm. This afternoon we had a couple of small showers more like a mist than anything, so slight I doubt if it would have touched the sides of the rain gauge. Today I had to water all the plants only did half as it takes about four hours and I was shocked to find when feeling the soil underneath the trees and shrubs how dry it was considering most are under 8-12 inches of wood chip mulch and great piles of gum leaves, but I suppose thats not surprising after these bitterly cold winds we are having drying all the moisture up. Now after saying that, yes we have had a much milder Winter, but rain apart from the big deluge which was fantastic we down here in the very south side, have had not much rain at all....MM