Rosefolly and Colleen, we grow black, red and white currants in our veggie garden and certainly the birds will eat them given half a chance. If we have enough we turn the reds into jelly, traditionally served with roast lamb/mutton or jugged-hare. We generally freeze them 'whole' and add them to apple sauce (from our own cooking apples) which is reheated and added to cereal at breakfast. A few berries eaten raw as part of a fruit salad are fine, but they need cooking as the taste can be too strong. Our area used to be a prime location for blackcurrant growing, part of a Govt scheme to provided vitamin C for children from the late 1930's run by the company Ribena. As children we used to love this stuff. It came in a bottle of concentrated fruit juice which had to be 'watered down'. Good taken in hot water for winter colds etc. Now is tastes nothing like the original and is more like 'pop' with a horrible metallic, chemically enriched flavour. The company, along with many others producing 'soft drinks' has been forced to lower the sugar levels following Govt 'advice' about obesity Ribena Info . .. pretty pics but may contain adverts!

No way, we can know for sure, if your paint job will fail. If it does, sand it down, prime it and repaint it, properly. So far as the off gassing, I am pretty sure, you dont need to stress out about that. Not priming, or painting the coats too soon, will cause any excess off gassing.

From a fellow Californian, my guess is that you planted your bare root in full sun and it got fried a bit. Similar to what Mad said, when you plant bare roots, you should always either cover them well with soil or mulch, or provide some sort of temporary shade if you're planting them in full sun. It's one of the reasons I always pot my new bare roots in 5 gallon pots after soaking in water for a few days. I leave them in shade and then very gradually move them to full sun. The other reason I do this is to make sure they're the right variety before putting them in their permanent home. I've never received a mislabeled rose from Regan, but I've received three mislabeled bare roots in the past ten years from my local (high quality) nursery! Interestingly, all were from Weeks. Anyway, next time you get bare roots, protect them more from the full sun after planting :-D

I had an 82" floating vanity installed - however, the way the contractor attached it to the wall with strong metal supports attached to studs that hold up all of the weight of the thick mitered countertop + metal supports for the actual vanity + added extra support underneath in the back (you can't see the extra support under the back of the vanity unless you put your head down on the floor and looked under the vanity), I think two men could stand on it without it doing anything to the vanity. The contractor added more support than needed - but I didn't want to have an issue in case someone decided to step/sit on it or lean against it for some reason. You need to know how the vanity was installed. However, if it's not moving at all when you try to make it move a little, it's probably fine. It was very unprofessional for a contractor to not bring a step stool/small ladder with him.