I'd check the blackberries early, then have them in the fridge to look forward to as a reward after the rest of the chores. :) I posted a couple of photos of fresh ripe Washington State blackberries on my facebook page last year at this time - I still get a bang from those photos because they harken back to the my childhood summers. We were wild children, grazing on neighbor's fruit trees and bringing home containers of blackberries so Mom could make us pies.

Showers in the forecast for this afternoon and not as hot. I've had the dogs in over the weekend in the height of the afternoon heat because the heat index was up around 108^o. Today it's about 95^o. That means when I heat up the large pot of boiling water to process tomato juice this evening the air conditioner won't have to run quite as hard to keep the house comfortable. I have another small batch of Roma tomatoes that I put in the steam juicer then through the food mill last night. This will be the summer of tomato sauce and juice, and of very little diced tomatoes. And lots of frozen peppers.

I had to get out the Nesco roaster last night to bake a bread pudding. The stove oven is turning itself off and giving a code. Time to pull out the manual and look it up.

SRS