I too watch the solstices and the equinoxes, but can't really say that I associate nudity with any of them. (Then again, I don't associate bathing suits with hot tubs.) And from the evidence in Ireland, Egypt, China and the Americas (as well as many other places), noting these events has occupied a lot of time and energy from the earliest humans. Besides the example noted, places like Machu Pichu, Stonehenge and some Anasazi creations also have light phenomena associated with them. Even the pyramids at Giza show alignment to celestial happenings. (The pyrmids were cued to the rising of Sirius, about the same time as the flooding of the Nile). The time of the solstice also occurs near the time of aphelion (earth closest to the sun). This changes on a geological timescale, so our distant ancestors knew the time of the summer solstice (when we are now farthers from the sun) during really hot summers when the Earth was closer to the solar mass. Another aside, the precession of the Earth's axis, coupled with the Sun's path through the galaxy has "moved" some of the constellations. The chance alignment of the Big Dipper will be gone in 500 generations since those stars are not all close together. (The cavemen also had no dipper in the sky 10,000yrs ago.) Because of the Sun's own tilt, the Earth's precession and the passage of time, the constellations in the Zodiac do not match the calendar. There are some constellations that are almost out of the plane of the ecliptic, and some that are not included. That means that for Taurus, for instance, 30% of the time the astrologers say that we are in the House of Taurus (mid-Apr to mid-May), we are not. Also, how do you chart somebody who is born in the House of Pegasus? This is just another proof (as if any were needed) that the whole Astrology thing is bs. Also, in a similar so-what vein, the extra second we are adding to the calendar is not added to the GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) base. Since this system was arrived at in the early 80's, the capacity of adding an extra second was not built in. For GPS, adding time means that every calculation has to be re-done, something they don't do. A watch set to GPS time is now seriously out of whack, something like 5 or more seconds off. One more whacky thing that comes to mind as I write, did anybody else catch the drift of the North Magnetic Pole? Although it tends to wander some (reversing sometimes too), this year it took a giant step westward. For the part of the world below the high numbered latitudes, it doesn't add much to the already off-true-north point of our compasses. But how would you like to be on Baffin Is. when you compass is off by 10° more than last year!

Not quite so simple in my opinion. Some varieties do better in relative shade than others. Some will be more likely to bear bienielly in this set up. I believe all will bear appreciably less fruit and the quality of some varieties will suffer more than others. Here in the northeast I've seen Baldwin perform reasonably well on much more shady sites than what your talking about but N. Spy that will barely bare in sites with almost as much sun. These are just anecdotal observations, of course. Under deciduous trees Baldwin seems to ripen well because it is ripening after leaves drop, but Spy is almost as late and doesn't benefit the same way. You may want to experiment with grafts to find best suited varieties. Don't expect fruit to be quite as sweet as if it was in full sun and stay away from varieties that tend to biennial fruiting. I don't think disease will become a larger threat because eastern sun is most important for quick drying.

If you are truly doing a shade study, you draw the shade at 3 times 9:00 a.m. 12:00 noon and 3:00 p.m. using 3 colors on a map of your garden. Then do the same thing on March 20th (Spring Equinox) and June 21st (Summer Solstice). This will give you a comprehensive set of visual data on the amount of shade in your garden. Steve

This past weekend I had a cafe customer who asked for "two coffees". I asked, "Espresso or instant?" When he opted for espresso I warned him that due to other orders there would be about a ten minute wait for the coffees (tiny cafe, small machine). As I was about to ring up the sale, he asked, "Would instant be faster?" I was buying a dress patten for my daughter and asked for a size 8/10. "We only have one pattern that has from 4 to 16," the salesgirl informed me. "Wouldn't 8/10 be covered by that?" I asked. They do indeed walk among us!