Do you think the rain will hurt the rhubarb?

In an old vaudeville country rube routine the straight man says, "Think the rain will hurt the rhubarb?" The top banana replies, "Not if it's in cans!" Now, doesn't that make you want to slap your knees and hoot and howl.

On the east side of my garden cabin, between the raspberries and the neighbor's caragana shrubs, my dad planted rhubarb. Those who grow rhubarb know that for the average family, one plant will provide all the rhubarb one healthy family can be forced to consume. My dad liked to garden. Years ago he planted five varieties of rhubarb whose succulent crisp stalks run from deep re...