There’s a clamshell, it’s intact, it’s right where I put it…

…And all the cherries that were growing inside it have vanished. Just from that one. But the uncovered single cherry below that box is still there–go figure. The branches haven’t broken, so I figure a squirrel may have learned how to pry it apart just enough (while snapping on its paw) but I haven’t seen them so much as touch that tree. Clearly that fruit would have to be really ripe before they’d get over their dislike of the cinnamon I sprinkled around it.

Maybe the raccoon simply sat on the fence and pulled it to him? It’s at the top of the tree and right at that height. Time to tape the clamshells shut.

Anyway, so, the outside faucet has been failing gradually for some time and had gotten to the point that it just spins without catching on its stem while dripping crazily from around the stem and out the top. So not cool in a drought. You could only turn it on by pushing down hard on the screw as you twist–and then where the hose connected, it was stripped enough there too that we put plumber’s tape but still, that part dripped, too.

The big guys didn’t have a replacement. The little guy, at Barron Park Plumbing Supply, who really knows his stuff and would rather help you than oversell to you, said to me, “Wow–that’s a tiny one.” He thought a moment and said not only did he not have it, he couldn’t think of anyone that would. Here though is what I could buy and do and, as he continued to muse thoughtfully, here’s why I wouldn’t want to do it–I would have five, maybe six uses before it would do damage, completing the stripping. It was my choice, if I really needed it working right now.

I needed a better idea. He wrote out four names and numbers of people he personally recommended, and I knew if he said so I couldn’t go wrong. It would probably run me in the ballpark of $100, $150, he said. (Better than wasting all that water!)

And we will need to call one of them. But for now Richard kluged it with a piece he thought would help. To my great relief the faucet still drips but only a very little and not where the hose connects because that’s at the new piece. I propped a small dyepot underneath and while watering the cherries, the apples, the pear, the peaches, and the mango, I didn’t catch enough to water the potted fig tree with–that’s a huge change.

So tonight, after two weeks of not being able to turn that thing on (and of being really really glad it rained a week ago), and after it was 91 withering degrees today, I finally watered my trees.

Next step. Buy mulch.