It’s Tuesday, our allowed-watering day, so once again I moved the hose from tree to tree and from one side to the other, checking often while uprooting weeds most of the hour and a half, coming inside again when it was nearly completely dark: done at last.

Richard said, and not for the first time, how good it was to see me doing that. Seeing me being able to do that. He knew how much I enjoyed working outside; I knew what he also meant, with a good autoimmune scare having just eased away in the last few weeks. We know how lucky we are.

The fig tree is really taking off and I’m still holding out hopes of seeing a fruit or two this fall, which probably isn’t realistic, but hey. I want a taste.

I mentioned buying a pop tent for the Gold Nugget mandarin after seeing a squirrel combing through its leaves, sniffing and searching. But with that thing in place, having pingponged themselves off its birdnetting twice now they simply aren’t getting too near it at all.

Tonight for the first time in awhile I leaned over that tent and took a close look again at that mandarin. The new leaves are curled, pointing straight up, bitten and I’ve wondered how long it’s going to take for it to actually get established and thrive like our old lemon tree. At least it looks a whole lot better than the Page.

We actually have twenty-three growing little green mandarins (and one yellow one that will soon fall off) on that tiny bush for next spring and I had no idea. That tent came just in time.

Home grown mandarins. For real. I can’t wait!