Why I found myself outside breathing the fire air.

I called the city’s utilities department and left a voicemail that the lineworkers who had recently cleared limbs away from the power line had left a dead limb hanging on it on my neighbor’s side of the fence–but that they could reach it from my side and they were welcome to come onto my property to do so; given the current conditions, I thought they’d want to know. (Like, definitely.)

No return phone call, but I had a knock on my door within 45 minutes. That was fast. The guy and I looked it over together.

Those weren’t our guys, he told me, looking up at that limb and how the neighbor’s tree had been whacked back; that’s the cable TV guys. We tell them all the time not to do it like that. (He shrugged a whaddayagonnado.)

Everything was fine (clearly that was not actually the power line) and not to worry.

But turns out that meantime, he was a fellow fruit tree enthusiast. The Sunbubble intrigued him: What’s in that? as he stepped tentatively in the direction of its open door, hoping for permission. I motioned him over with a grin.

A delighted, A MANGO?! I showed him the actual fruit, too, and he couldn’t get over it. He wanted to know how I’d pulled it off in this climate and I was happy to tell him.

He told me his figs were decimated by raccoons. Mine weren’t, but then I not only had multiple layers of bird netting and barriers at the base of the trunk but my critters apparently lost out this year to a mountain lion. I told him I’d recently stumbled across advice to keep a rag soaked in ammonia in a little plastic tub next to what you want to keep the critters away from.

Really?!

I couldn’t vouch for it yet, sorry.

Didn’t matter. He was definitely going to try that in his garden! He left looking forward to getting to eat his figs next year and glad that he’d come.

So that was good.