Eclectia

I replaced the start capacitor and that did not fix the problem. It was a pain to replace because there was arcing damage on the female 1/4" terminals that accept the spades. I had to remove the box from the wall which meant disconnecting all of the wires.

I tapped out and called the company that drilled the well in the mid-90s. A technician is scheduled to come out some time tomorrow and perform diagnostics.

Render unto Caesar and all that. Or, to quote the great philosopher Kenny Rogers "Know when to walk away, know when to run...".

Tent camps

I am treading water at this point. The credible source is in the process of confirming if any camps actually exist or if they are urban myths.

I popped open a few GIS sources on the internet to scope out the alleged locations of the camps. Looking at topographical maps and businesses, one likely location is 200 yards from a gas-station/mini-mart. Another is 200 yards from a "Party Store". The third is 200 yards from a full-service grocery/department store (with an extensive inventory of liquid goods).

Three-for-three is unlikely to be random chance.

I don't think the 200 yards is magic because different locations will scale differently based on population density and price of land. But it resonates with me that "refugees" might be anchored by the convenience of those kinds of businesses and by the availability of public toilets for 18-to-24 hours of the day.

Something that never occurred to me until it jumped off the maps and whacked me between the eyes.

If you want to avoid refugee camps, stay away from gas stations, Dollar stores and party/convenience stores. 

Comments appreciated. Let's compare notes.

Fruit trees

This year I lost several apple trees which snapped off at the graft union during one of our late-summer windstorms. I had several other trees blow-over but the grafts did not break and some of the roots were not broken.

Today I addressed the trees that had blown over. I cut the scaffold branches back to stubs and topped out the central leader at about 6'. Then I straightened them up and tied them to a post to secure them. God willing, I will save them and they will live to fruit again.

I noticed that at least one of my plum trees is gravely afflicted with bacterial canker, that is, gumosis. I would really like to keep a couple of European plum trees alive but it may be an uphill push. Time will tell. And they tell me that these kinds of plum trees grow like weeds in Europe, or at least they did until Sharka virus showed up.