October 28th, 2021

Do you enjoy puzzles?  How about real life  mysteries?  I do. Or at least I used to.......

Yesterday was a Wednesday like almost every Wednesday.   It was hiking day with Joy (I will write that up for you tomorrow).  I had my camera bag and my water bottle bag loaded and ready to go before 7:30 am.   Just before Joy came to pick me up, I did what I do every single morning which is to pour some water in the small water dish that I keep in my potted garden so that tiny things, like Butterflies and Bees have access to water.  I wrote about this year or so ago, I don't know if you remember or not.

The "water dish" is actually a rock  I found (on one of our hikes coincidentally)  that has a depression in it which turns out to be perfect for holding just enough water for smaller creatures.   It was perfect for them and they really seemed to appreciate it. I have seen many little beings utilizing it on a daily basis.  Yay!  

But I found, very quickly, that filling it from the hose or a glass or even a water bottle was tricky because it was so small. So I used a tiny pitcher that I had.  (note the past tense).  I had this tiny pitcher for a very long time. It was one of my first purchases at an antique store. I think I was in high school at the time.  I bought it because I was charmed by it's tiny size. I had no idea what on earth I would ever do with it.  It was cream coloured with a blue design and made out of some sort of china.    It had  "Staffordshire" printed on the bottom of it.  It looked something like this but was not much more than 2 inches high:

I quickly found that I had to refill the little water dish several times a day so during the day I would leave the pitcher outside on the nice wide arm of the old double Adirondack chairs that we have in the courtyard by the potted garden and the water dish.  Anytime I passed the kitchen window I would peep out to see if I needed to, as Tim says, "Water the Rock".   If I was returning from a walk or the museum or the grocery store, I would check and if necessary, I would refill the water dish with the pitcher, so handy, right nearby and then put the pitcher right back on the arm of the chair.

 The Adirondack Chairs were perfect to set the tiny pitcher on.   They are sturdy and extra wide.  Whenever I sit outside to read I can set my glasses, a drink and/or my book on those arms with no worry about any of it falling off.  If you are unfamiliar, the chairs look a little like this only without the snow:

Soooooo  yesterday when I returned from the hike, I stepped into the courtyard and before I walked into the house, I did what I always do and I checked on the water level in the dish.  As I suspected, it did need to be refilled.  Without looking behind me I reached for the tiny pitcher aaaaannnnddd...it wasn't there.  What?    I turned and looked and nope, no pitcher.  Well that's odd!  I was absolutely positive that I watered the rock before I left that morning.  

I went into the house and put all of my gear on the kitchen counter and looked at the window sill above the  kitchen sink which is where that tiny pitcher lives when it's not outside and it was not there either.  "Curiouser and curiouser",  as Alice said.

I turned around and went right back outside and took a closer look.    Aha!  There on the ground by the back leg of the adirondack chairs were a few tiny china crumbs and a wet spot.  Dang.  Very obviously, my tiny pitcher somehow got broken.  I was bummed.  I told  Tim about my broken pitcher and he was surprised and sorry for me that it happened.  Insert sad face here.

Clearly this wasn't a situation where a passing lizard or frog kicked it over in a fit of pique or in a case of general rambunctiousness.  While I suppose it's possible that squirrel or even a bird could have accidently dashed a bit of crockery to the ground as they zoomed by, they absolutely would not have cleaned it up.  And the small collection of china crumbs that I found  did not account for the entire pitcher.  Where were the rest of the broken pieces?  

No idea.  Clearly someone, and I am positive it was by accident, bumped the chair which made the pitcher fall off.  Obviously it broke and our mystery guest realized it and picked up all of the pieces. Removing the  evidence maybe.  Or just to clean up their mess perhaps?  

I suppose it's my fault.  It was stupid of me to leave the pitcher outside.  But you know, I've done this for more than a year now with nary a problem so I guess it never dawned on me that it could possibly be an issue.  Plainly china and courtyard pavers are not a good combination.

I admit that I'm  sad about the loss of my cute little pitcher.  But I am more curious than anything about who did it?  Or should I say, whodunnit?  We don't get a ton of visitors. And the builder guys never come in the courtyard.  The courtyard is in the front of the house.  The project is in the back of the house.  If you want to talk to one of our builder guys, you have to go into the backyard to find them.  If someone was in the courtyard, why were they there ?  And Who the heck was it?

We will probably never solve this particular mystery.  But mystery it is. Guess we need to get Inspector Poirot on the case.