First off I would like to thank Mike lehua for your replies and sharing your knowledge. I turned on each zone manually and all the heads and zones worked and pressure was normal for all zones. Then I cut off all the wire/grease caps, in the valve box and restripped and reconnected every wire, using new waterproof wire nuts. I then took the OLD (supposedly fried) timer and reconnected it. The sprinkler system works perfectly and after reprogramming the timer, it works perfectly as well. The good news is that you guys saved me a ton of money, all I really had to buy were wire nuts, and my system is working again. I am very grateful for your help. The bad news is that I have to decide what to do about the guy that came to fix my system. He didn't give me any impression that he was coming to estimate and not fix. When he got here he was wearing dressy clothes and shoes, surely not something you would expect if a guy is gonna crawl around by a valve box. He told me that the timer was fried after looking at it for 10 seconds. He said it was so fried he couldn't remove the fuse. He then shot me an email estimate from his ipad, which he had in his vehicle. The estimate was for $300, which was for a new timer and the labor to install it. He said that if there were wire problems, valve problems, pvc problems, etc. the price would go up accordingly. That was when I started to read and talk to you guys. When I took the timer off the wall, not only was the fuse easy to remove, it was not burned out. There was power getting to the timer and all stored data was still visible. The Tech/Owner that told me the unit was fried certainly couldn't have missed that. So, if I was to have believed him, it would have cost me $300, plus whatever else he felt he needed/wanted to add to the bill. The only problem was clearly a connection. The funny thing is that I went through a service similar to "Angie's List" to find him. The reviews on the site were raving as to how great the company is....I am confused. I can just imagine how many old widows/widowers are overpaying through the nose, overpaying for things in situations similar to mine. In closing, I think you guys were not only correct about the connections, but also about the common ground being the one. All the connections I removed looked perfect, except for the common wire connect to the batch of wires coming from each valve. The wire coating looked dark, not white, and even the wiring looked a bit odd. I stripped the common a bit further down and it looked clean, so I reconnected. Thanks Agin!!!! Rick

John: You need to have a professional install a lightning protection system. I can describe mine, as far as I understand it, however. The principle seems to be that all high points of the house must be covered, including anything that projects above a 45 degree angled slope from the highest air terminal. On our house there are two air terminals on the chimney, three running along the highest roof line, all connected by heavy woven/braided copper wire--and I mean heavy. Then from this highest roof line, the wire goes down to one on the peak above our front porch roof. Then there is an additional three across the roofline of our three car garage. All thee are connected, and on three "opposite" sides of the house copper clad posts go 10 feet into the ground--I watched them being put down. Now a rock may have deflected them so they may not be completely 10 feet deep, but it looked like they went all they way down without hitches. OK, seeing the interest in lightning stories, maybe a couple more. This first is one I was told many times, but because I was a baby, I really dont know. But my mother was never one to make up stories or exaggerate--never. When I was a baby I was taking a nap in my crib upstairs. A thunderstorm came up and a bolt of lightning hit a large oak tree outside my window. Shattering a good portion of it. A big sharp pointed chunk of wood came in through the window and imbedded itself in the pillow right next to my head. A number of years ago I was trading storm stories with my neighbor farmer next to my timberland in western MD. He told me of the most fantastic storm he ever saw. He described it as three storms coming from different directions and converging just overhead. I never really believed his description until I saw the storm I described above that hit our house. That storm, from all appearances seemed to converge from three different directions. But it fact, it formed directly overhead, with the lightning seeming to come from three directions at once. The storm the old farmer told me about was much like the one that hit our house in the intensity of lightning and its destruction of property. Before the rain stated it got almost pitch black, and the rain was so heavy that all of the ground (which is rolling, not flat) was so covered with water that couldnt run off fast enough, that it looked like we were in an ocean. How much rain?? I have no idea--our 5.5 inch rain gauge topped out. But again, it was the lightning--I say, literally, 10 times anything I ever saw before. I am always counting lightning/thunder to see the distance of the bolt. In a good thunderstorm something like 5 or 6 within a mile is a lot. In this storm I was unable to make any reasonable count, there were so many so fast upon each other. I would be surprised if there were less than 50 or 60 within a mile of our house--it could have been much more. I think there were a dozen overhead or within 100 feet. It really felt like an all-out WW II bombardment. It didnt seem like a thunderstorm at all--it was just so overwhelming. I almost always go out on our porch to watch storms. This time I went out near the beginning of the storm, practically had my eardrums burst immediately by two or three loud crashes, and before I took one step onto the porch, turned back into the house. One more story--a nice one. I am a big fan of music, especially classical music. This was the most musical storm I ever heard. There was a huge severe thunderstorm just to our west. He thunder was constant, but what was so amazing and beautiful was how each roll of thunder lasted for 30 to maybe even 45 seconds or so, with each one overlapping the previous one, or two, or three, or four. Can you get the idea--the grand rolls of thunder actually made a great cosmic 4 and 5 part fugue. Fugues are one of my favorite musical forms. This thunder was one of the most beautiful things I have ever heard, and it continued at a peak of richness and beauty for a full 30 minutes or so. I could no nothing but stop and listen--thunderstruck, so to speak. Well, I have more, but enough for now. --Spruce

Metal piping do act as grounds. Lightening may strike the highest part of the plumbing and it will go through the roof to do it. This type of grounding offers no protection. It is like a lightening rod inside the house. The best protection is a tree or tower near the house that is taller than the house. A metal flag pole acts as a lightening rod. Generally speaking, objects within a 30 deg cone drawn from the top of the pole are somewhat protected. However, there is no guarantee that it will not be hit for all strikes. The voltage potential just before the strike is extremely powerful. The path from ground to cloud gets ionized and then the charge suddently dumps along the path of least resistance. Flag poles and trees are hit on a regular basis so its not a good idea to be near the base of these things because you may become part of the discharge path.

Looks bad to me. Certainly not normal healing. If the black mold area spreads completely around the stem, then anything above that point is going to eventually die. You could try and graft a twig (or twigs) above and below to bypass the area, or you could try and graft some good green bark to replace the infected parts. But neither will be easy to do, and will probably fail.