This time of year brings an annual chore to our family...
...harvest season. Time to get all the oranges off the trees, lest we provide a ample supply of food for the rats! Lovely city life! Rotting oranges attract rats, so our neighbors will not be happy if we do not get all the oranges off the trees!
And some horticultural genius decided we needed not 1 but 2 orange trees in our back yard! Let me mention, for anyone out there who might just be working on a landscape design, never plant more than 1 orange tree! Ever! No family can eat 2 trees worth of oranges! Even if they give away as many as they can! Even if they stick baskets of oranges on the sidewalk in front of their house with a sign that says "free." Even if they invite all their friends to come pick as many as they want.
Notice all the easy picking is done and the remaining oranges are toward the top of the tree. Makes for hard work!
So my 3 boys and I set out to harvest another laundry basket full.
The biggest boy was lead picker.
The middle boy was assigned the task of picking up oranges that split when they hit the ground or were rotten (the yuckies we call them) and putting them in a trash bag.
And the littlest boy was in charge of collecting oranges and slam dunking them in the basket.
One can never have too much slam dunking practice, right?
We are sure to leave several on the fence line for our neighbors.
We have an endless supply of oranges mid-December through February!
Oranges for breakfast.
Orange wedges in lunch boxes.
Oranges for dessert.
Orange marmalade.
Fresh orange juice.
Good stuff!
We have a grapefruit tree in our back yard. None of us are that fond of grapefruit, either. Strangely, it hadn't produced for years until we moved into the parsonage. Now it is positively prolific.
ReplyDeleteOhhh, we'd take some off of your hands if we were close by!!
ReplyDeleteA lot of food banks will accept fruit if you have more than you can eat. :)
ReplyDeleteA lot of food banks will accept fruit if you have more than you can eat. :)
ReplyDeleteMaybe you can ask your blog followers to send you one of those prepaid boxes and then you can stuff them and mail them back. I'd be likely to participate in something like that.
ReplyDeleteWOW! Orange trees in January? Green grass and leaves on trees? I am having problems wrapping my mind around this.
That is really cool! I remember being fascinated by the first orange tree I remember seeing at age 15. We just don't grow those here. Truly neat.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful pictures of oranges. I just ate one and my fingers smell delicious : ) I loved this post. Your family is exceptionally beautiful. Lots of love there : )
ReplyDeleteIndeed those are the most handsome orange pickers I've seen in a long time. I never grow tired of juicing fresh oranges but then I only have one tree :)
ReplyDeleteBeautiful shots!!! Oh! you all look so warm in your shorts. Love this post!!! and I love oranges too!!! any room for more neighbors :)
ReplyDeleteGreat photo story! I love your olive blog header!
ReplyDeleteWhat an adorable story your photos tell! You have some seriously cute helpers. :)
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty seriously jealous, as I am currently looking at the foot of snow on my deck. Also, I have a black thumb.
ReplyDeleteJerusha-Oranges and orange trees grow like weeds! ANYONE can do it. Black, green, purple or turquoise thumb.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm QUITE jealous of all your snow. I miss it!
Nancy
Rebecca-Feel free to drop me a note/email, and I'll give you an address if you really want to send a prepaid box that I can stuff with oranges and send your way! Really!
ReplyDeleteNancy
So love the photos, what a gifting you have!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful pix! Makes me homesick for central Florida where I grew up. My Godmother's family owned groves and we always went picking when my grandparents were down visiting.
ReplyDeleteLOVE the vibrant colors! Inspires me to plant my own SINGLE orange tree one day! :)
ReplyDeleteI think I'm a little jealous. When I was a teen, we had 2 plum trees in the back yard. I learned how to make plum jelly - it was work, but oh so worth it!
ReplyDeleteSend some my way! Can I say "great pics" on every comment I leave? I guess that's a given...love the pictures of Jude dunkin' them. :)
ReplyDeleteLOOKS like good stuff!
ReplyDeleteWe've got some orange lovers in our house... I hesitate to say it, but if we were your neighbors, we might be able to solve your abundance of oranges issue ;)
I must say-I have been spoiled the last few years by your oranges(thank you), we had a tree growing up, one oranges, and one pink grape fruit, and it was divine to go pick breakfast and eat it every day. I can't bring myself to buy any oranges, grapefruits or lemons at the store anymore knowing the flavor doesn't compare and I can get them for free! BTW-thank you for the basket full :o) I juiced them this weekend into a big lovely pitcher of fresh OJ-mmmmm! Thank you boys for your help in supplying us with Oranges! If you need more pickers, let me know, I am sure the kids would LOVE to come over one afternoon and help-I mean it truley, we would help strip the trees...
ReplyDeleteIf only we lived in a climate where we could grow our own oranges.
ReplyDeleteAnd the smell of an orange tree will forever take me to Sevilla, Spain...
Beautiful photos by the way!