Fruitful

When Jon moved into his house five years ago this past May, he not only bought his first house, but he also adopted his first lime tree and blueberry bush.

We would pick the blueberries and have so many left over we would have to freeze them. They were so fun to have around, although, we never did much with them. We had good intentions of making a blueberry dish, but at that time, Jon was clocking in 12 hour days (and still is) and I was living at my parents house, so we weren't around much to cook or bake. And after two years of a very cold, freezing winter, the blueberry bush just couldn't survive anymore. We were sad to see him go. (Our Chunky Monkey loves, loves blueberries... so Publix is our blueberry bush now).

We would pick as many limes as we could and marinate fish, chicken, rice, salsa, coronas, margaritas... you name it, we tried to use limes with it. After all this picking and marinating, we would always have tons of limes left on the tree. We even started cutting them up and dropping them in the garbage disposal for a fresh, clean scent. We would rack our brains with 'what can we do with limes?'. Miller began to use them as 'balls' in the back yard, bringing them to our feet for us to toss to him. I guess he figured if it was round it would work. We would laugh so hard because he couldn't stand the tart taste in his mouth, but that wouldn't stop him if it meant 'play ball'. So for the past five years, every year there are tons of limes that aren't used and they rot on the tree. We can't stand the thought of them going to waste, but what to do with so many.

When Dee Dee (Diane Edkins) started keeping sweet Bennett last fall, she noticed the tree in the backyard on one of she and B's many strolls outside. When I got home one day from errands, she asked me if she could have a few 'lemons' to make lemon squares to take to her children that she used to nanny years ago. I had to pause to think to myself... I thought that limes were green? Well I peeked outside the back door window to find the limes were all huge in shape and very yellow! I giggled and told Dee Dee they were actually limes and they were probably too old to do anything with. She took a bag full of limes home that day. When she returned from her trip to Louisiana, she told me that they were the most juicy limes and they made delicious lime squares for the kiddos. I was so surprised to hear they turned out so great since I was thinking those yellow limes were way past expiration.

So (I know this is a lot of blogging about a nothing, well actually, about a lime tree) a few months ago Jon decided to cut back the lime tree a lot. It was small and insignificant looking once it was robbed of all it's long limbs. We thought, for sure, this would be helpful in the production of less limes. Well, we were wrong. I'm pretty sure the tree doubled in size and produced twice as many limes as before. We couldn't believe it. Although these balls of citrus goodness can be overwhelming for us when we can't use them all, we are very thankful for our fruitful tree :)

If you are in our area, please, pretty please bring a bag and pick some limes. You don't have to call, text or email us. Just come and grab a few and enjoy their tart and tangy goodness. We would greatly appreciate it!