(Babcock peach branch in foreground. This photo embiggens because I scaled it down from 1.5M. Which worked.)

The Meyer lemon tree has slipped into every other year mode and this is being a really big year. So. Many. Lemons.

Last year there were maybe a dozen total, so I knew to thin what would come after that; you can train a tree back into giving a moderate amount every year if you work at it.

The only problem was, I couldn’t see. My pre-op eyes couldn’t make out the color differential between leaves and tiny green baby lemons, and from what I could find in the blur standing away from the thorns there didn’t seem to be very many after all anyway.

As if.

This is after I’ve picked it twice. Normally I would juice them and freeze it in ice cubes but I just don’t have the space right now and certainly not for gallons’ worth.

Trying for as fresh as possible, I went out and got more this afternoon (wore a mask because I’ve had a cold this week) and offered the home care nurse the box or as many from it as she’d like. She took about five. It was a start.

We seriously needed a grocery run. Neither of us was up to it yet; after some consideration, wanting to risk as little exposure towards others as possible, I put in an order.

When the guy showed up from Costco I thanked him–and offered him a bag of “Lemons, picked from my tree!”

Wow. Cool. He was not expecting that. Thank you!

I need to be done with this cold (mild, mostly, it’s the night coughs that annoy) so I can get more bags and then do a little door-to-door reverse-begging amongst the neighbors. You know how they warn that if you live near a gardener not to leave your cars unlocked on summer nights or they’ll be infested with zucchinis?

That lemon-fresh smell, that’s what you want. Cut one in half, knock the seeds out, and it’ll clean and disinfect a kitchen sink better than anything.