It is a familiar saying: "When life gives you lemon make lemonade." Well, it is not only a wise metaphor for life, it have practical implications as well. In our back yard is a small lemon tree that has continually produced lemons for the past two years.
Noah's desire when we moved into this house was to have some fruit trees and desiring to please our son we dutifully headed to the local nursery. I thought this an easy request to fulfill, little did I know my utter inexperience in gardening shining through brightly. Fruit trees take years to produce fruit, and although we are wanting to teach our children patience, we are not here years to wait and see.
As we wandered around in our overgrown back yard in those first weeks of home ownership, we spotted this small size tree... what could it be? A friend surmised it was a lemon tree but also proclaimed it will never bear fruit back there... Thinking it could not hurt to give it a try, we had little to loose, we pruned it a bit, gave it some fertilizer and pulled out the biggest and thickets weeds that surrounded the base. My minimal effort paid off handsomely, and the tree has not stopped blooming and producing.
We pick fresh lemons for our food, drinks, fill jars for decorations on mantels and on table tops, and some lemons even become make shift balls thrown over the fence, and others are becoming food for back yard critters.
To discourage these unwanted visitors, Bob and the boys picked a large tub full of lemons and with the help of Bob's juicer we made gallons of lemonade, which we drink, use to marinate food in and add to smoothies, since there is not enough left for sorbet it is time to send the boys out picking again.
