frozen tundra

In case you’re not local and just in case you haven’t heard – we’ve been freezing here in the desert this past week.

Literally freezing.
It’s not right.
This is the desert!
That land of saguaro cactus and yucca, not ice and snow!

Winter is our prime time! It’s what we live for, perfect weather! Not freezing temps that damage our desert-loving plants. (Yes, those are sheets covering plants and trees in my backyard.)

We aren’t supposed to be moaning and groaning about the weather now, that’s what we have 6 months of summer for … 115+ degree days … that’s our moaning and groaning time.

I am not happy! Not happy because it forced me to get out and try to pick as many of my Meyer lemons as I possibly could pick in one day. I wasn’t able to get them all. Close, but not all. The photo above represents about 1/4 of the crop I got off the tree.

My dad took home a full crate plus a full shopping bag.

The tree was the most prolific it has ever been. Here is what it looked like on Thanksgiving day.

So many lemons, that they were laying on the ground, still attached to the tree. The weight of them brought them down that far.

In late November and early December, I picked all the low lemons and took several bags to Les Gourmettes, to share with the teachers and students there.

After the great harvest of this past weekend, my hands looked like I’d just gotten a new kitten, they are scratched to smithereens. Meyer lemon trees are vicious, with wicked long and razor-sharp thorns. That is a thorn in the photo above, the out-of-focus front and center part of the photo – that is a thorn!

Anyhow, I had more than I could handle, so I took two full shopping bags to a Les Dames d’Escoffier meeting I had on Monday, to share with my fellow members. No one appreciates Meyer lemons more than people in the food business. One of those members is Amy Binkley, co-owner of one of our favorite restaurants, Binkley’s.  Yesterday, I met Amy halfway between my house and the restaurant and gave her another huge bag for the restaurant to use.

The bountiful gorgeous tree that looked like this on Thanksgiving…

… Sadly, looks like this today.

Hopefully, it will come back, fully recovered.

At least the nasty arctic blast is nearly over and we can get back to our perfect weather. Then, all will be right with the world and I will get busy making Meyer lemon this and Meyer lemon that.