Hark! Back Issue #13

February 27, 2008 

Frozen Oranges

Gosh it has been years since I have thought about one of my favorite snacks...the good old frozen orange.  I would take an entire orange and throw it in the freezer, take it out an hour or two later, slice it in fourths and eat it...yummy.  Be really careful when cutting it, I would grab the biggest butcher knife I had, put the orange on a bread board and then work with the knife to get a good bite into the orange...those suckers are a little slippery when frozen...so again be careful. I injured a toe once when an orange went flying off the counter, perhaps you could actually peel the orange and freeze it in sections, or cut it in fourths before you freeze it...I am sure that would work too...I guess I like the novelty of freezing the whole orange.

Oh, how I miss the Florida tree ripened oranges...nothing compares...what we get up here in Minnesota resembles an orange...but you have never really lived unless you have had a Florida orange right off the tree.

Sometimes I miss living in Florida, the sunshine, the sand, the waves, 24 hour a day Bingo, fresh seafood and hush puppies.  Being asked if I would like grits with my breakfast (no thanks).  Going to a filling station, getting an all change and my tars checked.  Instead of toting my groceries around in a store I would use a buggy, Ya Reckon?  Where Goobers are peanuts and they sell the boiled kind, it is a taste I have yet to acquire.  I kinda like the idea of mashing buttons instead of potatoes.  Going to the Washateria down yonder dreckly.  Where soda is a pop, and a Coke is not a coke...it could be 7 UP or Pepsi (I like Coke and when someone asks me if I would like a Coke...I expect one).

Well I reckon that you as readers are hoping I am pert'near done...Y'all have a great day!

****

I still miss the Florida Oranges.

Far Side

Orange Trees Update

The trees were injured by some kind of field chemical overspray in the Fall of 2014. I wrote about the Orange Trees here.

They are looking better.  The smaller trees seem to have recovered almost completely.  The older trees have many dead lower branches.

This is what they look like today.

This is what they looked like in April of 2015.

It goes to show you that given time trees can recover from the brink of death.  If someone had told me they would recover I would have said they were nuts.

Orange/Green Trees

It is about time I give you an update about those orange trees that were damaged by some kind of corporate crop overspray last Fall.

I was told by some “other” horticultural people that nothing could be proved.  It was almost as though they wanted me to shut up…imagine that.

They are showing some recovery, the new growth is green…but they still look a lot orange/different.

Since we drive by this stand of trees when we go to town, I can keep an eye on them. If they were my trees I would be a tad angry.   Hopefully they will recover completely over the next few years.

The pea field across from us was sprayed with Round Up before the peas were harvested…I think I reported on this blog that one day they were green and  in a few days they turned brown.  They have worked up the field and are irrigating it again.  The Canada Geese still like to spend evenings there.

 

That is the tree and field report for today.

Orange Trees

I took a photo of the orange trees so you could see that they are still orange.   I am certain it is not Pine Bark Beetles because when they attack the tree it turns orange from the top down.  These trees turned orange all over within a few days last fall (September 22 was the first photos I took of the orange trees.).

You may ask why does she document this?  Because I can, perhaps to keep a record.  I wonder how many more trees will turn orange before someone else notices.

“Acts of creation are ordinarily reserved for gods and poets, but humbler folk may circumvent this restriction if they know how. To plant a pine, for example, one need be neither god nor poet; one need only own a good shovel.”  Aldo Leopold  A Sand County Almanac

Area observations

The orange trees are still orange.

Some thoughts:  If the chemicals they used on the fields turned the trees orange what does it do to people who breathe it in?  Or the deer or wild turkeys…or those magnificent Bald Eagles?

We went to Detroit Lakes to the Antique Mall.  I bought some more old photos…not a surprise…it was fun to look at four different walls other than ours.  The sun was out even if it was chilly…barely above zero.

Come summer there will be road construction along Highway 34 from Height of Land to Akeley… that ought to make some tourists real happy.   They are putting in a few passing lanes on this very busy two lane highway….you know for those who must pass because everyone else is driving the speed limit yet those pulling boats and campers just have to get there faster!

 

Piles of brush on the roadsides.  I know that several areas of Lady Slippers were marked, I hope they were all dug last fall.  Whatever seeds are in the ground will be moved around a bit now…when that happened in 1969 along this road twenty years later there were many more Lady Slippers…so it is not all a bad thing.  It just looks different for now.  FYI  it takes twenty years for a Lady Slipper seed to grow into a flowering plant in the wild providing it finds exactly the right fungus to grow on.

We know lots of back roads to avoid this road and avoid them we will next summer.

Gas, Teeth and whatnot

The price of a gallon of gas finally went under $2.00 a gallon.

We went to the Dentist, we both lost a filling just days apart from each other…talk about togetherness. We are good to go for awhile again.

Here are the orange trees (chemically damaged) they still look the same.

We still don’t have much snow.

 

What snow we have is a lovely grey/brown color from the dirt in the fields.

Those specks are Wild Turkeys, there were 29 of them coming out of our west driveway onto the field. At least it is wildlife!   I suspect some silverhair down on the lake has a feeding area for them.

At least we had some sunshine!  The temps this week have been brutal.  Lows at night about –18 F or –27 C eh!   Daytime it might get to 0 F or –17 C eh!  When the wind comes up then we have the wind chills to contend with.

We are staying close to home and busy with various winter projects.  We are still recovering/resting/recuperating from our colds and grabbing a nap whenever the mood strikes us.  I still have some Christmas Decorations up and the Shiny Brite Tree is still standing too. BUT all the beds upstairs have clean sheets and all the extra blankets have been washed…oh sometimes I miss a clothesline.