This weekend and the new orange tree

Good Monday morning to you, blog friends.

♥

It's been one week today since we got the keys to our new house. I am absolutely amazed at how much Doug has accomplished in one week's time over there! And, if we think about it, it can be a bit overwhelming to consider how much is still left to be done before we can actually move in. But we try not to dwell on that too much...

From the time we got our keys and continuing throughout last week, I have been nagging gently encouraging Doug to not over-do it. He's still recovering from knee surgery (and doing well, but still...) and the work to be done is so physical. One needs to pace one's self, I say. Like the turtle, you know? Slow and steady wins the race.

Anyway. "We" agreed that he would take Sunday off and relax, but then we started talking about the orange tree in the new backyard. She's been sorely neglected and in dire need of some love and attention.

So early yesterday morning we headed over for a couple of hours and worked on the orange tree together. I'm going to guess that it's been a couple of years since any of the fruit was removed from this tree. The oranges on the tree ranged from hard-dry-little balls (a few years old) to yellow-orange dried-out fruit from last year's crop. And! If you look closely you'll even see small green fruit forming this year's crop.

The goal yesterday was to remove all the old fruit and to give the tree a deep watering. Mission accomplished!

Our next door neighbor was on the other side of the fence cleaning his pool and he popped his head over the fence to say good morning. So we finally met a neighbor. His name is John and he nicely offered to help pick some of the expired fruit if there were some we couldn't reach near his side of the fence. We politely declined, but how nice!

There's speculation about this tree, wondering if the oranges will be fit to eat or if this is an ornamental orange tree. Fingers crossed they'll be fit for consumption one day. And orange marmalade...

 

We filled at least seven 5-gallon buckets with expired fruit. And Doug made a well around the base of the tree for watering. Wow this ground is hard and dry!

How sweet to find a bird's nest hidden in our orange tree - a little sign of life and new possibilities for the future of this tree.

We took Lucky with us and introduced him to the new digs. He did what any self-respecting male dog would do and marked his backyard territory while we pulled old oranges off the tree. I think he likes the new place!

We were home and Doug was on the couch with his knee elevated by 10:00 a.m. I spent the rest of the day in my craft room. I packed some stuff and purged a LOT so I feel really good about that this morning. Carrie and I are having a yard sale in a couple of weeks and I have a lot to contribute to the stack!

It was a productive weekend and now there's a fun-filled week on the horizon. Working our way toward Friday once again.

Slow and steady wins the race...

♥