Huge Grapefruit!

As much as I would rather be working on crafts, duty calls.  The citrus fruit needs tending.  For nigh on a month now, the kitchen has been the site of much canning, jelly-making and dehydrating and it seems it will be for a while to come.  Son picked over a hundred more grapefruit and the remaining dozen or so satsumas this afternoon.  He will pick the remaining grapefruit in a few days allowing me time to work with these. While the dozen satsumas are not needing anything other than being eaten, no one in their right mind could ever eat that many grapefruits before they go bad.  It is my job to see that they do not deteriorate before being consumed so the dehydrator will be running night and day for the next week.  The twelve trays are neatly stacked with the thin slices of fruit.  After about twenty hours, each slice will be crispy and sweet making them the perfect, healthy snack.  Hundreds and hundreds of the crunchy slices will be stowed away in gallon jugs.  There, they will stay fresh for the duration of the winter and will provide us, not only with snacks, but with much needed vitamin C!

  While Son was half way up the humongous tree, he called to me that he found the "Granddaddy of all grapefruit".  He tossed me a fruit that looked to be the size of a pumpkin when it was flying at my head!  It is a good thing that I can catch decently, otherwise, I might have been knocked flat!  Death by grapefruit does not sound like a happy event! When I caught the fruit, I had to agree that it was huge!  Then he tossed another that was the same size.  "That limb had big ones!" he called.  Yep, it seems that way.

Huge grapefruit with a few navel oranges and satsumas.  Dehydrated grapefruit slices are stored in gallon jugs.

   The two grapefruits weighed in at over two pounds each!  The average size of a grapefruit usually is only about 12 ounces.  Sometimes "large" grapefruits can weigh around a pound.  Well, now!  I have two "super-sized" grapefruits!   Most of the ones that Son picked today were well over a pound each.  Even though we have eaten more than we should (if possible!), canned many and given away hundreds, there are still fruit dangling from the limbs.  I do think our two trees are doing well!