It Tried....

  A few years back, we had a very hard freeze for this far south.  Normally, the Deep South's winters are warm and to have a hard freeze for any a length of time is devastating.  This time, the temperatures nosedived to the low teens and stayed that way for 3 days.  It was hard.  Not so much hard for us as we have the two woodburning stoves to keep the Little Bayou House cozy but hard on the critters of the Bayou and on the plants.  Our citrus trees took a beating.  I was ready to call it quits and chop the whole grove out and use the trees as firewood.  The wise words of Son kept me from doing that.  The trees did come back and only a few had major problems.  Our lime trees and lemon trees came back as something between.  They were not limes.  They were not lemons.  We dubbed them "limons".   It fit as the taste was sort of a blend between the two. 

  The trees did well and produced heavily but not nearly so as this year.  This spring, the branches were snow white with blossoms!  Then, the small fruit appeared and the poor trees were overloaded.  Suddenly, every leaf on our limon trees dropped!  The fruit remained but nary a leaf was on the trees.  Finally, the fruit fell to the ground during a high wind.  The limons were knotty, heavily seeded and bitter.  Not a one was worth eating.

  This afternoon as I was out hiking, my path took me through the citrus grove.  The limon trees all have died.  The trees are dried and brittle.  This got me to pondering about all of those inedible fruits.  Obviously, the trees were laboring and knew that it was time to try reproducing.  By making so many seeds, the trees had a chance of at least a few sprouting.  These would replace the dead trees during that circle of life thing.  

  I will miss the limon trees but will take the opportunity to tidy up the grove a bit before replacing the trees.  All of the citrus trees need a good fertilizing and perhaps some pruning.  Now is a good time to get busy.  Son...this time, they've got to go.  There is no "willing" them back to life any more.