Looking through the storms...

  Ok, so being limited in where and when I can go is about as bad as being fully quarantined, as far as I can see.  I feel tethered to the Little Bayou House, and while I love my place, I am about to go stir crazy!  I want the freedom to roam the marshes, creek bed and woods.  I want to watch the sunrise from the pier.  I want to feed my heron friend.  I want to traipse the hillside.  But...that is not happening, at least for the next two months.  Folks, stop your whining about having your actions a bit curbed by the pandemic.  What freedoms you have can very quickly come to a halt.  

  At daybreak, I was in the kitchen making coffee when I noticed that it was not raining (yet).  Thinking that the sun might just be trying to give us a glorious horizon, I peeped out the back door.  Well, it was NOT raining...but the sun struggled amongst the clouds.  Then!  It peeped through just enough to set the world aglow!  And....I was stuck to the confines of the Small Gardens.  Well, there was nothing to do but make the best of it.  

  The pathway that wanders on the north side of the house was fully overgrown by the citrus trees, nandina bushes and a few errant wisteria vines.   Since all yard work has come to a screeching stop, everything is vastly different than just three weeks ago.  Still, this leafy bower was gorgeously lit with the sunbeams that filtered through the oak trees.  This gave even the darkest green leaves a golden hue.  I could not help but wander here.  (Yes, this is allowed in my list of rules.)  A slight rain started to drizzle down upon me but it mattered not.  I could not pry myself from the path.  Going back indoors seemed to be a horrible fate at the moment when such mystique was surrounding me!  I ventured onward and soon came to the deteriorating vegetable garden.  It saddened me to see it in such condition.  Had I only the strength...

  From the southern most corner of the vegetable plot, I was able to peep over the grapevines to view a small portion of the Bayou.  The sun was doing its best to provide me with my much sought after sunrise.  The golden glow from the citrus trees had spilled over onto the calm waters.  My mind drifted off to other sunrises...other morns...seemingly eons ago.  Will I ever be able to return to those days?  Hopefully, hopefully.  In the meantime, I shall continue to find happiness wherever it may be.  

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.