We spent the morning outside today as we normally do. Every morning starts with me sweeping the front of the house to remove the accumulated dirt and leaves, and Normita waters all the plants and trees around the house.

When we moved here about 3 years ago the place had not been maintained in ages and the trees were not producing any fruits. We planted a lot of flowers in large pots in front of the house and created a flower garden the first year we lived here, but it took some time for the trees to start producing as the area is very dry and the trees were planted here with no regard to if they can thrive or not. Last year we had a great crop and we were mostly self-sufficient in fruits from June to December. This year the trees are loaded and we are already eating fresh fruits and we should be good until the end of the year if things goes well. It is a lot of hard work as the area is mostly desert and we only have water from the street for a few hours each morning. We need to do all the garden work early when there is still water. We have big water tanks for the house, but we do not want to use that for garden work. Whenever we have our own place I want to plant a big vegetable and herb garden for the kitchen, lots of fruit trees, and also some vines so that I can start making my own wines again with my own grapes… one day…

While we were working around the house I collected a bunch of citrus fruits and some of the first peaches of the season. Here they are in the sink waiting to be washed:

Here are the fruit in the sink waiting to be washed

We had the peaches for breakfast with the last of the grapefruits we have bought last week, but they were still a bit acid so we will wait a few more days or weeks for them to mature. The trees are loaded with them and it will be a great crop this year. The boyz will be happy as they normally eat everything that falls off the trees. I saw Bacchus looking up at the peach tree near the kitchen door this morning as it he was trying to hypnotize the tree to drop a few peaches for him. I think it worked as later I heard him munching on some stones from the peaches. The peaches only last a quick bite with him as he just crushes everything including the stone in one fell swoop.

With the citrus that includes some mandarins, some sour oranges, some limes, and some “limas” (a round sweet yellow citrus from Yucatan that seems to be a cross between a lime and some sweet citrus). With them we will shortly make a nice tropical fruit punch to relax after a long day of work. I will let you know later how it turns up.

Lucito