In Bloom!

When we planted our orange tree six years ago, it was only about a foot and a half tall. It is now over nine feet tall, but except for a lone orange a few months ago, it has never produced any fruit. In fact, we had pretty much resigned ourselves to having a fruitless, but otherwise healthy tree in the yard.

Then this morning, I discovered several small clusters of orange blossoms scattered throughout the tree.
There aren't many, but it's still early in the growing season. Our lime tree started blooming a few weeks ago. Many of the white petals have fallen off, leaving behind these little green nubs with yellow tips. These are future limes.

The lime tree was planted a year before the orange tree, but we usually have a pretty good lime crop. That tree bears enough fruit to keep us in fresh limes all summer long. We share them with the neighbors, and Q often leaves bags of them on the break room counter at work (that's also where we get our lemons). Also, Q's mom once bought us a lime cookbook.

We're really excited about all the fresh citrus. I'm hoping for enough oranges to at least make a pitcher of fresh squeezed orange juice on Father's Day morning.