Welcome 2025! Boy did that get here fast! All is well in our new home as we continue to set things up.
Liz and I went shopping for fruit the other day, and not in the way you're thinking. Did we go to the supermarket and load up on fruit? No way! This is California, baby! Instead, we drove around town, stopped at people's homes and picked the fruit from their trees.
It’s delightful! People put up posts on social media when the fruit from their trees is ripe and ready for harvesting. A single orange tree produces so much fruit that one family can’t possibly eat it all. So people share. Some people pick it for you, while others leave it curbside.
One fruit grower, Christy, greeted me in person. She and her husband have been living in their home for decades, and they are retired. He was a Navy man, and she worked in hospitality for years. They have a cute little house and a backyard with a mini orchard containing one lemon, one lime, one orange and one tangerine tree. The branches are all heavily bent with fruit.
Christy brought me a paper bag, showed me how to pick and let me at it. We chatted as I picked. She told me about her bird phobia (she was attacked by a bird when she was three and has been terrified of them ever since), and we talked about her plans to add an apple tree and an avocado tree in the future. She likes caring for her plants, keeps a very neat backyard, and she seems very much to enjoy sharing her fruit and her time.
It was a wonderful experience to be invited into a stranger’s yard and to be given fruit with no expectation of getting anything in return except a thank you. Christy even said that when Liz and I finish our fruit that I should text her and we can come back for more. Maybe we'll bake an apple pie for her as thanks.
So how did I take the image at the top of this entry? See the photo below. I removed the glass from a photo frame, cleaned it, set it up on coffee cups and put my phone flashlight underneath to shine through the orange slices. Very simple, and effective. Probably the most important part was to sharpen a kitchen knife before I made the thin slice so that the cut was even and kept the light consistent.
