We used up the last of our 24 quart bags of lemon cubes over the
Christmas holiday. Miz Anne makes a mean lemon meringue pie and we get
lots of requests for them from the descendants and friends.

Today we went out in the rain and picked about fifteen of our lemons,
we're in the process of grating the washed outsides to dry and save for
flavoring and also for freezing for the same purpose (closer to fresh
when frozen). Then the very large lemons are cut into chunks so we can
juice them in our hand-operated commercial bar juicer, you know, the
stainless steel ratcheting lever kind. The juice then goes into ice cube
trays and, once frozen, into quart zipper type bags for later use. I
like to drop three or four cubes into the container I keep my iced green
tea in. Three bags of green tea, three lemon cubes and about 1.5 quarts
of cold water makes a nice drink. I don't use sugar or sweetener of any
kind.

I'm currently on break as Miz Anne takes a turn, eating my cold meat
loaf sandwich, a favorite since childhood. Cold meatloaf on multigrain
bread with a dab of catsup on top. Last night we had hot meatloaf with
green beans, cooked turnips and turnip greens. Miz Anne ate the cooked
turnips and half the greens, I ate the green beans and turnip greens.
I'm by turnips the way Barb is by beets. But I do eat cooked dirt chunks
myself. <G>

It will probably take a week to do all the lemons from the tree and
we've already given away about two dozen of the big things. This is a
Ponderosa lemon, largest we've ever harvested weighed in at 3.3 lbs,
most average around 2 lbs. Our tree is about 23 years old, we brought it
here in a half wine barrel when we moved here in 1988 and then planted
it on the south side of the garage in 1990 when we moved into this
house. Whack it back every January from 12 to 14 feet tall down to 10
feet tall and the next spring it shoosts up to the sky again.

Very soon we will start harvesting both the sweet and tart kumquats as
we need to replenish our supply of kumquat marmalade. I think I will
also slice and freeze a supply of them to make kumquat ice cream this
coming summer. May even try dehydrating some for use in cakes and sweet
breads. Our bounty overfloweth these days.

We wish all our well-preserved friends a Happy and Prosperous New Year.
We will be having our cabbage and blackeyed peas on New Years Day as
usual, helps for the prosperous part.