These are not good photos but they show the crop of lemons we had before we harvested them a couple weeks ago....
and California sunshine!
Lemons and Lilacs
I am headed outside to get some yard work done on this beautiful day. See y'all later.
Posted on 04/01/2008 4:05:44 AM PDT by JustAmy
These are not good photos but they show the crop of lemons we had before we harvested them a couple weeks ago....
I am headed outside to get some yard work done on this beautiful day. See y'all later.
Uh oh....learn to format your posts, Mama_Bear. LOL
The Spell of the Yukon
No! There's the land. (Have you seen it?)
It's the cussedest land that I know,
From the big, dizzy mountains that screen it
To the deep, deathlike valleys below.
Some say God was tired when He made it;
Some say it's a fine land to shun;
Maybe; but there's some as would trade it
For no land on earth — and I'm one.
You come to get rich (damned good reason);
You feel like an exile at first;
You hate it like hell for a season,
And then you are worse than the worst.
It grips you like some kinds of sinning;
It twists you from foe to a friend;
It seems it's been since the beginning;
It seems it will be to the end.
I've stood in some mighty-mouthed hollow
That's plumb-full of hush to the brim;
I've watched the big, husky sun wallow
In crimson and gold, and grow dim,
Till the moon set the pearly peaks gleaming,
And the stars tumbled out, neck and crop;
And I've thought that I surely was dreaming,
With the peace o’ the world piled on top.
The summer — no sweeter was ever;
The sunshiny woods all athrill;
The grayling aleap in the river,
The bighorn asleep on the hill.
The strong life that never knows harness;
The wilds where the caribou call;
The freshness, the freedom, the farness —
O God! how I'm stuck on it all.
The winter! the brightness that blinds you,
The white land locked tight as a drum,
The cold fear that follows and finds you,
The silence that bludgeons you dumb.
The snows that are older than history,
The woods where the weird shadows slant;
The stillness, the moonlight, the mystery,
I've bade ‘em good-by — but I can't.
There's a land where the mountains are nameless,
And the rivers all run God knows where;
There are lives that are erring and aimless,
And deaths that just hang by a hair;
There are hardships that nobody reckons;
There are valleys unpeopled and still;
There's a land — oh, it beckons and beckons,
And I want to go back — and I will.
They're making my money diminish;
I'm sick of the taste of champagne.
Thank God! when I'm skinned to a finish
I'll pike to the Yukon again.
I'll fight — and you bet it's no sham-fight;
It's hell! — but I've been there before;
And it's better than this by a damsite —
So me for the Yukon once more.
There's gold, and it's haunting and haunting;
It's luring me on as of old;
Yet it isn't the gold that I'm wanting
So much as just finding the gold.
It's the great, big, broad land ‘way up yonder,
It's the forests where silence has lease;
It's the beauty that thrills me with wonder,
It's the stillness that fills me with peace.
-- Robert Service
.
Beautiful, Lori!!
We don’t have lemons but we have lots of oranges. Our trees are still small but between our trees, Jr’s tree and BIL’s trees, we have oranges for several months. Marissa loves to pick an orange and eat it right off the tree.
I guess that I should squeeze them and freeze the juice.
Thanks for the Vitamin C and lilacs.
The Shooting of Dan McGrew
A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon; There's men that somehow just grip your eyes, and hold them hard like a spell; His eyes went rubbering round the room, and he seemed in a kind of daze, Were you ever out in the Great Alone, when the moon was awful clear, And hunger not of the belly kind, that's banished with bacon and beans, Then on a sudden the music changed, so soft that you scarce could hear; The music almost dies away...then it burst like a pent-up flood; In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway; Then I ducked my head and the lights went out, and two guns blazed in the dark; These are the simple facts of the case, and I guess I ought to know. — Robert W. Service (1874-1958) .
The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune;
Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,
And watching his luck was his light-o’-love, the lady that's known as Lou.
When out of the night, which was fifty below, and into the din and glare,
There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks, dog-dirty, and loaded for bear.
He looked like a man with a foot in the grave and scarcely the strength of a louse,
Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar, and he called for drinks for the house.
There was none could place the stranger's face, though we searched ourselves for a clue;
But we drank his health, and the last to drink was Dangerous Dan McGrew.
And such was he, and he looked to me like a man who had lived in hell;
With a face most hair, and the dreary stare of a dog whose day is done,
As he watered the green stuff in his glass, and the drops fell one by one.
Then I got to figgering who he was, and wondering what he'd do,
And I turned my head—and there watching him was the lady that's known as Lou.
Till at last that old piano fell in the way of his wandering gaze.
The rag-time kid was having a drink; there was no one else on the stool,
So the stranger stumbles across the room, and flops down there like a fool.
In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway,
Then he clutched the keys with his talon hands—my God! but that man could play.
And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could hear;
With only the howl of a timber wolf, and you camped there in the cold,
A half-dead thing in a stark, dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold;
While high overhead, green, yellow, and red, the North Lights swept in bars?—
Then you've a hunch what the music meant...hunger and might and the stars.
But the gnawing hunger of lonely men for a home and all that it means;
For a fireside far from the cares that are, four walls and a roof above;
But oh! so cramful of cosy joy, and crowded with a woman's love—
A woman dearer than all the world, and true as Heaven is true—
(God! how ghastly she looks through her rouge,—the lady that's known as Lou.)
But you felt that your life had been looted clean of all that it once held dear;
That someone had stolen the woman you loved; that her love was a devil's lie;
That your guts were gone, and the best for you was to crawl away and die.
‘Twas the crowning cry of a heart's despair, and it thrilled you through and through—
“I guess I'll make it a spread misere,” said Dangerous Dan McGrew.
And it seemed to say, “Repay, repay,” and my eyes were blind with blood.
The thought came back of an ancient wrong, and it stung like a frozen lash,
And the lust awoke to kill, to kill...then the music stopped with a crash,
And the stranger turned, and his eyes they burned in a most peculiar way;
Then his lips went in in a kind of grin, and he spoke, and his voice was calm,
And “Boys,” says he, “you don't know me, and none of you care a damn;
But I want to state, and my words are straight, and I'll bet my poke they're true,
That one of you is a hound of hell...and that one is Dan McGrew.”
And a woman screamed, and the lights went up, and two men lay stiff and stark.
Pitched on his head, and pumped full of lead, was Dangerous Dan McGrew,
While the man from the creeks lay clutched to the breast of the lady that's known as Lou.
They say that the stranger was crazed with “hooch,” and I'm not denying it's so.
I'm not so wise as the lawyer guys, but strictly between us two—
The woman that kissed him and—pinched his poke—was the lady known as Lou.
.
Beautiful picture of the Northern Lights, OESY! Someday, I hope to see them! (So does Luv!) Especially if we could see them on a warm summer night, with the temperature around 60 and no breeze. (hee hee)
Wonderful ..... seems that I remember either movies or early TV shows about the Yukon. I can’t seem to recall the names .... ie: Yukon something?
Got a bumper crop of lemons this year.
Heard a comment once about owning a lemon tree...
“When you have a lemon tree, you and all your neighbors will not have to buy ‘em at the store.”
Trouble is, a lot of my neighbors have a lemon tree too.
I've also got a tangelo tree and a Valencia Orange tree. Those oranges are just now turning from bitter to sweet.
The tangelo tree got hit by frost a few years ago and it killed most of the tree. Got one branch that still produces fruit.
That same frost wiped out a grapefruit tree.
Having fresh citrus is such a treat, isn’t it, DD?
We have a tangerine tree that really produces and Marissa loves them.
Aloha, Aloha Mel. I like the poem. We have Bird of Paradise blooming here in southern California too. There is a larger variety, also, that has a white flowers.
That's the case here too. I love lemons, but there are only so many that one family can use. LOL
What's worse to try to get rid of than a bumper crop of lemons? Try grapefruit. Our Ruby Grapefruit tree gives us hundreds of beautiful juicy grapefruit each year. Problem is, most people don't like them. I have found a good use for some of the juice; Greyhounds and Salty Dogs, LOL ("hey, who put grapefruit juice in my grapefruit juice?") ;-)...but other than that, they aren't good for much. And, on top of that, many medications react badly with grapefruit juice.
Amy, you need some grapefruit? LOL
It is. It's one of the (few) reasons I like living in California.....and days like today. Can't beat this weather. :-)
You need some grapefruit? I've got grapefruit coming out of my ears here. LOL
White Bird of Paradise
Wish I could actually see one, 'Dita!
Nice profile page. My favorite saying from St. Francis of Assisi is: Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary, use words.
Nice profile page. My favorite saying from St. Francis of Assisi is: Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary, use words.
oooppps: double post. I just hate these Mondays. LOL
I LOVE that poem. It just grabs your attention all the way through.
There is a mystique and a romanticism about the Yukon gold rush days, but surely only to those who read about it from this point in time. My favorite stop on our Alaskan cruise was Skagway and my favorite excursion was the White Pass and Yukon train trip up to the summit. To see the walking path along the tracks and to think of the men and horses that died trudging single file up that mountain to get to the gold fields! The Yukon gold rush broke most of the men who came seeking their fortune and made only a very few wealthy. Robert Service's poem brought back the experience of our short visit to Skagway. Thanks for posting it.
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