free oranges

There is nothing like an ice cold glass of fresh squeezed orange juice with you breakfast in the morning. Fried eggs over-easy, hash browns, bacon, toast and a glass of orange juice. The all-american breakfast. What could be better? Well, if the orange juice were free, that would be nice. For those of us living in Florida and having an orange tree growing in our yard, we can just pluck some of those sweet luscious oranges right off the tree and presto, free orange juice. And the orange below will soon be ripe for the picking.

When I grew up in the rural farming area of New York, it was apples. There were apple orchards of trees everywhere. I would just go into an apple orchard and pluck a nice red tree-ripe apple right off the tree and bite into it hearing a “snapping” sound from the crisp apple skin as I took my bite. They were McIntosh apples and boy were they juicy. If I were out and about and got thirsty? Yesp, head into an orchard and pluck one of those nice juicy crimson red apples and satisfy my thirst with the aplle juice from the apple. And did I ever mention grapes? There were grape vineyards everywhere also. They were great big purple concord grapes. They were used for making grape juice and so were not picked until they were matured and very sweet. I lived about half a mile from school and so I walked to school (the old fashioned way, no school bus for me). On my trek home from school I would go right by a grape vineyard of concord grapes. I would go into the vineyard and pick one bunch of the concord grapes and eat them on the way home. And no, the people didn’t seem to mind. There were plenty of grapes. Sound nice? What could be better? Well, picking oranges off an orange tree in your yard in warm sunny Florida is what’s better. Free oranges. Nothing like free. We are also growing grape vines but they have to grow a little bigger yet before they produce grapes. Have a nice day and plant a tree (preferably orange) to help the environment. Lew