Juicy Fruit! It is Citrus Time

This is the time of year around here in South Louisiana when the weather gets chilly, leaves fall from the hardwoods, the humidity drops, mosquitoes are (almost) non-existent, and our citrus trees' limbs are burdened down with a heavy load of fruit.  The bright, almost fluorescent orange color contrasted against the green leaves and blue sky brings a smile to my face.

Our citrus crop this year, while good, is not great.  It is not near the crop of last year.  I attribute this to the two hurricanes blowing a lot of fruit off the trees.  It's okay.  We still have plenty.

We like to eat them, but we also like to drink them!  Tricia and I picked a basket of tangerines from one of the trees in the back yard.  Normally we put them in a bucket, but Tricia likes to fill a basket with them.  Tangerines are tangy.  They are about the size of a tennis ball.

We then went out to our navel orange tree.  The navels aren't quite as orange in color as the tangerines.  They are bigger, though, and are softball-sized.  They hang in clusters from the tree.  We have to support the limbs so they don't break.  Some of these inevitably fall off, hit the ground and get soft spots.  We don't let them go to waste.  The cows see us by the trees and come a running.  I'll take out my pocketknife, cut them in half and feed them to the happy bovines.  They LOVE citrus!

It doesn't take long to fill a basket with these oranges.  It is like picking a basket of sunshine.

Today we'll make juice.  We bring them in, chilled from the weather and slice them in half.  Using an old-fashioned juicer, we squeeze out the juice and then pour the juice and pulp through a strainer.

In no time at all, we've squeezed a half gallon of fresh orange/tangerine juice.  So sweet and tart and delicious!!  We set it on the window sill as it is not only satisfying to the taste buds, but it is a beautiful sight to look at, too.

One last thing, we learned this trick from my sister and my mom.  We took the leftover oranges and tangerines that we had squeezed most of the juice out of and put them in a pot with some water.  We went out and picked some fresh rosemary and added cloves and cinnamon and heated it up on the stove.

The fragrance was divine!