It's alive!! ALIVE!!

Wow, another blog entry in under 2 weeks, am I seeing straight?

WHATever.

We have finally entered the warm weather. 80 degrees today! And it's only March 14th! Ugh. That means it should be somewhere in the billions come July. weee...

Over these past few months, I would look upon my lemon tree with concern.

Me: Honey, is the lemon tree losing it's leaves?

She: Um, it seems to be a little bit, is it supposed to?

Me: (shrugs shoulders) I don't know.

We exchange concerned looks.

Several weeks go by and all of the leaves have fallen off. I'm convincing my self that this is completely normal. Secretly, I think we have a dead tree. I keep a stiff upper lip.

I google and google, but all the information I get is completely vague.

Various testimonies: Mine kept their leaves all winter! Mine is still green! Not only am I still getting lemons, but it just took the bar exam and passed!!!

These people are on crack.

Our little tree was now reduced to a sickly looking stick tree.

I'm feeling guilty at this point. Did I leave it out when it was too cold? Are the roots damaged? Why are their 8 hotdogs and only 6 buns in their various packages?

So last week, we looked rather dismayed at our now very denuded tree. I finally found a link for a "how to prune a Meyer's Lemon Tree".

We pruned and pruned. According to the how-to, we could basically take it down to a nub and the thing would grow back. Color me skeptical.

Here is what it looks like now.

Sticks in a pot. Sigh. The various "twigs" were strong and somewhat green, but I was not hopeful.

Until...

IT. IS. ALIVE!!!!

WHEW!!!

Looking at it this morning (this photo was taken yesterday), there are more of these little green guys!!

Nature, it does some very kooky crazy things!

When dealt with lemons, make lemon meringue pie!! Screw the lemon-ade.

I was hopeful, so I gazed around to my other zombie plants...

Mr. Fig

Although you can see green on this little guy, you have to remember one thing, it was kept in my garage all winter.

I had read some on line about some guy that does just that. So I took his advice and the scary thing is, while in the garage, it started to bloom!!! Hardly any water, virtually no light other than the very attractive florescent bulbs!! And still it started to grow!! Freaky.

And finally...

Our Blackberry bushes. These I thought were dead for sure. But rumors of their demise were grossly exaggerated.

Not too pretty. I would run out in the middle of the winter any time there was a threat of a frost or hard freeze, wrap them in old sheets and hope for the best. I hadn't seen much going on with them and was about to write them off when...

As Mr. Hand hi-lights, there is indeed life!!! So blackberry jam this year!! That is, of course, the #$#^$@ squirrels don't get to them first.

So once again, nature takes me to school and spanked me. "Don't worry, if you treat me right, I will repay you!" I am humbled. :)

Next up, I will be making my own Mozzarella cheese. You heard right. I will be including photos of the insane process.

And on a side note: I want to wish my friend Lisa and her very talented husband Mark, a gigantic congratulations!!!! Mark, you see, was the writer for the Academy Award winning movie, "The Cove". To quote Humphrey Bogart, "this is the stuff dreams are made of". Cheers!!!

And as always, Green is always good, and in fact it's pretty dang humbling. )