Valentine's Reveal: Tart and Sweet

Drum roll please....

Ta-Dah!

Greg walked in from his trip last night to this fine "Valentine's Day Tree" from his two favorite gals.  My Dear GB has been wanting a Meyer lemon tree for ages, and they seemed to be so hard to come by for so long.  I was shocked earlier this week to have heard through the grapevines of Facebook that Home Depot was carrying this particular variety.

The next morning while I was walking down to the creek with the girls, I stumbled upon a Meyer lemon tree in the wildest part of a lot next to the park that had fruit fallen all around the base and hanging ripe on the limbs.  It took all of my strength to summon the will of my Grandma Flanagan ("Angel") to not trespass and grab these delicious yellow gems.  Maybe next time I'll knock on the owner's door with a basket and ask if I may collect a few for my kitchen. Anyhow, I took this as the final sign that I must purchase one for my very own Valentine. I loaded up my boogerdy baby and high-tailed it across town to snag the best looking tree on the shelf.

Meyer lemons are so delicious.  Tart, yet sweet. Bursting with sunshine.  Homegrown citrus has a special place in my heart that leads me back to Arizona.  Not to Tucson where I went to college, no, further back.  To my earliest Christmases in Glendale with my Huddle grandparents, who had their own mini-citrus orchard lining the back wall of their yard in their suburban neighborhood.  Grandma would let us pick, and pick, and pick citrus fruit.  We would juice our oranges for breakfast, and enjoy brown paper grocery sacks full of citrus fruit on the long drive home on I-10 back through New Mexico and Texas.

In college I found a new love for citrus trees.  The beautiful University of Arizona campus and surrounding city of Tucson is chalk full of citrus trees, especially orange trees.  I did a lot of running in and around campus while I was on the swim team and also prior to graduation.  There is nothing - nothing  - quite like running though Tucson in the spring when the orange trees are blossoming.  Sweet, sweet, heaven.

After bringing the tree home, Piercy Joye and I dressed it up a bit with lots of hanging Valentine ornaments. I printed pictures from our photoshoot, backed them with scrapbook paper I had lying around, and used some pink ribbon and thread to tie them to the branches. We stuck a bunch of silk flowers from the dollar store into the base of the tree, and re-used the tulle from my Christmas wreath to wrap the pot.

And there you have it, my dears!  It was a hit.

I hope that this tree will bear the gifts of sweet smelling blooms and sweet-tart tasting fruit for many years to come.

Happy Valentine's Day to the best man I know.