Navals and Valencias. Two Gifts of Our Valley.

My Valencia orange tree has both ripe oranges, and the upcoming bloom, most just getting ready to bloom.

What a gift we have, living in the San Joaquin Valley. And most especially, living in the citrus belt as I am fortunate enough to do

During the winter months, when colds are most likely, I try to eat at least a couple of oranges a day, sometimes more.  However, moderation is the way to enjoy them, as everybody knows who has eaten too many at one time, just because they taste so good. My body knows how to remind me to not eat more than one at a time, even though my taster says, "Have another one."

Several years ago, a friend of ours had planted an entire grove of Washington Naval trees.  He had a few trees left over, for they always order a few more than they need, and offered them to us to plant.

Every year, for the past thirty-five or forty years, these two trees have flourished, and produced many more oranges than we can eat. Even when I try to eat two oranges every day from around Christmas until the warm weather takes them off the tree, I cannot consume them all.  Neighbors and friends, all benefit from our productive trees.

This morning, after breakfast, I decided it was time to check out the Valencia tree in my back yard.  It is also loaded this year, but the sugar content doesn't rise high enough to keep the juice from being too tart.

When I stepped out the back door this morning, the cool of the morning air was laced with a hint of orange blossom.  What a perfume of nature. The local honey bee population is carefully checking for the first blooms to open.  As the picture shows, most are closed tightly.

Based on that delightful smell, I decided it was time to check the sugar content. This morning I squeezed a bowl of oranges into juice. My wife is the juice taster in our family.  I can drink it when it is pretty tart, but she has to have it much sweeter to be able to enjoy it. I took her a small sample when I was done.  Good news! The Valencia's are sugared well enough to make the juice quite enjoyable.

Our Wysteria Is Blooming

Wysteria blooming rampantly.  It is still a couple of days from maximum bloom. Even so it is a beautiful cover over our patio. 

Every spring, one of the delightful scenes around our hilltop is the blooming of our Wysteria on the arbor over the patio.

As was the habit around many older homes there was always a grape arbor.  The grape vine spread over the surface of the arbor, providing both shade, and later a tasty grape or two.  Our arbor started life supporting two older grape vines. One died of old age, and the other held on valiantly for a few years, but it too succumbed to time.

The arbor was not the cool shady spot it had been under a spreading umbrella of grape leaves, so one year shortly after we moved here, my parents gave us a Wysteria.  Dad told me to let it wrap itself around the pipe then train it over the top of the arbor.

The only "training" it needed was a couple of twists of the searching tendrils around the pipe, and it was off and running. Today, the whole surface of our patio is covered by beautiful purple blossoms.

Of course, these blooms will soon fall and cover the ground with their petals. In the meantime, the blooms are beautiful.

This patio is constructed of pipe, with wooden slats on top. The pipe arbor replaced one I remember from my childhood made of redwood posts. Somewhere around the area, there is a nest of what my dad used to call, "Wood Bees" that burrowed into the soft redwood.

I remember him telling me to put my ear near one of the holes in the post. I'd seen a big black bumblebee enter so knew he was inside somewhere. When I listened, I could hear the big bee gnawing on the wood.

This afternoon, I spied a big black "bubbly-bee" busily going to every blossom, checking for pollen. I tried several times to get a good shot, and finally settled for this one

A big black bumblebee is looking in every bloom he can find for pollen. If you look carefully you can see his antennae an the top of his head.