New Years Day

We had a New Year's Day which I hope reflects the year to come: A day of flowers, working outside, fresh fruit, long dirt road walks, good food (black-eyed peas & collard greens of course!), and family. It is gettin' chilly here... a low of 30 expected tonight & a low of around 22 tomorrow!

Papa Bill showing me one of Nana's camellias. This is one bush of many blooming right now around his home in Cairo, Ga.

Because of the expected cold weather, the citrus fruit had to be picked. Papa grows satsumas (a type of mandarin) and kumquats in his front yard - his trees were really loaded this year. The satsumas are a favorite of ours - the peel is incredibly easy to remove & it has very few seeds. In fact, I just looked this up: there are on average 1.5 seeds per fruit.

Pretty little kumquats. We cut many of these off in "tags" = bunches of fruit & leaves. I think several of these tags would look beautiful arranged around a tall chocolate cake on a glass cakestand - I may just have to try that out when I get home.

Levi "woolied" up for a stroll outside.

Don & Joe - doing the real work - handpicking satsumas.

Deep Pink Camellia

Snipping Away

Awaiting Satsumas