Ahoy Matey!

Mr. Foxypants is obsessed with having a home orchard. In the past month he's brought home an avocado, a nectarine, an apricot, an orange and a lime tree. Did I mention that we already have a lemon, a lime, an avocodo, a fig, a loquat and an apricot tree already? Every morning he goes out and inspects the little trees, remarking, yet again, how many limes the little lime tree already has on it or how big the nectarines are getting on that tiny slip of a sapling. At least I won't have to worry about getting scurvy. (Which is an illness I think about more than I should ever since one of Mr. Foxypant's co-workers managed to get scurvy during last year's crunch period at work when he ate at Taco Bell for two month's straight because he was too lazy to go anywhere but across the street for all his meals. No, really. He had loose teeth, corkscrew hair, the whole nine yards. This year I think they should start an office pool where they bet on who's going to come down with rickets).

But back to the home orchard. Because Mr. Foxypants has been in crunch period at work for the last six weeks, none of these trees have been planted. They're just sitting in various places around the yard in the ugly plastic nursery pots they came home in looking wilted and sad. Until tonight when I decided that as a present to Mr. Foxypant I was going to plant the lime tree, a job that was only half done when it got too dark to pick the rocks out of the clay soil of my backyard. But it's in the ground. I'm hoping the planting job doesn't look too wonky by the light of day and that Mr. Foxypant's will be thrilled by his industrious girlfriend.

My new neighbors are slowly trying to dig up their former concrete dog-run of a yard and install landscaping. Like everyone, they have no money for this project, so planting is going slowly for them. So, while I was digging the hole for the lime tree, I dug up a clump of lemon verbena which I just gave them as a present.