Tangerine

Tangerine ... she is all they claim
With her eyes of night
And lips as bright as flame!

With apologies to Frank Sinatra, who certainly could sing rings around me, our tangerine tree gets me in the mood to sing a song – THAT particular song. But all it does for the wife is prompt her to give me a puzzled look. See, she's never heard that song before.

Our tangerine tree is starting to bear fruit. The crop is sparse so far, but eventually during the summer, the tangerines will be festooning the green branches like orange Halloween Christmas decorations. They're not as sweet and easy to peel as Clementines are, but they come mighty close.

The picture above is from our tree, taken two days ago. I was thinking of posting it with the rest of the fruit pictures yesterday, but it didn't keep with my theme of "green."

I do miss something with our tangerine tree these days. Many years ago, swallowtail butterflies (the yellow and black ones) were plentiful in our neighborhood and they used to lay their eggs on our tangerine tree. The big, plump caterpillars used to munch on the leaves, and when you bothered them, they'll expose a yellow T-shaped thing from their head that smelled ... well, to quote my father-in-law ... "green."

They'd make their final design change in a bejeweled chrysalis before emerging like a striking flower ready to face the dawn.

Ahhh ... that tangerine tree!