A few weeks ago, I was thinking about a tree fort I used to play in as a kid. It was a mature orange tree, and the branches draped almost to the ground. But if you parted the branches and went inside, there was a space in between the center trunk and the “curtain” of leafy branches. A little circle of space.
I’d play in there with my sister Gabi and my friend Jason. It was our house.
I was feeling all nostalgic … remembering eating oranges off the tree … wondering whatever happened to Jason.
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A day or two later, I was out walking my dog, and I noticed that someone had thrown away a tree… It was about 6 feet tall, just laying next to their driveway, roots exposed. It looked like an orange tree. I grabbed a leaf and broke it, and, wow, it smelled like an orange.
I didn’t bring it home. I mean, I live way up here in New York. We just had a 6+ month winter. How do you even keep a citrus tree alive?
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Next time I walked the dog past that house, the tree was still there, looking even more pathetic. I had to do something…
So I picked it up and brought it home. That’s when I noticed the thorns. Big ones! Huge!
I put it in the biggest pot I could find and gave it some water, cut off the dead branches, and trimmed these needle-like thorns.
And I wondered… did my tree fort have thorns like this?
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A week or so went by, and I got stuck downtown during a rainstorm. I ducked into an ice cream parlor, and what did I find? A potted lemon tree, with fruit! You CAN grow citrus here!
So the little tree has been out on our back porch for a few weeks now. And I’m happy to report that we are seeing new growth!
It’s probably a lemon or lime, which usually have big thorns. But who knows? Regardless of what type of citrus tree it turns out to be, I feel special that the universe sent this one my way.
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The Cancer Canary 