A Sua Casa

It has been raining this week. It is unusual in that this is the season for hot Santa Anna winds to blow in from the desert. Instead we received 3" of much needed rain. Yes the climate is changing due in part to El Nina. It has been predicted by the weather forecasters to be a drier year that last. It's not starting out that way!

I wasn't sure I wanted to get into blogging because I just don't have that much news to pass on. I think I will use this blog to post daily views of the sunset from my home and/or any other interesting happenings around my little hobby farm. Today's image is from a few days ago when we got over 2500+ lightening strikes. This is a rain cloud passing between my home and the view of Mt. Woodsen around 10 miles away. It was a beautiful day.



I was talking to my mom the other day when the subject of finding a good linguica came up. I haven't found one to my liking so I thought to try my hand at making it. Mom mentioned grandma used to make her own and used sour oranges to marinate the pork before stuffing into the casings and smoking. I thought she meant any orange that wasn't quite ripe and therefore would be sour. Nope, there actually are sour orange trees whose fruit never sweetens. This orange is what is used to make marmalade! I never knew that. So the hunt for a sour orange tree was on.

I started my search on the internet finding only descriptions of a sour orange and that the Seville was the most popular variety. I put out a request for help in finding one, since the Net let me down, to the Citrus forum on Gardenweb. One reply did come listing a nursery that had several varieties of dwarf rootstock. I was ready to order one when another post came thru to check Weidman Nursery in Encinitas. I called them, no luck but they said to try Clausen’s in Vista. Again no luck but Clausen's turned me on to Atkins in Fallbrook. Guess what! They had one 5-gal Seville left. I took a long lunch that day and headed to Fallbrook and picked it up. So now, I have my first citrus tree to plant this weekend. I plan on getting 2 more oranges, a Naval and Valencia, 2-3 lemons, Eureka, Meyers and/or a Lisbon, at least 1 lime and maybe a tangerine. No grapefruit for this gal!

One should learn something new every day and I did. Sour oranges do exist. ;-)