Tons of oranges.
My parents have two orange trees in their back yard. So every year at Christmas, the kids get drafted to go out and climb the trees and pick oranges.
We then come home laden with gifts, leftovers, and oranges.
Oranges rolling around the fridge like mini bowling balls. Taking up room in the drawers. Rolling into the drawers -- the ones that didn't fit in them in the first place -- and preventing the drawers from closing until you unload that orange and jam it back up into whatever crevice it was in.
Oranges causing other stuff to roll around in the fridge when you try to put something in there and a loose one gets under it, like a marble getting under your shoe. It can be a messy proposition if you don't watch out.
How many different uses are there for oranges? After you have eaten as many of them as you can hold, and had so much fresh juice that you feel like you are floating in it, then what?
Well, the orange butter is turning out good, but there's not much the kids want to put it on. Orange marmalade is so sticky to make i'm not sure i want to tackle it. Next will probably be the orange cake, orange pie, or orange bread recipes i've found.
So, what would you do with a flotilla of oranges?
Today is:
Bairns Day -- Scotland (Begins the runic half-month of Eoh, the yew tree, which signifies the dead, so today is considered by some the unluckiest day of the year, and no work should be undertaken today.)
Call a Friend Day -- just to catch up a bit
Card Playing Day -- internet generated, enjoy a fun game with friends and family; "Go fish!"
Childermas a/k/a Holy Innocents Day -- various Christian traditions, called Inocentes in Mexico, and sometimes celebrated as Mexican December Fool's Day (Herod fooled himself into thinking he had gotten rid of his rival king born in Bethlehem.)
Dyzemas Day a/k/a Tithe Day -- Portugal (an unlucky day to begin any new undertaking)
Eat A Vegetarian Day -- an internet generated joke; yes, the vegetarian can be a cow
Endangered Species Act Day -- US (act passed 1973; observed by many Native Americans as a day to mourn species already extinct)
Fairy Academy of Window-Frosting Winter Exhibition -- Fairy Calendar
Flour Fight -- Ibi, Valencia, Spain (if it's anything like the tomato throwing in other towns of Spain, it's probably lots of fun)
Fourth Day of Christmas
King Taksin Memorial Day -- Thailand
Kwanzaa, Day 3, Collective Work and Responsibility
National Chocolate Candy Day
Proclamation Day -- South Australia
Return a Gift for the Cold Hard Cash Day -- and good luck, these days
Runic Half-month Eoh (yew) commences
Take a Drive and Enjoy the Christmas Lights Day -- before they are gone for another year
Unluckiest Day of the Year -- various traditions state no work should be started today, for whatever is started today will never be finished! In Olde England, nothing of importance was ever undertaken on Childermas, because it would prove unlucky
Anniversaries Today:
Iowa becomes the 29th US State, 1846
Birthdays Today:
Denzel Washington, 1954
Edgar Winter, 1946
Don Francisco, 1940
Maggie Smith, 1934
Nichelle Nichols, 1933
Martin Milner, 1931
Johnny Otis, 1921
Sam Levenson, 1911
Lew Ayres, 1908
Cliff Arquette, 1905
Earl "Fatha" Hines, 1905
Hendrik Meijer, 1883
Woodrow Wilson, 1856
Today in History:
The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, a/k/a Westminster Abbey, is consecrated, 1065
The reign of Emperor Hanazono of Japan begins, 1308
Galileo Galilei becomes the first astronomer to observe the planet Neptune, although he mistakenly catalogued it as a fixed star, 1612
King Taksin is crowned as king of Thailand and establishes Thonburi as a capital, 1768
Construction of Yonge Street, formerly recognized as the longest street in the world, begins in York, Upper Canada (present-day Toronto, Ontario), 1795
A magnitude 6.8 earthquake strikes Echigo, Japan, killing 30,000+, 1828
John Calhoun becomes the first US Vice President to resign (over differences with President Andrew Jackson), 1832
Spain recognizes independence of Mexico, 1836
South Australia and Adelaide are founded, 1836
Rangoon Burma, destroyed by fire, 1841
The United States claims Midway Island, the first territory annexed outside Continental limits, 1867
The Lumière brothers perform for their first paying audience at the Grand Cafe in Boulevard des Capucines, marking the debut of the cinema, 1895
The first municipally owned streetcars take to the streets in San Francisco, California, 1912
The Peak District becomes the United Kingdom's first National Park, 1950
Alexander Solzhenitsyn publishes "Gulag Archipelago", 1973
Winnie Mandela is banished from South Africa, 1976
The first American "test-tube baby", Elizabeth Jordan Carr, is born in Norfolk, Virginia, 1981
U.S. retail giant Montgomery Ward announces it is going out of business after 128 years, 2000
Friendly Fill-Ins Week 443
14 hours ago
Reminds me of when the apples are ripe. I get sort of sick of apples after the umpty-umpth pot of applesauce, even pie starts to sound less than exciting. I love oranges, but I really don't know much in the way of recipes, unless you count Russian Tea. I just tend to put a bib on and eat them whole. (I am a messy eater, the juice tends to be... all over, by the time I am finished.)
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Cat, we can eat plenty, with all 6 of us plus bonus children, but we still have others. So some cooking with them is in order.
ReplyDeleteAs for the juice all over, yep, we have that, too.
I don't know what I'd do with them, aside eat them until they go rotten, but this reminded me of when I was a kid here in the Northeast. It was a tremendous big deal if someone went to Florida or California for a vacation, because then they would bring back Fresh Oranges! That seems like nothing special these days, what with year-round availability of so many fruits and vegetables, but it was a special treat then.
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