Lemons. You really gotta love ’em. In fact, my son loves them so much he eats them like oranges. Personally, I think he’s crazy, but I admit he gets his craziness from me. I end up using them a lot in cooking, and having a lemon tree in the backyard is a definite plus. One of the things I learned about lemon trees is that they are virtually indestructible. Whether I care for it or not, water it or leave it to itself, it continues to produce lemons. Lately, it seems like my funky lemon tree is a metaphor for life. Whether we are real attentive to life or are trying to escape it, it keeps spitting out those lemons. Now, they say, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Some have even found all kinds of uses for lemons, everything from keeping ants out of our kitchen to treating dandruff (no, I’m not making this stuff up). There’s definitely something to learn from this, taking the sour, bitter fruit that keeps getting thrown at us, and making something useful out of it. I figured, if I was going to face these things, I might as well make my list of uses kinda fun…
- Take a baseball bat and act like Willie Mays (ok, Babe Ruth for y’all east coasters), and start banging them over the backyard fence
- Decorate a basket, load it up with lemons, and place it on your neighbor’s doorstep with a note that says “from your secret admirer”
- Peel a bunch of lemons, stitch the peels together and make a hat
- Plant lemon seeds in the pattern of a smile. That way, when they grow up, the world will see how positive you take what it gives you
- Make slices and play mini frisbee golf
Ok, not the best list, but still fun. Feel free to add your own. After all, those lemon trees are gonna keep producing lemons.