Lemons R Us

We cook with a lot of lemons and by we, of course I mean Mike. He doesn't read this, he'll never know, I can take credit for everything. It's a safe guess to say we probably go through about 2 lemons a night. Now, this could be an expensive habit. Lemons aren't exactly cheap. Well, for most people anyway. We happen to have our own private little stash.....nah, not our yard, it's the neighbor's. Even better. No rotten fruit falling to the floor. Just a quick run across the street with a bag and we're set. What could be more perfect?

One of the things I love most about living in San Diego is having a supply of fruit trees in the yards to pick from. Our neighbors have lemons, limes and oranges. Since we moved here 4 years ago it's been the best part. We haven't bought citrus fruit in years. Yes, we're friends with them and they give us free reign which is great because it saves us the trouble of waiting until after dark to collect our fruit. It's been a great run. Most days when we realize we need a lemon we can just run across the street and pick. Yes, I say most days because lately someone else has been hitting our stash. We noticed a few weeks ago that our little lemon tree was looking kind of empty. We confronted our source about it. We told him he should know better than to let others pick off "our" tree. It was almost bare!

Apparently, there have been others. Can you imagine? We thought we were the only ones but he was letting other neighbors pick off our, ok, his tree. We told him it had to stop. Another neighbor dropped by while we were in crisis mode. We find out he was our competition. We told him he needed to find his own tree and get this.....HE DID! He found another source just around the corner. There's only one drawback - it's a hostile environment. He was already attacked while picking. Even though the trees are on the street side, outside the fence, technically this makes them free game but the homeowner didn't think so.

This can only mean one thing. Operation Midnight Pick is in full effect. No one gets in the way of us and our lemons.