A special orange

I have a dear lady that I became friends with early in my transition to living in Texas.  I first came to know her through my quilt group at church.  I have learned a whole lot from her, in fact she comes to mind often as I am sitting at my sewing machine.  One of the things that stands out most in all those little tips that she passed along is... never put pins in your mouth, you have no idea where they have been, and the conditions under which they were manufactured.  Seeing that I was not about to go around gathering all of my sewing needles and pins so that I could sterilize them, I determined that I would have to learn to not put them in my mouth anymore.  If you are a sewer/quilter, or even if you know one, you are well aware of how easy it is to hold your pins temporarily in your mouth as you are pinning a seam.  I no longer put pins in my mouth... thanks to this dear lady.  There are lots of little tips that she passed along, but this one sticks out most, because it is something that I encounter most frequently.

Another thing we all looked forward to from MaryAnn was oranges from the trees that she planted way back when... in her back yard.  These oranges had to be the absolute best tasting oranges that could be found... at least by me.  Because we all get older, there comes a time when things have to change, and MaryAnn and her husband could no longer maintain their home, so they had to move away.  The house is still there with a grandson as the new owner, but one of her daughters rescued a bag of oranges from one of her mother's trees.  A couple weeks ago I was given a gift of one of these oranges with the hope that I might try to save the seeds and grow a tree... just like MaryAnn did so many years ago.
This is that orange, and it is an heirloom orange.  Most of the oranges that I buy at the supermarket are loaded with seeds.  This one only had 3 good size seeds.  I consider them to be treasures that I will make every effort to grow a tree from.  So Sunday, January 4th is when I cut open this orange and set the seeds aside to start drying.  My fruit tree experience is not good.  I have had very little success at getting any type of fruit tree going.  I am very hopeful that this orange can help my fruit growing experience become as great as the tree the seed came from. Oh, and did I say... the flavor of this orange was true to what I remember... awesome.  I will try to keep a photo record of this memory orange tree and its progress.