Mandarins!

Andy asked me to trim the mandarin tree that has branches that are overhanging the hive. I've been trying to pick the mandarins off the tree, eating them so that they don't go to waste, hoping that I could eat enough that the branches would lift and stop touching the hive. Turns out, eating five a day wasn't enough to lift the branches. Nor was 7. Nor was 10.

So, despite eating 10 mandarins a day, I had to give up, and cut back the branches. I don't mind pruning a tree if it needs it. I do mind deliberately making a lopsided tree because I'm accommodating some arbitrary, artificial, movable blocker.

In this case, the hive with its 60 pounds of honey isn't exactly "movable," so I trimmed the branches so that none were touching or hanging over the hive.

And ended up with 16 cups of mandarin oranges.

Yeah, it's going to take me a long while to eat all of these.

I might juice them. Juice them and drink the juice? Juice them and freeze the juice? Unsure. Something needs to happen, otherwise they will spoil.