Our Annual Bounty

Autumn has passed, and we're now 2 days into winter.

Last week I wandered into the backyard and discovered that the oranges on our tree had ripened.

I filled our laundry basked with them and in the basket alone, there were 70 oranges; a far cry from the days when the tree would only bear 2 or 3 oranges a year.

Counting those I had eaten earlier, and the many others eaten by the birds, I would say this tree has produced close to 90 oranges this year.

We also left a few oranges on for the birds.

Some time ago, when I blogged about the Straits Settlements currency, I did say I'd continue with some of the others that I found.

I won't bore you all with the smaller denominations, but here's a Japanese occupation note for a thousand dollars.

While trying to establish the current value of this note, I discovered that the one I have is a relatively common one, as shown by the red letters "MU" on the front of the note.

There is a rarer version which has black letters "MA" instead of the red "MU", and if you have this one in mint condition, it's worth about RM3,300.

And the one I have?  Found it on eBay:

Finally here's a pic of our orange tree I took in 2000, when it was tiny and hadn't yet produced any fruit.