Are you sure the birds are starting the holes? or are they just taking advantage of an opening. My guess is that what you really have is... rats. They will cut into the oranges. Then the birds come along and take advantage of where the rats have opened up an orange. My best way to deal with rats is cats. Unfortunately there is always person who thinks that because a cat is outside, that it is homeless. Then they catch it and "try to find it a home" But if you can get the neighbors to leave them alone, they can do some very find pest control. They also chase birds by the way. An outdoor cat will do a lot to help get rid of them. Rats will usually get into the tree at night. One enterprising young man I knew got together with his friend and they got night vision goggles and a BB gun and camped out and hunted all the rats out. Can't do that in the city but that worked for them. We lost our family cat about a year or so ago. In just a month we had a rat problem. We got 2 more from the pound, kept them inside until they felt at home, then they got to go outside. End of rat problem. One even catches a gopher now and then. GOOD kitty!

It was fun reading all of this, especially since it goes back to '06. That first post of Lars with the cherry cream soda...yummmy. I only consume coffee if it's ice cream, Kahlua or some other dessert. I like tea, black, green, but not any spiced teas. Really dislike mint too. Mostly I drink flavored unsweetened seltzer, iced tea or lemonade. Occasionally I'll have a fruit soda, but I find them too sweet these days so I mix them with my seltzer. Alcohol? Not really. Don't like wine as a rule. I can deal with a little champagne or Asti. Will drink vodka, that Kahlua making it a Black Russian. Smiles. I can go several years or more without having any alcohol. Last year I turned my current [at the time] vodka into vanilla. This fall an old friend from high school came to visit and brought a bottle of vodka. I had 2 light Cape Cods and when he left I turned the Svedka into vanilla. LOL. In winter in the evening we either have hot tea or hot cocoa often. I do love hot chocolate made with cocoa or even a nice chocolate bar.

When we were kids our mother made us ice pops with reconstituted frozen orange juice. i can't imagine it wouldn't also work with fresh juice. If the juice separates when it's thawed, I'd give it a quick whiz in the blender which both mixes and aerates it. That's how DW an I improved the taste of store brand frozen OJ in our early days.

I had a large Valencia orange tree in Venice, but now I only have a small one and will probably not get oranges for a couple of years yet. The previous owners' dogs kept the orange tree from growing and they completely killed another orange tree - the only trees that I liked in my new back yard. I now have Meyer lemon and Bearss lime trees growing in wine barrel planters, where they can live fine for a couple of years before I plant them in the ground. In Venice I had mature lemon, lime, mango, and fig trees, and I did not wash the fruit unless it looked dirty. I certainly never washed any of the figs. I never sprayed any of the trees, and I used natural methods for keeping pests under control, such as worm casings spread around the tree. When I did wash citrus or mangoes, I used only water. However, I never had my soil tested, and I don't know that much about the soil in my back yard now, but the lemon and lime trees are growing in potting soil, which I guess is okay. I'm concerned that parts of the yard may have had bad things dumped on them. There is one corner of the yard where grass will not grow, and so I put the bird bath over it. Lars