Over the last few years, we've had a pimento pepper bush. It was about knee-high, and to be clear, it didn't actually bear pimentos -- at least not the kind that show up when you put "pimento" in the Google search bar. The kinds of peppers it bore were the kind Trinis call "pimentos": they look like chili peppers and have the flavour of chili peppers, but none of the heat. They feature heavily in Trinidadian cooking, and happily, this little plant would bear tons of them. We'd freeze them, and I'd use them when I made pelau, and stew chicken, and buljol, and all the other Trinidadian dishes I'd occasionally whip up. Since "pimentos" are unavailable in Houston, to us that little shrub was pretty much worth its weight in gold.

(Please do not ask me how we happened to be in possession of a pimento plant that is not indigenous to Texas. I will have to plead the Fifth Amendment on the grounds that it may incriminate me, and that would just be awkward and unpleasant for everyone.)

Sadly, our pimento plant didn't make it this past winter -- one cold night on our patio was the death of it, and it never came back. I was quite upset about it, since the flavour really adds authenticity to Trinidadian dishes.

But then, one day in early spring, my mom came over with 3 tiny seedlings. "Here," she said. "These are pimento plants. I thought perhaps maybe you guys would want them, since yours died."

(Please do not ask me how how my mother came to be in possession of three pimento plants that are not indigenous to Texas. I will have to plead the Fifth Amendment on the grounds that it may incriminate me and my mom, and that would just be awkward and unpleasant for everyone.)

Marcus took the seedlings and planted them, and they took off. They grew, and grew and grew, and the leaves were far bigger than any that our previous pimento shrub had -- almost 5 times the width. They grew to be as tall as I am, hugely lush.

But there weren't any peppers to be found, and since they looked so different from what we were used to, Marcus and I thought perhaps Mom had made a mistake, and just given us the seedlings of some fast-growing weeds. At least they were pretty-looking on our patio.

And then ... this week!

What?

Okay, I admit it's a pretty meagre haul for shrubs as big as they are (and for how hard they seemed to have been working to grow over the last few months), but you know what? We'll take it.

* * * * * * * * *

Now that my last session of Path Finder for the year is officially underway, this week, I've been able to shift some attention to Lime Retreats, my planned retreats for attorneys (if you're an attorney and have signed up to get more information when the details are nailed down, thank you. If you haven't, please do, and if you have friends who are attorneys, please forward the link to them!). I'm at the point where I'm a bit overwhelmed with all that there is that needs to be done to pull this off, but I'm even more encouraged than ever that it's a good idea thanks to your feedback, and therefore more determined to see this through.

So, I'm just going to pretend to be a pimento plant ... work and work and work until I produce fruit.

Wish me luck.

(P.S. Incidentally, we also have a young lime tree that is starting to follow the way of the pimento. Foreshadowing, I hope?)