15 September 2026, Freewriters Community Daily Writing Prompt Day 3227: easy peasy

“I love easy peasy lemon squeezy days!”

Seven-year-old Amanda Ludlow was happily working the hand-crank juicer that her grandmother and adoptive mother, Mrs. Thalia Ludlow, was cutting lemons, limes, oranges, and grapefruit for, with the help of eleven-year-old Eleanor, Amanda's biggest sister. Toward the end of every summer, it was a family tradition to make freezer blocks of mixed lemonade – Amanda, Eleanor, and Mrs. Ludlow were working on the citrus blend, but Amanda's siblings nine-year-old George, eight-year-old Edwina, and five-year-old Lil' Robert were feeding berries and slices of melons and mango to an electrical juicer just as fast as Capt. R.E. Ludlow and ten-year-olds Andrew and Glendella could cut what had to be cut and six-year-old Grayson could fill cups of berries.

“Bomb's away!” George announced as he dropped in a big slice of anything, and Edwina and Lil' Robert would cheer every time and then rotate in for their turn when Capt. Ludlow called all stop to secure the juice and mix it with some of the lemon juice other family members had already pressed out.

All of this was going up for their winter supplies, meaning the taste of summer would never leave the house. This was a family tradition from Thalia's first husband's family, and her second husband, that same Capt. Ludlow, had thought it was a great idea. It worked well with his mother's family ideas about preparing in summer's abundance for winter also.

So: all the juice would be going into the freezer just for purpose, and, because the Ludlows were a family of ten, and the little Ludlows' friends were always coming by, that whole freezer, completely laid up, would probably last only until mid-February.

“But then it will be time to do our apples and pears with winter lemons for the spring,” Capt. Ludlow had said about that.

“Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee BOOM!” Edwina said as another big slice of mango became juice.

“See, I like it over here, because, who needs the drama?” Amanda said to Mrs. Ludlow and Eleanor.

“Nobody,” Mrs. Ludlow and Eleanor said as they passed Amanda more lemon halves to put on the hand-crank juicer.