I remember, as a child, picking strawberries and sweet corn and blueberries and apples and Concord grapes, each in their own season, and bringing home the harvest to delight in and preserve. The seasons and the fruits of the land are different here in the desert than they were in the Northeast where I was young, but they are still here.
For example, it is May, and the peaches are ripe! Some types of peaches need more frost hours than we get here, but quite a few are adapted for the climate, and Schnepf Farm (about 40 minutes from our house) happens to have a peach orchard. The grove we picked in was the oldest at around 20 years old – these were established trees with a lot of fruit.
This was the kids’ first time in an orchard, and they responded in characteristic ways. Limerick absorbed everything I told him about how to tell when a peach was ripe and ready to pick, compiled it in his head into a rule, and proceeded to analyze every peach in his reach according to said rule (he does the same thing with the blackberries at home – and he really does end up only selecting the best).
Rondel smelled the peaches before we even entered the orchard, tried to find the most heavily laden trees, and then got distracted looking for bugs.
Aubade wandered around after the boys, commenting on everything she saw (especially the fallen/half-eaten/smashed peaches on the ground), getting excited about the bugs and about being lifted up to reach the higher peaches, and helping me take the picked peaches back to our box.
We didn’t get too many – we don’t eat much jam, and we don’t use frozen peaches much compared to other fruits – but we have plenty to eat and enjoy, and it was good to be there: to see and touch the plants and the soil that birth some of the food we eat; to smell the fruit of the land; to hear the wind whisper in the leaves; and to taste the sweet juice running over in every bite as it only does in a freshly-picked peach, as the Psalmist writes of the blessings of God, “You crown the year with Your goodness, and Your paths drip with abundance.” (Ps. 65:11)
I didn’t follow all the {sqt} rules this week, but I’m still linking up… 🙂 Go read the rest of the linkup at This Ain’t the Lyceum today!
little thoughts 