2005-07-22 - 11:09 a.m.
Went out to the Horticulture Department's peach orchard this morning w/ a few friends. I look forward to this every summer......rows upon rows upon rows upon rows of peach trees...laden w/ the ripest, juiciest peaches EVER.
So we drive in this year and kinda look around and I think to myself...where in the hell are all the peaches? Holy crap, I'd never seen the orchard as bare as it was. And what peaches were on the trees were still a bit green for my taste.
After traipsing back and forth amongst the rows, we did manage to find some nice ripe ones. Of course, the BEST peaches were at the tops of the trees, and being just 5'6", I couldn't reach that high. And if I tried pulling a branch down so I could reach the sweet fruit, then the damn bees would dive bomb me and make me run like my pants were on fire. No, really, they did!! And to top it off, it was a hot Mo-Fo out there. I had sweat dripping down my butt crack it was so hot. Sweat was drippin' in my eyes so that I couldn't even see to run away from the bees.
Overall I got a 5-gallon bucket filled up...about half w/ ripe peaches and half w/ some that will need to sit in the windowsill for a few days.
I like to cut up the peaches and freeze them so I can make "fresh" peach cobbler in January. I do make a few cobblers now before freezing the peaches, and boy, are they good.
But there's something about those cobblers that come out of the oven in the dead of winter. They somehow make the sweat, the heat and the bees worth all the trouble.
