Eat A Peach

A trip to our favorite peach orchard today. 

We've been buying peaches there every summer for years.

The orchard sits peacably in a narrow green valley,

along a winding road and creek.

Not a high-tech operation.

In fact, there was not a soul in sight when we arrived.

This orchard operates on the honor system.





You choose an overflowing basket of yellow peaches.

You pay $10.00.

Always a hard choice,

because the baskets are so full and the fruit so luscious.



Once you've made selection, you put your $10.00 in the locked box that sits on the counter. 

Of course, we didn't have correct change.

So, Better Half had to open the box, deposit his money and take his change.

Still, not a soul in sight.

Old tractors  

and peach crates abound.

More of the crop waiting to take its turn on the display shelf.



Better Half picked one of the choicest fruits to sample before we left the orchard.

As he took his first bite peach juice sprayed in every direction.

The fruit was fully ripe, sweet, with yielding flesh, and as juicy as any peach I've every tasted.

One of the quintessential joys of summer!



Nesting

Impending grandmotherhood has given me the nesting instinct.  (None of the photos in this post have anything to do with the subject matter of the post.  I just like them.)

Because I have been so busy helping The One and Orion prepare for the arrival of the I-can't-wait- for-much-longer granddaughter, (just imagine how her mother must feel) I realized, with a good bit of alarm, that I had not begun to prepare a place for my granddaughter to place her little head when she comes to visit.

Better Half and I trooped off to the basement this evening to search for the crib he was sure we saved.  We did.  It is buried behind decades of the stuff of life.  Better Half has promised to resurrect it tomorrow.  That will be an undertaking, to be sure.

I've begun to ponder painting the guest bedroom, formerly known as Orion's room.  The colors I'm pondering are called Gleeful and its lighter cousin, Springtime.  Both are Sherwin Williams shades of green, not much different than the chair on which these flowers are resting.

I had envisioned a fairy pink and ivory palace for the little princess, but realized that if a little prince happens along after the little princess, it might make more sense to choose a more neutral palette.

So, we've got a crib, a rocker, and a basic small dresser..  It looks like we need a new mattress, some bedding, a box of diapers, a good many books, and open arms, most of all, open loving arms.

I can hardly wait.  I'm like a five year old on Christmas Eve. 



Hurry along, darling baby girl. We're all so anxious for your arrival! 

Second Time Around

Yesterday, my mom and I set out to craft a bridal bouquet, in a farmer's market style, if you will, 16 table arrangements, and  one floor arrangement in an antique galvanized watering can.

The jars waiting patiently to be filled with blooms.

The first flowers arrive from the North Forty gardens.

The next flowers arrive from the roadsides surrounding this little town.  Better Half and I set out early Sunday morning to do a little trespassing on railroad property to gather blooms.  Actually I gathered blooms while he played with his Iphone, but it never hurts to have your attorney close by when committing a tiny crime. 

The next flowers arrive from Fuhrmann Orchards.

The next flowers arrive from the bridegroom's parents farm.

Soon the kitchen is filled to overflowing to with an almost staggering number of blooms. I remarked to Better Half that the beauty in the kitchen was about to make me cry.  He mumbled something about understanding and returned to the golf game he was watching on TV. 

Mom and I began to audition blooms for the bridal bouquet by placing them in a large glass of water.  When we were satisfied with the color and number, I began to weave the blooms into a loose arrangement.  This was the result, held by my able assistant, Mom.

The bouquet consisted of daisies, black eyed susans, butterfly weed, wild sweet peas, golden rod, bachelor's buttons, cosmos, straw flowers, cosmos, daylily, gomphrena, queen anne's lace, angelonia, Japanese fountain grass, echinacea, zinnia, snapdragon, celosia, and nasturtium. Whew!

Posing for a formal portrait, the bouquet shows off the green grosgrain ribbon which covered the base.

Ready to be delivered to the bride. 

About this time the skies began to darken.  Lightning streaked around the North Forty and the thunder became deafenning.  One particularly fierce bolt struck the neighborhood transformer and the kitchen where we were working was plunged into semi-darkness, not very conducive to crafting wedding flowers.  So the whole show moved to the back porch, bucket by bucket, jar by jar, where work began again.

Once the flowers were finished, they were delivered to the dinner site.   Here, they sit quite comfortably in the formal setting.

When the dinner was finished rather late last evening, I collected the arrangements, and returned them to my back porch, too tired to dispose of them.  This morning, the brightness on the porch made me smile as I walked through the house.  And, tonight, when I returned home from work, the slightly wilted arrangements still managed to bring a smile to my face. 

As I set about making a typical Monday dinner of grilled chicken and salad, I glanced up to see Better Half, on the back porch, peering down at the arrangements which dotted the concrete floor of the porch.  He then gently chose one of them, lifted it up, and placed it on the dining table. His simple, sweet act stopped me in my tracks. 

This was his choice.  As we sat down to dinner, I looked at the rest of the jars sitting on the floor, and one by one, more of the leftovers began to make their way to the table.

Soon the table top was filled with five slightly decrepit, yet colorful, leftover flower arrangements.  Leftovers never looked so good.

Thank you to my friend and the newly married couple for affording me the opportunity to create beauty, to my mom for the light-hearted spirit she brought to the arrangements, and to Better Half for letting me enjoy them a "Second Time Around".  

All in a Day's Work

The North Forty onion harvest, in all its glory, finally, and I repeat finally, rests on the back porch dining table.  Each has been artistically arranged by Better Half, one not touching the other, based on his internet research on curing onions.  Better Half took over the onion harvest, once I plucked them from the soil, strolling to the porch with the overflowing bucket of onions, while I slaughtered weeds in the 100 degree heat on the 4th of July.    The poor onions, however, made a few trips across the yard before arriving at their final resting place.

Several minutes after Better Half had initially retreated to the back porch with the onion harvest, he trudged back into the blistering heat with the onions.  His research indicated that onions should remain in the garden on top of the soil for a couple days before curing.  So, he poured them back onto the ground, arranged them nicely, and returned to the shade of the back porch.   As I continued to weed in the garden, the onions began to give off  a quite not all-together-unpleasant pungent smell. They were actually sauteeing themselves in the mid-afternoon heat. 

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Better Half striding back across the yard to the garden, sheepishly, empty bucket in hand. Further research indicated that, since the weather had been dry and hot, there was not a need to cure the onions in the garden.  They could be simply be laid out on a surface to dry.

So, we picked up the onions he had just arranged on the soil, and put them back into the bucket.  Off trotted Better Half, again, with the onion harvest. 

When I could stand the heat no longer, I, too, retreated to the blessed shade of the back porch. There, Better Half had laid out the onions in a square pattern, with the greens in the middle and the onion heads in a square around the perimeter.  He had first laid a piece of plastic on the table, and then covered it with a decades old sheet.  He was meticulous in his placement of each onion.

To cool off a bit, I headed to the hose, where I took a long drink, and cooled myself with its fine mist.  When I returned to the back porch,  a new curing plan had begun to take shape. Rather than a square, two long lines of onions were being formed on the dining table.  Each onion had its own drying area, and no onion touched another.

At this point, I thought it would be nice for Better Half to share what he had learned.  I asked him to write a guest post for the blog.   He demurred, but did take the photo above of the onions contentedly, and quite stylishly, drying on a corner of the dining table.  They remain there today, safe from the unrelenting sun and warmth.

Community Gardening Update - There Will Be Food!

This little guy has his sights set on being a cantaloupe when he grows up.

This even tinier fellow insists that he will be a watermelon someday. 

If you look closely, you will see he is already boasting some stripes.

This pickling cucumber, the first of the season, begged to be picked.

There will be some good refrigerator dill pickles to be had this summer.

The Roma tomatoes are setting lots of fruit. 

These are the largest tomatoes in our plot. 

Hoping to have tomatoes in a couple of weeks.

The broccoli is setting heads, though complaining about the heat every day.

It repeatedly insists that it likes cooler temperatures.

Not an uncommon complaint these days.

The sunflowers are making up for lost time,

easily growing several inches each day.

And the zinnias!

They look like they've all just had an accident.

Not so. Mayor and Sis watered them.

They are stout, hardy, boisterous little creatures.

No, they are not sitting on brown carpet.

The garden is actually that weed-free and smooth,

again, thanks to Mayor and Sis.

Wishing for cooler temperatures, more rain, and no more storms,

just like most folks in this neck of the woods.