PEACHES

Fresh from the tree awaiting toast with cream cheese for breakfast

I love peaches!

Peaches grow almost effortlessly and a tree starts producing quickly.  (Not to mention they attract birds - and other things - all of which I am not sure if I love or not.)

a variety of fruit wood prunings 

In the dead of winter if you prune fruit trees and put the cuttings in water the cuttings will bloom.

 I swear it is true.

I make a bouquet of sticks every winter.

 I call it my
 'miracle of the sticks'.






(I look at them and feel a bit foolish - I am not sure why ... )

They always bloom - but what if ...

Try it - it is amazing to see the buds pop out of those dry sticks.

Naking Cherry branches - always prolific and usually first open

It will take more or less time depending on when they are cut and what kind of fruit the cutting is pruned from.

If they are pruned nearer to spring they bloom sooner than if they are pruned earlier - peaches open readily.

 Really - just put them in water, like a bouquet,  and wait.

Peach buds are gloriously bright pink and as leaves creep almost unnoticed into the cool of spring ...

the buds open slowly at first, held back by the cold

but then the tree is suddenly in full flower with buds and blooms everywhere - until many of them  succumb to frost biting just before dawn in many late springs.

Peaches start out as funny elongated furry silver balls that get bigger

and bigger

and bigger

and as they get fuller and rounder

they stay very green all summer

even when they start to show some red under the fuzz.

Nevertheless the narrow leaves and plump fruit are pleasing to just look at - and anticipate.

 There is no hurrying peaches.

Whenever I remember how wonderful they are to eat I weed and water and dig about the tree and surrounding garden.

And as I walk past I pat the tree on the trunk or a branch or pet a nearby cheek of fuzz (carefully, lest an earwig is lurking along a crevice or in a leaf - yikes!!).

I admit I look to see if the peaches are coloring and I feel the heaviness that draws the branches into my reach.


I know to look for a ripe one when the morning bird choir and twittering swooping and hopping among the leaves becomes almost constant.

It is then a contest.  Who will win the battle of the peaches?

This year it was pretty much a dead heat - but they were cheating  - they started eating green, hard fruit -
and complaining did not stop them;
neither did shouting at them or waving my arms.

I suppose I am still greedy - at least about peaches. I even told Cynthia that the naughty birds were eating her peaches and encouraged her to run and shout, "MINE," at them.

I suppose I am still learning to share.

PRESERVED

Here are the 14 pints of peaches my husband and I managed to preserve from the birds.

We also managed to put some peach chunks into the freezer and another tray went directly down the hatch!

They are working on our apples now - birds AND wasps!

Pesky critters those! We are finding whole apple skins hollowed out completely and still hanging on the tree with the core intact inside.  Occasionally an apple like that will be zzzzzzzinnnzggg like crazy and inside it will have dozens and dozens of wasps in a frenzy.

I would try to get a picture but I stay as far away as I can - I am allergic to apples and wasps - frankly Scarlett, I don't .... uhm .... really care if the birds or wasps eat the apples - except of course that there are those that do care, and I care that they care!

Maybe they will take an interesting picture.

FEASTING

This is for the birds! Do you have cheese to go with this whine?

Our peaches are luscious this week.  You don’t eat them, by the way, you pick a ripe one from the tree and ‘drink’ it right there on the spot – honest – you don’t even have to chew, a few slurps and it disappears.

I am a bit frustrated when many of the ripe ones David brings into the house have been pecked at and partially eaten by birds. I use my half for cobbler or other treats and throw the leftovers into the compost pit.  Why is it that I don’t see any birds quarreling with each other to eat the ones on the ground over the fence or the pieces in the pit? 

Today I watched 2 woodpeckers, several robins, a dozen starlings and countless finches or sparrows fluttering around the trees and vines.  They are quite audacious. Even when a person stands under the tree the birds just fly up out of reach or onto a close fence.

The finches are the same naughty redheads that were plucking my apricot blooms last spring. I suppose they were tasting the nectar at the flower’s base but they seemed just bent on a search and destroy mission. 

 

A robin boldly hopped along, completely ignoring randomly thrown pebbles, under the grapes enjoying bugs and grapes – they aren’t even ready yet! And it hardly bothered to move away when someone walked by. I see that almost red tomatoes hanging near the ground are also partly eaten.  I didn’t see the robins do that but I do know they LOVE red fruit!

Some of the green peaches have also been pecked. I can understand the ripe ones but I was surprised to see that.  This morning I saw the woodpeckers – 2 of them – larger than robins with brilliant orange red tails and markings. They checked out every tree and bush here and at the neighbors.  I noticed they were even feasting on the green apples! That is way past audacious. 

I might not mind sharing if they ate the same fruit each time but, like a child unsupervised at a buffet with a finger licked here and a bite there, they peck here and eat there – here a little, there a little, everywhere a little bitty! Nasty birds! But I like birds. 

I plant sunflowers just for birds, and flowers etc with them in mind – not the meanies like the starlings - but I haven’t even been irritated by the greedy sparrows or messy flycatchers.

C’est le vie! I guess I don’t really feel up to canning yet anyway.  I might just as well share.

Come on over.  You and I will have a feast of whatever the birds don’t get first!