Peaches

When we moved here fourteen years ago, we planted some fruit trees on a small back strip just between our horse fence and an abandoned access road to the neighbor’s property. The first few trees didn’t make it, because we didn’t realize how susceptible they were to cedar apple rust. Actually, we’d never heard of it. Bugs killed the first peach tree, and deer gnawed on some other apple trees, and one of our cherry trees. Eventually I had to build tree cages around the trees to protect them for several years, otherwise the deer would eat them, or rub antlers on them, or just wander buy and break them off.

Years and years those trees have been out there, slowly growing. And then, finally, this year we got edible cherries off of one of the two cherry trees. That was nice. I hope we have even more next year. But here’s the grand thing. Our surviving peach tree has been gnawed upon by deers. It was damaged by a guy we hired to mow our lawn. It has an unhealthy looking lean to it. For the last few years it’s been producing tiny little peaches that were hard as rocks.

This year, though… this year it gave us real peaches, and yesterday I processed a bunch of them. And wow, they’re delicious. Sometimes good things come to those who wait. I’m living the good life now, folks. Productive fruit trees on my own property! It’s a grand feeling.

Incidentally, that’s not the peach tree. That’s the tree we’re fairly sure Carl Sagan was sitting in at Kew Gardens during an episode of Cosmos. The one I took of the tree the other day is blurry. So here’s this. Because every article’s better if it mentions Carl Sagan or the Hulk, right?