Peaches

There’s nothing like a fresh peach, plucked from a laden tree, warm from the sun and so juicy we have to stand at a convoluted angle in order to drip only down our chins and not our shirts. It’s an old-time form of companionship, this standing around a tree, slurping the golden flesh of its reproductive cycle. And in such abundance! There were maybe a hundred peaches on the first tree, but at least five times that many on the second—globules of goodness clustered tightly around each limb for foot after foot, completely obscuring any sight of the bark. One branch even broke under the load, but its fruit was even too much for the bugs and it continued to ripen on the ground. I must have picked ten or fifteen pounds last Monday. Still the tree showed no sign of thinning out. There must be many pies in future, methinks, and alas that I’m not there to eat my fill. But I had a handful in my carry-on…and ate them somewhere high above the Rockies.

Another day on the farm

This one was a bonus. With flights delayed till the day after next, I was warmly welcomed back at the Woychik homestead. It was surreal, just like the other time this happened—back to “normal” one more time. Fed the cats, let the chooks out, watered the guinea pigs, picked peaches, and, in an accident of good timing, got to ride along on the tractor as Jerry cut the alfalfa for baling.

It was a beautiful evening, a peach-coloured sun dipping towards the trees at the edge of the field. Grasshoppers by the hundreds fled the tractor’s advance at every turn of the wheel and the haybine chewed the crop in tidy rows as Jerry flung and spun the steering wheel to keep it on track.

Riding five feet up, on the fender above the giant wheel, was a little nerve-wracking at first, but I got the hang of it (or should that be the “hang-on” of it?) and smiled all the way round…and round…and round. The fresh, balmy air, the drone and sputter of the John Deere, and the bumps in the turf made a very memorable experience for this city gal who’s got a lot of country in her heart after all.

Later, on those long, long flights, I closed my eyes and imagined myself back on the green fender with the breeze in my face.