Anona-mom: Peachy

Making gluten and dairy free peach cobbler

I have a thing for our little peach tree. It is special somehow, probably because it has survived my utter lack of arboreal aptitude. Even still, each golden orb, shinning in the sun, beacons to me. My first truly hefty harvest came last year; a buxom basket of blushing bounty (okay, I 'll stop). I was so dang proud that I carefully preserved them in high tech fashion - sliced and frozen in ziplocks. My pioneer predecessors would be proud (now that one was an accident). I treasured those little peaches so very much, in fact, that freezer-burn got to enjoy them before I did.

So wow, was I looking forward to my crop this year! I know I should have thinned the peaches early in the season, but that always seems so wasteful! I watched as the tree filled out, as the limbs began to hang low with fruit, and as that fruit began to swell. One limb in particular had become so laden that, because of it's poor position on the tree, it snapped. It only broke part-way through the wood, and the limb stayed alive, so I propped it up and left it intact in hopes of preserving the precious fruit it might still yield.

I, of course, didn't get out to the yard all that often over the last little while, busy as I was growing sundry blood clots, so in the gaps of time between ventures, the fruit would change like a kid hitting puberty. In the last 2 weeks or so I have been keeping careful watch so as to pick the peaches at the perfect time.

Then, it happened.

I looked up to see that almost every peach that had been in the upper branches of the tree, nearest the fence, were gone. Naturally, I accused my good neighbor Denise.

"It wasn't me," came her cheery reply, "but I know who it was."

A squirrel, she informed me,

has had the audacity of picking one of my peaches and running down the fence with it, every day. Little scrawny squirrels stealing big, plump peaches as heavy as they are.

Now, my yard is bursting with squirrels. Multiply that little act of depravity times every squirrel in my yard and those yards surrounding us, and it is a wonder that there were any peaches left on the tree at all. But as I looked lower I saw that somehow, that broken branch had been missed by the squirrels.

It still burst with nearly ripe treasures.

Yesterday the girls came in to tell me that Toby was out eating my peaches! That did it! I mean, what am I, the soup kitchen of the animal kingdom? They think that they can just mosey on over and eat any old thing they see growing in nature? Why, that would be like birds plucking just any worm out of a random lawn, or fish swimming willy-nilly through the ocean like they owned the joint. Preposterous!

I grabbed a basket and headed out to collect what was mine.

So now I have a table full of peaches, and work to do.

When they are all pealed, I plan to make a nice, sweet cobbler,

serve it up with vanilla ice cream,

and go sit out in the yard and eat it,

right in front of those cheeky squirrels.

*****

Guess who came to town???

Sweet, wonderful, amazing Heidi. One of my very dearest friends, one of my clients (I helped with her first baby, "D") and one of the most amazing women I have ever known (and I know a lot of amazing women!)