Peaches...by Jessica

In our backyard we have several branches of a neighbors peach tree that falls into our side of the yard. The peaches are wonderful. To eat a warm peach picked straight from the tree is like nothing else. When the juice drips off your elbow and creates a puddle at your feet, you know it's the good stuff.

But...

When it decides it's time to drop - it just drops. And sometimes it can be a little much. In past summers I really have tried to keep on top of it, to distribute those (darn!) peaches to those who I know love them, to try to not let them fall into one big rotting festering pile near the fence.

This summer has been weird weather and the peaches have been a little slow to grow and there weren't that many on the tree so I didn't pay very much attention to them (I've also been coddling and caretaking the tomatoes. I'm sorry peaches) until Zack said one night at dinner "I can't believe you haven't even picked one peach from your tree yet."

What?! Are the peaches ripe and I've been so neglectful I didn't even realize it? I thought about them all night, thinking of how I was going to freeze them, how my parents would be so excited to have them in their morning oatmeal. I got my bag, threw on my boots, climbed up my little retaining wall, walked over to the tree...looked up....and every single one of those (darn!) peaches had dropped and were in a big rotting festering pile near the fence.

Maybe next summer I can graduate to learning how to caretake more than one crop at a time?

(remember this guy? He's now brown, shriveled and mush - thanks to me his neglectful caretaker.)