catching up

In case you were wondering what 25 pounds of peaches looks like, this is what it looks like.

And this isn't even all of them. My sister took about a half dozen and I took 6 to our friend Gene when we visited him last weekend (see below) and 4 or 5 had to be winnowed out for various reasons and I put over a dozen of the greenest in a paper bag before I took this picture. There were 94 peaches in that box.

You may have seen on FB that the Peach Truck full of Georgia peaches was on tour. Well, they had a stop listed within 40 or so minutes of me so I bought a box...25 pounds for $45. $1.80 a pound or about 48¢ a piece. I usually just buy Texas peaches which are some of the best from one of the local markets that goes and gets them from Fredericksburg since our local peach orchard closed down after three years in a row of a poor crop and they tossed in the towel, but the first ones I got from them this year were just OK so I thought I'd try the Georgia peaches so last Wednesday I went and picked them up. I don't know what I thought 25 pounds of peaches was but I wasn't expecting 94 peaches. They were just getting perfectly ripe when we left Friday, didn't get back til late Saturday so Sunday I spent the day getting about half of what was left processed for freezing.

Three little green nubs of new growth on my fig tree! Of course the camera wouldn't focus on them but there they are.

I love my trees, all of them. They give us essential shade in the summer 

and shed their leaves in the winter to give us sun but why do so many of them have to be trash trees. We just emptied the back of the truck and now it's already got a mountain of debris in it.

As mentioned we left Friday afternoon to finally go visit our friend Gene, the glass artist whose studio we had been storing in our shop for nearly three years, our oldest and best friend.  You might remember he had to move his studio and house and then finally got a studio built and came and fetched all his stuff early in the year. So I've been sorting through my excess glass frit inventory, winnowing out all the ones I know I will not use. Back when I was doing the bowls and the vase forms and the cup forms and was far more prolific than I am now I was in the habit of buying 5 lbs of both fine and medium frit of every color they offered. Some of the colors are really dense and if I used them at all, they had to be used sparingly and some of the colors I do use but don't need the quantity I have on hand so I loaded all that frit up and foisted it off  on him. 

I meant to take pictures of his deck and gardens and landscaping, so artistic, but totally forgot. It's such a beautiful and peaceful place he has created out there. I just wish he wasn't an hour and a half away. We had a great time. He set up a little guest room in his new studio and then Saturday morning while Marc stayed at the house, Gene and I went to a 'pick your own' farm for blackberries and other things but when we got there they were closed, all picked out, the sign said, will reopen Tuesday. So we went to a 'pick your own' blueberry farm instead. I got 3 pounds and Gene got 2 1/2 because he would pull down the high branches for me to pick from. We lasted about an hour and a half. It was hot and most the bushes were picked over. On the way back we passed a produce stand that had gorgeous tomatoes from the Valley so I bought two baskets. So besides the rest of the peaches I have to put up, I have 3 pounds of blueberries to deal with and tomato sauce to make.

Consequently, I haven't read blogs, just no time, so I'll meet y'all downstream.