Peaches

I think we are into a couple of my favorite weeks of the year.  From my kitchen window I look down on a little tree in the back yard as it makes its way through the seasons.  All winter I see its bare branches begging to be pruned and shaped.  As the weather warms the branches we get out the pruning shears and start to work on it.  It is SO hard to clip off all the lovely little branches, but I know it must be done.  In spite of our best intentions, it seems like we never really clip off enough.

Soon the warm sun and Spring rains cause the little buds to form.  Well...we hope that is what happens.  We don't live in an altogether hospitable climate, so sometimes the warm sun and Spring rain looks more like snowflakes, sleet and freezing temperatures.  Then I hope that the tender blossoms will wait just a bit longer.  We were fortunate this year that the most crucial times for good weather were okay this year.

The tree was covered with blossoms.  Oh how rich we'd feel if every one of those blossoms could become a beautiful peach, but of course that just is not possible.  Some blossoms were pollinated and others were not.  As the blossoms dried up we waited to see the swelling that showed us that tiny peaches were starting to form.  Soon there were so many tiny peaches that we had to start pulling some of them off so there would be enough room for the final peaches to grow.  We thought we did a pretty good job of thinning them this year.  Obviously there were branches that we missed!

Now we have the reward of our labors....all the peaches we want to eat for the next few weeks!