Peach Picking

In the last two days i have personally picked at least a hundred kilos of peaches...(no i am not joking..it was probably more than that)yesterday i helped 5 other church friends pick over 50 boxes of peaches in the rain.... not to sell or as a job for a wage.....we were allowed to pick them for ourselves....as many as we wanted ......all for free...Yes i know ...we were truly blessed..
What a wonderful Orchardist to do that for us....apparently he used to allow the public to come after the harvest was picked to gleen...there were still smaller or larger fruit(mostly larger ones) left on the trees.... but the public didn't respect his trees...they broke branches which set the next years harvest back.....so he stopped giving them access...fortunately he is allowing church members to pick the fruit left... we have a member who works for him seasonally and last year he gave us access and this year again...we really are blessed

these fragrant peaches are amazing...huge and juicy...you have to stand over the sink or tub to eat them...slurp slurp slurp....

we were even given these boxes to pack the peaches in to take them home ...obsolete packaging being recycled.... but this is were the crop goes ...all overseas to either Japan or Korea... the orchardist gets about $3 a kilo and they sell ONE PEACH for anything upwards of $5 and more.....for huge ones like we were picking they could get $50.....robbery i reckon..?????

this was how thick on the trees the peaches were....

sparkling in the sun ...and oh the sweet smell of peach scent....... can you smell it ...sniff and close your eyes....but don't keep walking up the rows with your eyes closed because you will tread on the windfalls(the ripe ones already fallen off the trees)...that's were the sweet smell of peaches is coming from i think????

and this is my dad ...at 84 he still wanted to help even though he is in a wheelchair...we took him for a drive with us today and wheeled him to the lower branches of each tree and he picked the fruit there... good on ya dad!!!

and i couldn't let this little masterpiece of nature go unnoticed...a deserted finches nest..... but the spiders had made use of it to catch their prey flying by ...how i love nature

Peaches to eat.... a feast for the belly

the weather... drenching us one day and warming us the next....

and the peach fragrance drifting of the soft sunny breeze as we picked...... did you get some????

we gave them all away..

but i did manage to bottle 14 bottles and make peach,pineapple and ginger jam...all this afternoon.... ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ yes i am tired!!!!!