End of Summer

It's bounty time here in Traverse City and I find myself busy, busy, busy.  I've been shucking corn, boiling tomatos, slicing cucumbers, picking blueberries, peaches and everything else that I can possibly find.  It's a bit of a mad house, in a way.  There is so much fresh food that is coming into season, that it is hard to find time for other things... like bathing! Like taking care of the doggie... oh well... winter is for that!

So, my sister and her daughter were up last weekend and we picked some peaches.  Okay, we picked a half bushel of white peaches and red havens. It took all of 20 minutes and our bushel was full of firm and luscious orangey peaches...  It was fun.  These gals should be farm hands...

 

I'm thinking of peach compote, peach pie, maybe peach and raspberry crisp... peach butter...

oh my...Here is a beautiful poem about the summer harvest...

From Blossoms

From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach.

There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

- Li-Young Lee