Peaches for FREE!

Yesterday I went to Sauvy Island and picked peaches at a friend's grandma's property. It was an opportunity that I accidently found out about on Saturday, and was able to get in on just in time. We met up in the morning at 10 AM and carpooled over. Jack suggested that I take two rubbermaid totes to fill, but with the limited space in the van we shared, I thought one would be plenty. My friend had warned me that the peach crop wasn't very good this year, and that the season was near the end, so the quality wouldn't be great. But who can complain about that when the price is FREE! Besides, he was so wrong!

We arrived at the beautiful acreage on the island. Flowers, pears, grapes, corn, pumpkins, apples, peaches, marionberries... is there anything this grandma DOESN'T grow? We pulled up to the peach orchard and grabbed our containers. The whole way over, little Benjamin (almost 4) couldn't stop talking about seeing the horse and feeding it. He'd been here before and had his mind set on ONE thing. My friend was right about the peaches on the trees not being so plentiful, but the ground was covered with eligible peaches. Right away, however, I noticed that honey bees were interested in the same thing as I was. Luckily, they wanted to rotting ones, and I didn't.

There was one slight problem with sharing the crowded space under the short and stalky peach trees with bees: Benjamin liked stepping on them. Yep! He decided it would be fun to smash the bees with this tough looking cowboy boots. After many warnings, the inevitable happened. He got stung by one. Since these were honey bees, one still was all it had, and luckily, only one got mad enough to sting him. And though his father is deathly allergic, and mom doesn't know her allergy because she's never been stung, he had no allergic reaction. Praise God!

We continued collecting peaches, and in no time my tote was full. We loaded the van, and went to thank and visit with grandma for a bit, and then headed home. Now the next phase began... prepping for the freezer. I napped until about 5:30, went to visit a friend until 7:30 and then started the project. A bit late to start a project like this, you might say? Nay! We usually take on big food projects late at night. We usually get through them :) I peeled, pared, sliced and de-pitted. Jack went to pick up the quart freezer bags (we thought we had them in stock.. doh!), and fruit fresh powder. When we had all the ingredients we sugared and packed for the freezer. 7 or 8 quarts was the yield from half of the peaches, we'll do the other part on Tuesday night when the rest of them ripen.

Oh, and by the way, we tested a few. So juicy!