We're having an odd sort of holiday this year. The Fourth is on a Tuesday, which may be the worst possible option, and my husband, an ophthalmologist, was on call for the weekend and still is for today. For the first year in a long, long time, we are not hosting a big family celebration. My sister's heavily pregnant, my brother's preparing to take his young family on vacation to South America, my parents were just here for my birthday, and my husband's dad is in the midst of moving houses. Also everyone has to be back at work early Wednesday morning, and many people, my husband included, are working today. (As am I, as far as that goes. But my schedule is very flexible.) So while the Fourth of July and surrounding days are usually all about fireworks, baseball, and my husband's famous firecracker ice cream--this year, we still have no idea how we're spending tomorrow. Some of that will depend on what happens with my husband's call. July Fourth is the worst possible holiday for ophthalmology call, because between fireworks, barbecues, and alcohol, there are so many opportunities to put out an eye.
All that is not to say that I'm not having a perfectly fine day. I've really enjoyed the farm this week. I'm back to riding, my mare got her hocks injected and is feeling spry, the weather's gorgeous and my daughter is home. I'm writing, and the early reviews of TWIFW are good.
Also we have peaches.
Nineteen years ago, when my husband and I first bought the open fields that would become our farm, we planted a fruit orchard. We really enjoyed gardening at the time and we had lovely homesteading ideas about life on a farm. Many things about the farm panned out as expected--the horses, the barn the hay fields--but the orchard turned out to be a bit of a miss. Orchards take a lot of work, and where we live, that work is quite often not rewarded--two or three years out of every five, late frosts zap our blossoming trees, and then there's no fruit. You're supposed to spray orchards on a regular schedule but we never get around to it--I like to call it organic farming, not neglect--and the plum trees caught some awful disease, and mostly if there's fruit at all the deer eat it. I don't really care. I usually have a whole host of things that need to be done and the orchard perpetually falls farther down the list than I get, and I've made peace with that. I grow some asparagus and some blueberries and I really really need to weed or till or something there, and I don't, and so far the world has not come to an end.
But this year, for the first time ever, our trees are packed with peaches. Large, healthy, luscious peaches. Hundreds of peaches. We're making forays into the orchard every few days to pick the peaches that are ready. I'm lining them up on the kitchen counter. We're making peach smoothies and peach clafoutis and I'm starting to contemplate peach jam. I made strawberry jam this summer, for the first time in a few years. (We long ago gave up trying to grow strawberries, mostly because there's a local farmer who grows gorgeous ones and sells them at a stand on the Volunteer Parkway, and his are so much better than anything I can grow. They're so much better than store-bought, too. Word spreads around town late every spring when the strawberry stand goes up, and I buy them every few days as long as they're on sale.)
Anyway, I'm rambling. I knew I would be rambling. It's a rambling sort of day.
Enjoy the fireworks, everyone, but wear your safety glasses. Trust me on that.
All that is not to say that I'm not having a perfectly fine day. I've really enjoyed the farm this week. I'm back to riding, my mare got her hocks injected and is feeling spry, the weather's gorgeous and my daughter is home. I'm writing, and the early reviews of TWIFW are good.
Also we have peaches.
Nineteen years ago, when my husband and I first bought the open fields that would become our farm, we planted a fruit orchard. We really enjoyed gardening at the time and we had lovely homesteading ideas about life on a farm. Many things about the farm panned out as expected--the horses, the barn the hay fields--but the orchard turned out to be a bit of a miss. Orchards take a lot of work, and where we live, that work is quite often not rewarded--two or three years out of every five, late frosts zap our blossoming trees, and then there's no fruit. You're supposed to spray orchards on a regular schedule but we never get around to it--I like to call it organic farming, not neglect--and the plum trees caught some awful disease, and mostly if there's fruit at all the deer eat it. I don't really care. I usually have a whole host of things that need to be done and the orchard perpetually falls farther down the list than I get, and I've made peace with that. I grow some asparagus and some blueberries and I really really need to weed or till or something there, and I don't, and so far the world has not come to an end.
But this year, for the first time ever, our trees are packed with peaches. Large, healthy, luscious peaches. Hundreds of peaches. We're making forays into the orchard every few days to pick the peaches that are ready. I'm lining them up on the kitchen counter. We're making peach smoothies and peach clafoutis and I'm starting to contemplate peach jam. I made strawberry jam this summer, for the first time in a few years. (We long ago gave up trying to grow strawberries, mostly because there's a local farmer who grows gorgeous ones and sells them at a stand on the Volunteer Parkway, and his are so much better than anything I can grow. They're so much better than store-bought, too. Word spreads around town late every spring when the strawberry stand goes up, and I buy them every few days as long as they're on sale.)
Anyway, I'm rambling. I knew I would be rambling. It's a rambling sort of day.
Enjoy the fireworks, everyone, but wear your safety glasses. Trust me on that.
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