The Joys of Summer: Fruit Fresh from the Tree!

Luke and I are in Alabama with Jamie and Thad and Levi.  I leave today to drive back to Michigan.  


We were here June 11 for his birthday party, stayed a week and took her home with us for ten or eleven days, and last Thursday, we arrived here to bring her back and stayed for a week to slurp up some more of Levi.  


SO, for a total of nearly a month, I have seen Levi EVERY DAY!

I've very much enjoyed our time with Levi.

Sunday we took a drive to Tennessee to a good-sized flea market there.   

I did enjoy it, but surely you people in the south melt in the summers?  I mean, I was dripping sweat just standing still!  

I know we freeze in the winter, but our summers in the north are generally more mild...and temperatures in the upper nineties are the exception and not the rule.  

HATS OFF to you who endure the hellish flames of summer heat in the deep south!  ;0)

But you are so FAR ahead of us in your crops.  Your corn is tall, has tassled, and is full of good-sized ears.  You're already picking peaches and apples.  Tomatoes and squash and green beans galore have been coming out of Jamie's garden!

The flea market had a section with fresh produce and farm stock.  That was a fun section to visit.  

It was there where I bought these beautiful, freshly picked peaches just less than perfectly ripe...I was glad about that because they'd have time to ripen and for me to get them home.  


I also got some fresh, crispy, tart green apples from a sweet little granny wearing a sunbonnet.  

My heart melts each time I go there, and she's  usually selling whatever is fresh from her garden or orchard, and she also sells preserves of all kinds.  I've bought her muscadine jelly before...yummy.

Luckily, she was dressed for the weather had on her little loose cotton house dress and was under a canopy, and grandpa was with her in his overalls, and they were cuter 'n a bug's ear:  the epitome of what I picture of southern grandparents:  hardworking, resourceful, and sweet...

Jamie's impatiens sit on her porch inside an old tool carrier with a rope handle....

Tell me, what is YOUR favorite food to make using fresh peaches?