the last harvest

I tasted some of our Fuji apples today and they are ripe!! Crunchy, sweet and juicy, just what a real apple should be. I’ll pick them tomorrow before they are swept way by the thieving birds. We have a couple of very ambitious crows that live near by. They try to grab anything that isn’t nailed down.

I smell an apple crisp in our future.

Our young orchard has been good to us this year. Planted just a few years ago, this was the first time all the trees produced a crop, albeit a small crop. It was wonderful to have fresh fruit through the spring and summer.

We started off in late May with a respectable pick of peaches. Most of them never made it to the house. We ate them while working in the garden or just sitting around watching the chickens roam the yard. There’s something about the smell of a tree ripened peach, there’s no waiting to eat it.

By July, the Pluot’s started to ripen. A pluot is a stone fruit that is a plum/apricot cross. The skin is smooth like a plum, but the flesh has a slight orange tinge to it and the texture of an apricot. They are scrumdillyumpcious.

I was not quick enough in September, when the Asian Pears were ready and a sudden wind storm blew them from their branches. By the time I found them, the bugs had already been feasting. Dang wind!

Every year, a new maturity comes over our little farm. We harvest a little more, store a little more. Our efforts are rewarded with fresh homegrown meat, eggs and produce for our kitchen. We are grateful and proud to take one more step closer to self-reliance.