Peaches

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All Peached Out

Whew!  I brought 3 bushels of peaches home on Thursday.  Friday we canned the bruised ones but the rest were too green.  Saturday they were looking pretty good but we had a family gig most of the day followed by church in the evening.  That takes us to Sunday morning.  Early Sunday morning followed Sunday afternoon followed by a nap.

32 quarts of peaches, 17 quarts of pie filling, 6 pints of peach salsa, 4 pints of peach and dewberry jam, 7 gallons of frozen peaches, we gave away peaches to family and ate so many we all foundered.  There may have also been a peach daiquiri in there too…

What’s the fun of working if there is no reward for hard work?  What sounds good to you?  I say we have peach sundaes on homemade goat milk ice cream piled on top of waffles!

…or if you’re 7 you can scoop it up into a waffle cone.  The kids were pretty well peached out at this point and opted for chocolate syrup and carmel on their ice cream.

I have done harder work.  I have worked longer hours.  But standing in a hot kitchen on a hot day holding hot, sticky peaches wears on the body.  Mom reminded me that the old timers would put up 100 quarts of everything.  Here’s to the old timers.  Thanks to mom and Aunt Marion for helping out this weekend.

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Putting up Peaches

Peach preserves, peach pie filling, peach halves, sliced peaches…

I made arrangements to buy 3 bushels of peaches from Calhoun county.  That’s a lot of peaches.  We’ll be busy for a couple of days so please forgive me if I don’t keep things updated here.  This is me practicing what I preach.  I’m stocking up.  I’m buying locally.  I’m buying in bulk from a small farmer (my co-worker’s father-in-law).  They are not organic.  I’m sure they have been sprayed but this will do until we get our own orchard planted.

Each box (pictured below) is half a bushel.  Half a bushel makes about 9 quarts of canned peaches.  Sterilize and fill each jar, pour in hot syrup and place in a hot water bath for 30 minutes.  Not much to it, just a lot of work.

It’s scald, peel, slice and pit over and over and over.  But, boy! they taste good.

Mom says when she was a girl my grandpa would drive to Calhoun to load up the back of the truck with peaches.  Then extended family would be in the kitchen (my kitchen) working together to put them up.  It’s hot, sticky work.  Here’s to hoping help is willing…and we don’t run out of jars…