summer goodness straight from the branch

It was a cool overcast 68 degree morning in mid-July.  The humidity had strangely disappeared the last few days, but really there was no complaining here.  We decided it was the perfect day to make the hour trek west through farm country to the orchard to pick peaches.  We were the first car to arrive and waited for the rope to come down to 'open'.  Once we were in we were informed that hayrides were free out to the peach orchards.  I was hesitant as allergies are not my friend to the ole hay, but with a little convincing from Joe we hopped on since the peach orchards were quite a walk.  There were a whopping 7 of us on this tractor hayride to take us to those glorious sun ripened peaches just waiting to be picked straight from the branch.  This was the first day of opening so you could imagine the peaches were in quite the numbers.  We spent an hour wandering and soaking in the peach orchard that was coupled with magnificent weather.  especially for july or any summer day for that matter.

During the tractor ride back we decided that since we were here we may as well pick grapes.  We headed back to the barn to get our grape picking instructions along with a seedless grape sample that confirmed our decision to go to the grape vineyards.  While we were getting our instructions we asked how we knew the grapes were ripe and they told us to just taste one.  The first one Joe tried was definitely not ripe and spit it out rather quickly as it was a Concord grape that still had another month of ripening.  We continued to wander and finally found those sweet little seedless grapes and snipped a few bunches to take home with us.  These were THE BEST grapes I have ever tasted.

We checked out with a little less than a half bushel of peaches (~17lbs), 2.5lbs of grapes and two honey sticks to go.  Those peaches will be canned for the out of season months to make endless peach cobblers.  Can't blame us for that, right?

You can find more posts here: Amanda English Photography