I have a confession to make: the main reason why I can be as lazy as I am around here is my husband. He loves to spend his weekends digging in the dirt, doing home improvement projects–basically anything that keeps him outside and moving.
One of his favorite things to do is to care for his fruit trees. Bone meal, blood meal, copper spray, pruning, thinning–he can spend hours out there with his trees, lovingly tending to them. When we first moved here, he immediately ordered thirty bare root fruit trees. He then spent his Christmas break digging thirty tree holes by hand, which is especially impressive when you consider that he’s basically a code monkey at his day job.
(He got smart after that and bought a tractor.)
The fruit has been coming on those trees, and many more that he’s added since then, and it has been glorious. Peaches, apricots, and plums so far, and I haven’t had to harvest a single one. You see, he does all that for me. I would blush, but I am pretty shameless, and having a man bring you homegrown fruit straight from the tree is pretty divine.
The white peaches (pictured above) have been hands the most delectable fruit I have ever had. So perfectly sweet and juicy, with just the right hint of spice and sun. I would wish for them all year long, but then I know I wouldn’t appreciate them so much when they do come around. I wish we had enough to make bellinis, but I don’t think they’ll last until I can get to the store again.
In my first novel, I have several scenes involving peaches and the heroine offers the hero a peach as a gift not once, but twice. There’s a scene near the end where she offers him a peach to express everything she cannot say and thereby save their marriage. I won’t tell if it works or not, but every time I read that scene, it breaks my heart all over again.
But my heart won’t be breaking tonight when I eat one of those fine white peaches for dessert.