Monday, June 17, 2024

Tastes like summer

A sign at the farm stand said the peaches were "so fresh the juice will run down your arms," but at first they were so hard I had to seal them in a paper bag to ripen up for a couple of days. Finally, though, they were soft enough to live up to their hype so I transformed them into possibly the best peach pie I've ever made, with a touch of ginger in the filling and a nearly-perfect crust. I always feel like I need a bath after peeling and slicing peaches and I keep finding sticky spots in the kitchen where the juice splattered, but good gracious me there's nothing better than a good peach pie. Tastes like summer.

Feels like summer too. I went out to mow around 7 a.m. to beat the heat, but the humidity was already oppressive. By the time I'd finished mowing, I was drenched with sweat and the air was too thick to breathe. Heat wave! But from the big front window I can see my bottlebrush buckeye just getting ready to blossom and I'm eager to get back out there when it starts attracting butterflies, birds, and hummingbird moths.

We had a subdued Fathers Day because my husband works on Sunday mornings and comes home wanting to do nothing but sleep, but this one was even more complicated because of some sad news: his aunt, who has been ill for some time, died early Sunday morning. This would be a real loss to the family even if she were just an aunt, but she is the aunt who helped raise my husband and his two brothers after their parents died, the aunt who encouraged my husband to develop his musical gifts and paid for his voice lessons, the aunt who was everyone's cheerleader and never had a negative word to say about anyone. She will be sorely missed.

So now we await word on when the funeral will take place. Once again a loved one has had the audacity to die without checking my schedule first, but I will not be so petty as to complain about the timing. Instead I'll complain about the weather. After all, that's what it's there for.

Better yet, I'll nab a piece of that peach pie--the sweetness of summer in every mouthful.

3 comments:

nicoleandmaggie said...

Condolences to your husband. She sounds like a truly amazing woman.

Bev said...

Thanks. She was pretty amazing.

Garry said...

The Scripture I shared at the funeral was Psalm 81:16. The portion that spoke of her was that God gave honey as one of His gifts to His faithful people. My aunt was sweet to us.