Counters Full of Peaches

I hope your summer is going well! You may remember our fall apple outing from a previous post… Well, last summer, and now this summer, we’ve also been very excited to have the opportunity to buy fresh, local peaches! My brother’s family lives right next to an orchard of about 600 peach trees and he knows the man who manages them. My brother has been so kindly picking peaches up from the orchard for us and it has been such a treat!

Through the years, with the peach business being a tradition in our county and also in our family, peaches have been special. I love taking a fuzzy peach, blushing with sunshine, in my hand and, first, just savor the delightful fragrance. Then, I peel it. Then, I eat it, inhaling its tantalizing scent, while savoring the sweet juices. It’s like a globe of concentrated summer…bliss!

So, what’s my favorite way to enjoy peaches? One at a time.

But, when you’re blessed with a counter-full of them, it’s very exciting to put them up to enjoy when peach season is but a memory. One of our favorite ways to put up peaches is to peel and slice them, add a touch of citric acid (to prevent excess browning, if desired), and freeze the slices in quart-sized freezer bags. In the wintertime, we can pop them out, sweeten with a touch of honey or maple syrup, and enjoy them on waffles, pancakes, or yogurt! Very simple and versatile.

This year, we were inspired by my sister-in-love to make peach preserves without pectin. You slice the peaches into a large pot, sweeten them with honey, and then cook the mixture down to your desired consistency. From there, you ladle it into pint jars, add rings and lids, then can them in a water bath. In addition to the preserves, we also dried some peach slices, in anticipation of fried peach pies – maybe this fall?!

Of course, we’ve enjoyed the peaches fresh in luscious glazed pies, fresh salsa, smoothies, on salad, and, just by the slice!

The melons have been having a great year, too! We enjoyed an especially excellent, sweet, juicy cantaloupe today with my niece for lunch. This past weekend, my brother’s family brought the first Orangeglo watermelon from their patch for us to enjoy together with sticky fingers and faces…just the way a hot summer Sunday afternoon should be! What a gift.

Today, we received a much-needed rain shower! After the rain, I went out and picked the raspberries, which were bowed down under their load of fruit and precious rain.

As I picked, I was thinking of some things that have happened in my family’s lives lately, and about the importance of how we treat other people. What is the spiritual fruit we are bearing in our relationships with others? When people see me and the way I treat them, what is it they see?

Jesus makes it clear people’s true heart is revealed in the way they live. In the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 7:16-20, Jesus says: “…Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them.”

We know that good fruit, like a well-ripened summer peach, is a pleasure in every way. It looks and feels beautiful, it smells and tastes delicious! A bad fruit, like a gingko fruit, perhaps, or a tree that never brings any fruit to maturity before it rots, it not a benefit to anyone. 

Philippians 2:3-5 says: “Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus…”

This calls for some “fruit inspection” in my life! Does the fruit in my life manifest the works of the flesh, in looking out for my self at the expense of others? Or, is it the pure fruit of the Holy Spirit, fruit which only comes as we abide in Jesus?

Galatians 6:22-25 says: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.”

God is glorified as we bear His good fruit, which, far more precious than any peach, will last for eternity!

Thank you so much for visiting the blog today!

Please join the conversation… What’s your favorite way to eat a peach? Are you preserving any produce this summer? What are your thoughts about our actions being like fruit? What have you been pondering lately?

Because of Jesus,
Maggie ♥