{p,h,f,r}: The Orchard Edition

One of my favorite things about the summer is the abundance, the fecundity.  Everything is dark green and growing and ripening.  

I took the children to one of our favorite orchards recently, where, with the help of the beloved GeeGee, we got some delicious peaches.  And by delicious, I mean you will never find anything like what we picked off the tree in any grocery store anywhere. Ever.  These peaches tasted like you were biting into a piece of sunshine.  

The orchard has a family friendly weekly story time, where the children listen to a story and then go out into the orchard to pick whatever fruit happens to be ripe that week.  This farm grows just about everything, from apples and peaches to quince and blackberries and anything in between.  We go in every season except the dead of winter.

Fiver, a true peach devotee, was the first to fill his box.  The "orchard lady" (as Sally called her) told the kids they could probably fit 7-9 peaches in their boxes. Fiver got 11.

Francie helped Bun, who managed to have several orchard related mishaps that led to a couple of bloody knees and his greatly diminished enthusiasm for the actual picking.

Sally doesn't love peaches, which seems odd since she enjoys eating just about everything else, but she loves the farm and being outdoors.  She disappeared in the trees with GeeGee and came out with a box full of peaches. She told me, "I don't like to eat them, but I sure like picking them."  Then she thanked the "orchard lady" for letting her pick fruit that she doesn't even eat.  She's one a million.

"Tyger! tyger! burning bright/ In the forests of the night,/ What immortal hand or eye/Could frame thy fearful symmetry  . . ."     That's Mopsy for you.

 Poor Bun.  He wiped out on the hill up to the trees and managed to scrape up both knees.  Then he tripped on a fallen peach hidden in the grass and hit his head on the trunk of the tree.  Beware the hazards of pick-your-own fruit!!

Plus it was hot.  Really, really hot.  Or maybe he's just in mourning for the sad, sad state of his Phillies this year.

Of course, as is always the case, not everything was idyllic.  There was a lot of the usual whining (did I mention the +90 temps?) and spilling of drinks and running from bees and herding of cats that comes with the territory.  But this is {p,h,f,r} so I'm just ignoring all that.  It's not the important part anyway.

The important part was being together in a lovely place full of God's goodness.  And riding down the orchard hill in the bed of GeeGee's truck.  The kids thought that was pretty awesome too.

Head over to see how some other nice folks enjoy pretty, happy, funny, real times.