Pickin' Peaches

This weekend we headed to Linvilla Orchards for their peach festival. I was in the mood for something small-town and so we gave it a shot. Since it was their peach festival I was hoping for a huge party; peach pie contests, cobbler galore, games, and anything else remotely peachy. Unfortunately the only party game going on was hula-hooping. Hm... Oh well. Instead we got to see about a dozen different breeds of chickens and fed ducks swimming in green slime. Not quite what we were hoping for. We did find one sample of peach cobbler and bought an apple cider slushy which was pretty good. The highlight of the day however was the peach picking. I knew that you could pick your own produce but I didn't realize it would be so much fun. We hopped on the tractor and started the long ride out into the orchards. Cambrie thought the tractor was too "tippy" at first and didn't like it until we told her it was a bumpy ride instead, then she thought it was fun. We hopped off in the peach orchards and started picking peaches. Cambrie really wanted to help. Jeremy and I would find some that were "squishy" then she would pull them from the tree. We didn't expect Cambrie to squeeze the peaches so hard when pulling them off that she would leave little finger holes in the ripe ones. Oops. There were a couple times she just picked the closest peach near her and we ended up buying a few yellow rocks of peaches. They'll ripen right? After we were done with the peaches the tractor continued to the apple orchard, then the blueberry and blackberry patches, the grape vines, and the vegetable patch. Each fruit brought back a memory of my childhood. The peaches reminded me of the peach tree we had in our backyard and the barrels of delicious peaches we got each year. The apples reminded my of my Grandma Stratford's house. Her neighbor had an apple tree that had some limbs that grew over the fence. As kids we decided these were fair game and loved eating them. I love that slightly grainy tart taste of home grown apples! The grape vines reminded me of taking care of the ward farm in Layton. We were in charge of the grapes and I remember eating as many as I picked when I went with my parents. Mmm..those were good.

So even though the festival wasn't what I had imagined, we still had a great time and Cambrie loved being in the orchards. We came home and made some tasty peach cobbler of our own with our newly picked produce and it made the whole day worth it!