We have a peach tree in the backyard. We planted it four years ago. The first year it did nothing. The second year, a few peaches sprang up; the squirrels and bugs got most of them but we ate about three small but wonderfully juicy peaches. Last year a late winter freeze killed off all but one blossom, and that peach disappeared sometime during the summer (I was busy gestating, and didn't notice when). This year, we've hit the motherlode. I noticed the plethora of blossoms in the spring and realized I'd have to prune fruits off, since the tree still isn't very big. I did prune, but not enough; most of our peaches are small, closer to apricot size than the peaches you get in the store. But there are a lot of them, and they're beautiful, and they're very nearly ripe.
Chloë and I went out yesterday and picked a couple. At first she was more interested in the leaves. But when I had a dark red peach in my hand, she made her video-game-like "dzuh?" sound, and when I bit into it, she squealed because she didn't have some. I bit the fuzzy skin off and held the peach out to her. She opened her mouth wide, trying to take a bite. She didn't succeed at first, but she scraped off some of the flesh and got some juice, more dribbling down her chin and my hand. Then she got an actual chunk off and started to choke on it, so I discarded that peach and fetched one of the soft peaches we'd bought from the store several days ago. This one was no problem for her. We stood over the sink, juice dripping everywhere, as she plowed through the fruit. She was sad when it was gone. (She didn't eat the whole thing. Part of it was bruised, and I like peaches, too.)
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