You know the saying, "Simple minds, simple pleasures." That's a pretty good description of me most of the time. Those who know me understand that the reasons I get excited are not always the most exciting to others. You have been warned!
Last night we were enjoying the beautiful, post-rainstorm weather and I was playing Traffic Jam while sitting in the shade of our fruit trees. As I was sitting there it occurred to me and Angel that we had no idea when we should pick the fruit. She checked the USU extension site and started describing what the fruit should look like. I was thinking, "Hey! Our peaches kind of look like that. Hey! Our apple are about that color. Hey! The pears are kind of how they described them." So, we started poking and prodding (or rather pulling and gently squeezing) and ended up with a decent collection of peaches and apples. The pears were not quite ready to leave the tree, but they will be soon.
We brought them in and made a fruit salad for dinner. I was also able to prepare the remaining peaches for freezing/lunches. We need to research additional ways of preserving fruit as we have limited experience and time to do it. Freezing is easy and we love putting the frozen fruit in smoothies for breakfast or milkshakes. I often silently thank Darpa and Muscles for their wedding gift of a nice blender whenever I make a breakfast smoothie. Darpa is quite the master of "blender" drinks and so felt that every couple should have a good blender. I'm looking forward to putting them in my drinks. We'll have to look into it a bit more, but I think we will need to thin the peaches early in the season. The largest we found on our tree is smaller than my fist (which is a decent size) but most are about the same size as a large apricot.
That is easy for the peaches, but the pears and apples don't freeze well. My father often makes (or helps my mother make) Pear Honey, a mixture of pears, pineapples, and sugar that you cook down and bottle. It's great on toast and other breads, and I imagine that it wouldn't be a bad marinade or dessert filling/topper. That is what I would like to do with our pears.
.JPG "A loaded pear tree. If a partridge shows up, it's going to be dinner.")
We happen to have three apple trees and they appear to be different varieties. We believe that one is a gala apple, but don't know what the other two are (one looks like a green delicious). Angel wants to do fruit leather and I would love to do apple butter or apple juice concentrate. We'll have to borrow equipment either way, so we'll see how many apples we get and what we can do.
We are very excited about having fresh fruit and have been hoping to get fruit trees in the past. Moving into a house with fruit trees was an added bonus. This weekend is Peach Days in Brigham City and it's kind of cool that we have a peach tree as well. So excited!
Last night we were enjoying the beautiful, post-rainstorm weather and I was playing Traffic Jam while sitting in the shade of our fruit trees. As I was sitting there it occurred to me and Angel that we had no idea when we should pick the fruit. She checked the USU extension site and started describing what the fruit should look like. I was thinking, "Hey! Our peaches kind of look like that. Hey! Our apple are about that color. Hey! The pears are kind of how they described them." So, we started poking and prodding (or rather pulling and gently squeezing) and ended up with a decent collection of peaches and apples. The pears were not quite ready to leave the tree, but they will be soon.
We brought them in and made a fruit salad for dinner. I was also able to prepare the remaining peaches for freezing/lunches. We need to research additional ways of preserving fruit as we have limited experience and time to do it. Freezing is easy and we love putting the frozen fruit in smoothies for breakfast or milkshakes. I often silently thank Darpa and Muscles for their wedding gift of a nice blender whenever I make a breakfast smoothie. Darpa is quite the master of "blender" drinks and so felt that every couple should have a good blender. I'm looking forward to putting them in my drinks. We'll have to look into it a bit more, but I think we will need to thin the peaches early in the season. The largest we found on our tree is smaller than my fist (which is a decent size) but most are about the same size as a large apricot.
That is easy for the peaches, but the pears and apples don't freeze well. My father often makes (or helps my mother make) Pear Honey, a mixture of pears, pineapples, and sugar that you cook down and bottle. It's great on toast and other breads, and I imagine that it wouldn't be a bad marinade or dessert filling/topper. That is what I would like to do with our pears.
.JPG "A loaded pear tree. If a partridge shows up, it's going to be dinner.")
We happen to have three apple trees and they appear to be different varieties. We believe that one is a gala apple, but don't know what the other two are (one looks like a green delicious). Angel wants to do fruit leather and I would love to do apple butter or apple juice concentrate. We'll have to borrow equipment either way, so we'll see how many apples we get and what we can do.
We are very excited about having fresh fruit and have been hoping to get fruit trees in the past. Moving into a house with fruit trees was an added bonus. This weekend is Peach Days in Brigham City and it's kind of cool that we have a peach tree as well. So excited!
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