Three years. It’s been three long years of no peaches on our lonely little peach tree in our front pasture. She may not be big and beautiful like you would see in a magazine, but she has strong hefty branches which hold lovely spring blossoms and mature into gorgeous juicy peaches in the spring.

What do we do with them you may ask?

We admire and adore them!  I love to pull into our driveway and see the beauty of our plentiful bounty. It’s a success to see them grow…albeit a small one…it counts.  I’m actually pretty proud of myself for noticing anything considering I have two kids trying to kill each other in the back seat, but I do.  You know it’s the ‘little things’ sometimes, and we could really use those ‘little things’ these days at our house.  So yes, it makes me happy to see them grow and see the reward of their beauty, and yes, they make me smile!

We eat and cook them! There is nothing better than the smell of a freshly pulled peach from the branch! Or a peach cobbler – yummm!

Do we use them all?  Not always.  Unfortunately, we don’t always get them all, but one of the most amazing surprises we received one year was a huge swarm of butterflies lightly dancing all around the lonely tree and on the ground siphoning up the plentiful nectar from the peaches.

To our disappointment, for the last 3 years our tree has been nipped by late winter freezes who come to choke the life out of our beautiful blossoms.  So, can you imagine my excitement and delight to have an incredible bounty of peaches this year on our lonely little tree!  Gorgeous!

And then....

We came home last weekend from our baseball tournament to find my little slice of happiness was taken away from me.  Ok, maybe four or so were still left on the tree, but someone came and picked my damn peaches!  Seriously???  My daughter thought I should report it to the police.  Well, I sure as hell wanted to, but could you imagine making that call?

A few days later, my husband called me when I was taking the kids to school and said he saw our culprit walking down our street with a plastic bag in his hand.  Of course he didn’t approach the man, because that would be crazy! Well, I guess it just tipped me over the edge a bit.  I sped past our house and tracked him down to the end of street, pulled over, and rolled down my window. ‘Have you been enjoying our peaches?’

The look of shock said it all, ‘What?’

‘Have you been enjoying our peaches?’ His mumble was his reply as he quickly tucked the bag to his side so I would not see.  I then began to tell him my snippet of how much we enjoyed our peaches and disappointed they were now gone.  As he mumbled and began to walk away, I offered as we rather awkwardly parted ways, ‘Ok, well have a nice day.’

See, I managed to be nice although I was steaming mad, but at least I addressed the man and called him out on his actions.  I mean, not only is it rude to walk into someone’s yard and do that, but it’s mean to take things with such disregard!  He walked into my pasture and stole somethings that makes me ‘happy.’  Dammit!

Well, my husband got mad at me for going after our culprit!  Can you believe it????

As he ‘spoke loudly’ to me on the phone…‘What are you the Peach Police?’  Maybe…‘He was an old man.’  So…..‘Now the neighbors are going to talk about us!’, and ‘I can’t believe you did that!’

Well…WTF!  I am damned if I do and damned if I don’t, but I am tired of feeling walked all over by other people and having to keep my mouth shut about it!

A little bit later, I got this text from my husband…

 

 Yep…that’s me!

Ok, my Honey gets me after all, and he thinks that I am awesome!  I am actually really proud that he recognizes these qualities in me.  So, he is forgiven…

However, to the old man who walked into my yard and stole my little piece of ‘happy’ and my smile, in the future,  Please Mister, don’t f*ck with our peaches! 

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