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Birdland was cool and sweet. Hurricanes in the east and in the gulf sent this beautiful weather to the prairies, so there is sadness blowing on these cool breezes. We think of friends who evacuated New Orleans and friends in Brooklyn who had to choose between running downstairs to escape tornadoes and running upstairs to escape flooding.
And, of course, we remember those who couldn’t escape. Evacuation and sheltering are not always easy for everyone.
Here, in the sweet meadow, Maude, the turkey, knows what to expect. It takes 28 days for her eggs to hatch. She sits in silence and watches me from the large basket I put on the hen house floor for her nest, her tail sticking out as she covers the eight speckled eggs on her fluffy breast.
Twenty-eight days is also the length of the quarantine when I arrive in Shanghai. I could learn something about waiting for a turkey.
But first, I have to wait for my visa to arrive. This expectation is not so exact. I applied some time ago, and it may happen in a few days, a few weeks, if at all. I begin to feel sorry for myself… and then I think of others for whom a visa is life and death expectation.
Today, I hope to both pack my bags and prepare some peaches. I pour boiling water into a bowl of peaches so that the peels slide off easily. And then while it’s soaking, I go to the bedroom and take the fall clothes out of the closet and put them in my suitcase.
Our peach trees have been sterile for three years. Sometimes it was a late frost that killed the flowers, some years the trees never bloomed, like they were just taking a year off.
But what a bonus this summer! They are volunteers who climbed into the compost after transforming the peaches from the good old tree of my aunts. I planted three in a row at the edge of the field, and they gave us a delicious harvest for years, until one tree died.
This year, the peaches were ripening just as we headed to the Porkies for our annual hiking trip, and I was afraid to come home to find all the abundance rotting in the grass.
I picked up half a bushel and put it in the fridge. These were tasty, but not soft. I figured they might ripen some while we were gone, and I figured that bushel was all I would get. It was more than last year so I shouldn’t be complaining.
I also asked a friend to drop by and pick some for herself. It was so hard to think about the waste.
But they were still hanging from the tree when we got home, even though some had fallen.
But that’s not really a waste, as the ones on the ground were filled with bees and beetles burrowing into the sweet fruit, eating their fill.
I wonder if bees can use the flesh of overripe peaches. It’s as sweet as nectar. Maybe our honey will taste slightly peachy.
Our peaches are a little wormy, but I cut off the bruises or the rotten parts by the worms, as well as the stone. Chickens love peelings and worms don’t bother them.
“A little extra protein,” my mother used to say when she found a beetle in the flour while mixing pancakes.
I cook the peaches in thick butter, luxurious in its sweetness. Today I used it to sweeten a cheesecake instead of sugar. You can find my recipe at ellishg.github.io/laughing-potato/.
Now I cut this batch to dry in the oven. They look like beautiful, large prunes with a peach flavor. I dry them in the oven and then put them in jars when they are cold. A few times a day, I check them for humidity, so they don’t get moldy, and shake them to even out the humidity.
The tree contains several more and the peaches will keep me busy until my visa arrives.
I will keep some of this summer sweetness to savor next year.
Wait in Beauty; Preserve peace; Be blessed
Mary Lucille Hays lives in Birdland near White Heath. If you miss your weekly dose of Birdland Letters in The News-Gazette, you can still read them every week in the Piatt County Journal-Republican. Consider subscribing to support your small town newspaper. You can see photos from this week’s post on Instagram @BirdlandLetters. Marie can be reached at [email protected] or by regular mail to the Journal-Republican, 118 E. Washington St., Monticello, IL 61856. She would like to thank her friends for writing and will get back to you shortly.
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