Any sunny day in the Blue Ridge Mountains is a good day. The drive is full of “Windshield Snapshot Moments.” When I’m not the one driving, I’m grabbing for the camera to take pictures of Pilot Mountain, or the Blue Ridge line, or the open road and blue sky, or some trees.
I like day trips to orchard rich areas in the Blue Ridge Mountains and stops into road side produce stands. You know, it really wasn’t that long ago there would be shop after shop, stand after stand, even pickup truck after pickup truck full of produce – corn, pumpkins, beans, melons, apples, and peaches lining the winding mountain roads.
Now-a-days, the produce stands are fewer but larger, and one of my favorites is right over the Virginia border. Part greenhouse, part supermarket, part candy store – I could meander through this place for hours just looking at all the flowers and foods.
Honey bees and wasps hover near the blooms on the flowers and zip in and out of fruit baskets outside. People wary of bees and wasps zip in and out of the aisles
But the best part, for me, it the incredible mixture of the wonderful, sweet scents just hanging in the humid summer air. As strong and thick as that combined perfume is overall, certain fruits command center stage with their appearance and their scents. And as impressive as that crate of melons looks below, that wasn’t the show stopper today.
Today, small handwritten paper notes proclaimed the dedication of a full quarter of the huge outside covered porch for “Local Yellow Peaches.” Bags, buckets, and baskets full of fuzzy fruit sat row after row, filling the summer air with the scent of changing seasons and a promise of cooler days. These were HUGE, and they were all just the right ripeness – no mush in any of the baskets we looked through.
Here’s the thing: For over 30 years I haven’t liked peaches. Really – Not in their pure form, not in cobbler, not in milkshakes, not in ice cream, not at all willing to give them the slightest chance to re-enter my accepted foods. Most everyone else in my family likes peaches but not me. I think I must have had too many at one point in my childhood. So, when we made cobbler tonight I wasn’t expecting to have any, let alone like it.
~ But that was sooooo two cups ago ~
My husband just shook his head, laughed a little, and said “But you don’t like peaches”. I just told him the cobbler was good and took another bite. No time for chit-chat when I’ve got to make up for decades of denial! Y.U.M.!!
And just like that, with a coffee cup full of zesty, tangy, delicious peach cobbler, the day ends on such a sweet note. Here’s hoping for more adventures to burst through other entrenched mindsets and habits that may be interfering with something wonderful or delicious, or both.
- View of Pilot Mountain From the West, Traveling East ~ Because one can never have too many photographs of Pilot Mountain.
Goodbye Blue Ridge ~ Until next time!
Kelly's keyboard 