Peachy Keen

Today was such a full day that it may take me several days to tell you about it. I took off early this morning for my mom's house in middle Georgia. The ultimate destination? Peaches. There's a farm with a packing house about thirty minutes from where she lives. The freestone peaches have just become available this week. They don't do any processing at this location -- just packing. Although I've lived in Georgia all my life, this is the first time I've gone to a peach farm to get peaches. I usually just buy them at the grocery store like everyone else.Here's a front view of the open-air building as we pulled up. We went around to the back because from there, you can pack your own box/bag/pail of rejected peaches at a dirt cheap price. They package only the perfect ones for (apparently) supermarket sales. Many of the rejected peaches are perfect albeit small. Others have small, surface imperfections. And then some come down the conveyor belt with their guts oozing out or even totally exploded. We passed on those. Here's the back view of the conveyor system sending the rejected peaches out to waiting hands. The ones that the customers also reject land in the large white pins you see in front.Here are the employees who are removing the imperfect peaches from the packing line and sending them down the belt to waiting people like Mama and me.
We were initially squeezed in toward the end of the conveyor belt, but as people loaded up their boxes and left, we were able to move up to the beginning of the line. Here I am with my box nearly full. Mama had already filled hers, which left her free to make the picture. (And then she helped fill my box.)
From the front part of the building, there are rocking chairs where you can enjoy homemade peach ice cream (for sale) and sit and watch the packing operations.


Here's a short video of the packing operation. You can see the peaches dropping through the size-sorter. The man riding the platform across the conveyor is freeing a peach that had become stuck.


Here's a little church birdhouse. This wasn't for sale, but in addition to peach ice cream (to be consumed on-site only), you can buy fried peach pies (yummy, yummy, but I refrained), peach taffy, peach salsa (I had a taste there, and had to buy a jar), t-shirts, and other peach-themed stuff.Here are the peaches I came home with (and gave some to Emily) for only $5. A box of perfect ones cost $18. They will require another 2-3 days of ripening to be just right. I've already bought my Fruit Fresh so I can get these into the freezer. Oh, yes.... one more peach. (I'm sorry I couldn't get my face in there any better, but the face hole was about waist-high on me, so I had a little trouble getting down there. And more trouble getting back up.)