The Arrival of Summer Meant an Abundance of Local Fruit

Every year in late spring/early summer there was a period of a week or two when little bitty local plums and apricots became available at the market. I’m talking, fall apart in your fingers, dripping sticky juice, melt in your mouth, sugary little morsels. The apricots actually had a smell. Go ahead, smell an apricot from the super market. There’s no smell. You can’t imagine why anyone would call the store-bought odorless giants apricots once you’ve tasted these golden mini treasures with just a bit of blush on their sides. The plums were to die for. Don’t even get me started. I could eat a thousand of them like candy. As i filled the bag in the market one or two would pop open, covering the inside of the bag with moisture. It was a reminder that what i was buying didn’t need to be ripened on the counter for 4 to 5 days. I could eat them on the ride home and they were not ripened with gas in the back of a truck. They were ripened the good old fashioned way on the tree in full sun. Those sugars were well developed and ready for enjoyment. I would be tasting something that had been on the farm it was grown on just 24 hours before i bought it. Well, i didn’t get any pictures of the apricots and plums this year because i missed the one or two weeks they had them. However, i did get pictures of the fredericksburg peaches, the stonewall pears, and the kerrville figs. I prefer the brown turkey figs but their supplier was going through some family stuff and no longer brings them the fruit of their trees, so the other ones had to make do. Those pears though, solid as a rock but super sweet. I loved those stonewall pears to death. People weren’t sure about them because they were crunchy. More for me. If it was sweet and grown local, i didn’t hesitate. I bought 8 to 12 every time i saw them and munched on them for breakfast and lunch all week!