Fruit this season

from our back door steps, I see the black-eyed Susans in their prime, a pear tree, fig + apple on the far right and peach on the left, grapes beside me

small helping hands with smiles

our grapes are ready, but are pulpy + have many dark spots and so, we are letting the birds feast, saw a bright red cardinal enjoying them and our chickens peck what has fallen to the ground.

We have just a couple apples.  Our fig looks nice, I hope the new owners will get to pick them as they'll be ripe in another month.  Sadly, the squirrels got almost all our peaches.  A year ago right now, we had many sweet ripe peaches and we ate them fresh, I made peach crisp.

Many pears are falling off the tree right now and they are not soft, but I read that to make poached pears, one wants hard pears.  I also found this recipe for preserved peaches:  https://southernforager.blogspot.com/2013/08/what-to-do-with-hard-pears.html?m=1

Our nearby public school started today.  We will be homeschooling starting after the move.  Nothing intense, mostly reading books and working on math.  Life is full of science opportunities outdoors.  One of our daughters will start university classes next week and the other is moving to the west coast.  Having two children who are adults, now, is hard, I still worry about them, but remind myself that I was once like them, wishing to spread my wings and see the world, so I pray.