Longing for a sun-warmed tree-ripened peach

Fifty years ago right about now, the trees of eastern New Mexico were groaning with a record peach crop.

Just reading about it made my mouth water.

The Portales News-Tribune from Sunday, Aug. 12, 1973, showed Dora farmer A.W. Stolle cradling a branch loaded with Elberta peaches nearing ripeness.

“I just don’t know how the frost missed nipping those buds this year,” Stolle told the paper, “but we sneaked by the late cold spells, and we certainly have a peach crop in the making.”

Stolle and his neighbor Chris Garcia were spending the morning together that day figuring out ways to brace the overloaded branches so they wouldn’t snap before the peaches could be picked.

Judging by another front-page story exactly a week later, Stolle was not alone in expecting a bumper crop of my favorite fruit.

“A jarring situation! No canning supplies,” the headline read, with a sub headline that added, “Not a fruit jar available here.”

The newspaper had conducted a survey of local grocers and found the shelves stripped clean of jars, lids, and rings.

One grocer told the paper that his supplier had told him he had “sold more canning supplies to this date in the year in his territory than had ever been sold in a full year in the history of the manufacturer.”

My dad always swore that in this part of the world the best we could hope for was a good peach crop every 10 years or so.

I can’t document that 1973 was a good year for our old orchard but I’m betting that if the trees were loaded in Dora, that our resident mockingbirds were broadcasting news of the bounty from dawn until dusk.

As much as I relish a tree-ripened peach, it’s possible mockingbirds love them even more. In a good year, there were plenty to go around. In a tough year, I could be darned selfish about it.

I don’t have a peach tree at the moment. The old trees are long gone, and the last two of the young replacements bit the proverbial dust a few seasons back.

I’d give my eyeteeth for a sun-warmed tree-ripened peach right now.

If a mockingbird fluttered in who was as hungry for one as I am, I might even share.

Betty Williamson wishes she had a “peach crop in the making.” Reach her at:

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