The Palisade Peach Pilgrimage

I won't lie. I was in desperate need of a couple of days away from the family to rest and return rejuvenated. So when I checked online and found that this weekend was the Palisade Peach Festival on the Western Slope of Colorado, I recruited my good buddy Cathy and we planned a mommies-only road trip to the other side of the mountains.

After an excited, chatty 4 hour drive through the Rocky Mountains, we rolled into the charming town of Palisade, CO to find a historic main street featuring few quaint stores and a lovely art gallery. We picked up a brochure for the fair at a cute boutique and attempted to navigate our way to the peach festival on foot, but Cathy and I are both navigationally impaired (my husband thinks it's related to our shared hair color) and we wound up miles from the fair and ultimately had to take a shuttle to get us back on track. (We did however get an interesting, albeit sweaty tour of parts of downtown Palisade.)

Once at the peach festival, we found it lacked some of the excitement we were expecting from the peach capital of Colorado. At one point, while we munched our overpriced fair food, a voice burst over the loudspeaker to announce that the entry table was in desperate need of $1 and $5 bills, as the Palisade Bank had been robbed that morning and was thus unable to provide them with change. On the bright side, there was a textile arts fair taking place at the same venue that captivated our attention for over an hour, as we got weaving demonstrations and chatted with llama experts about raising fiber animals.

 

We left the festival and began the trek to procure the peaches we would be taking home with us. Once in the growing region, it was clear why this is such a great place for fruit! The trees were gorgeous, the topography unique and compelling, and the climate hot with abundant water. Vineyards and orchards were everywhere and the fruit stands dotted the side of the road, each one urging travelers to stop and try their home-grown goods. We felt compelled to acquiesce.

 

We cruised from stand to stand, chatting with growers, sampling fruit and haggling prices. One stand had a variety of peach called Roza, which was the most delicious peach I've ever tasted with its intensely sweet nectar soft delicate flesh that simply fell off the pit. They are a relatively large peach, and we even came across one that likely weighed over one pound! We decided we'd come back Sunday for our 10 or so boxes of ripe fruit at $15 per box.

After our fruit exploration, we spent the rest of the day getting lost on our way to the hotel. At one point, as we chatted away, enjoying the blissful experience of being able to complete a sentence without a preschooler interrupting us for a potty break, we looked up to notice a sign saying "Leaving Colorful Colorado." Apparently, in our quest to reach Grand Junction where our hotel resided, we'd failed to get off the I-70 highway and wound up in Utah. A quick (illegal) U-turn on the highway got us back on track, but it made me think that maybe my hubby is right about the hair color thing.

On Sunday, we arrived at the first pre-screened peach stand ready to buy our 10 or so boxes of Roza peaches only to discover that the vendor had just 3 boxes left of the $15 a box peaches, but she was glad to sell us the firmer, less ripe boxes for $20 a box. Grrrr.

We hussled up to the other, emergency backup stand, where we had decided to buy our pears to see if they had any of the $18 per box peaches they advertised the day before, and as with the other stand, they were "sold out" but we could buy the "better" boxes (not Rozas) for $25 each. Well, we bought our pears there (pear price was the same as the one quoted the day before) and cruised back to the first stand to pay $20 a box for our favorite flavored fruit.

We loaded up the back of the SUV and headed back over the mountains, happy, satisfied and full of peaches and stories to tell the kids.

All in all, $20 a box for the best peaches in the state isn't a bad deal, nevermind the $80 in gas and $50 for lodging we each spent making the journey. Of course, $130 for a weekend of relaxation, fun, fellowship and a break from parenting was a darned good investment in my personal sanity if you ask me.

We did make a few notes for next time:

1. Buy peaches when the price is right and the inventory is there, and then store them in the hotel room if necessary
2. Don't go to Palisade Peach Festival weekend and expect to haggle for better prices on peaches
3. Buy twice as many boxes as desired and sell them for twice the price at home to offset the fuel and lodging expense

Food swap

Last weekend, my good friend Cathy invited me to a Food Swap. I had never heard of such a thing, so I pressed her for details. It turns out, the Swap is a gathering of foodie locals who bring their home-grown or homemade delights to TRADE amongst themselves. No cash is permitted at the event, but there are no restrictions on the types of foods people can bring to swap. Samples of your wares are encouraged and definitely help seal the deal for some traders.

I agreed to go and brought with me a loaf of fresh-baked cinnamon raisin swirl bread and several jars of Wild Plum Jam I canned last fall. The flavor of the jam was divine, but I should have pureed the plums, as the skins were a tad bit tough for spreading on soft bread, so rather than have them sit in my larder indefinitely, I traded them at the swap. 

Upon arrival at the rural street-side produce stand, the venue for this month's swap, each trader was given a chance to set out their goods. Once most were set up, the facilitator announced that there would be a half hour to walk around, try samples, and list which item you wished to trade for which. Then, at the end of that time, the facilitator called out "TRADE" and everyone scrambled to make deals with other traders for their most highly prized items.

The food selection was outstanding. There were fresh herbs, baked goods, fresh chimichurri sauce and salsa, homemade cheese and ice cream, herbed butter with wild garlic, and jars of pickle relish, almond butter, flavored mustards, and jams and jellies galore. Any preconceptions I had of people trading their farm fresh eggs for a few stalks of rhubarb were blown away in the first moments of our arrival. I wasn't smart enough to bring a camera to photograph the bounty, but others were, so be sure to check out their blogs too.

The conversation at the swap was as exciting as the food items offered, as each person brought a unique set of culinary strengths and insights. One woman talked about foraging for wild garlic and mushrooms in the foothills, while another chatted about making cheese from raw, unpasteurized milk. I got the scoop on how to use fresh lemon balm for cooking, as I had only understood its medicinal uses before I sampled a delicious lemon balm pesto on a piece of dense artisan bread.

In exchange for my bread and jam, I received a bunch of fresh tarragon and fresh lemon balm, a container of fresh cut salsa, one jar of sweet pickle relish, one of strawberry-rhubarb jam, and one jar of cranberry-rosemary mustard, which was to die for.

Now I'm hooked. I can't wait for the next swap and have already begun planning what I will bring and in what quantities to maximize my trading power. Not only is a Food Swap the perfect venue to discover new foods and new ways to use the same old foods, its totally free of regulation, taxation and intrusion by the government, making it my new favorite way to spend 2 hours on a weekend. Freedom, food and friends...FANTASTIC!

Saying goodbye to an old friend

Baxter was my first child. Damaged and dysfunctional, Baxter was an unforgettable part of our family for 17 years. This is his story:

After dropping out of college, I was hired on as head instructor for an equestrian center where, in lieu of much salary, I was given a house to live in with its own fenced-in deck. Lonely and determined to be independent, I marched down to the local Humane Society and found Baxter. Sitting alone in his cell behind a sign that read "Not for adoption by families with children under 16" and another with his euthanisia scheduled for the next day, I was immediately drawn to this damaged soul. We chatted briefly before I sidled up to the adoption counter to make the commitment that I had no way of knowing would last for the next 16 years.

One of the conditions of adopting Baxter was that I enroll him in dog training classes, and this turned out to be our salvation, especially in the later years when Baxter was too deaf to respond to verbal commands. He excelled at obedience and we marched up the levels until he tried to bite our instructor for attempting to demonstrate commands on him. Despite this setback, Baxter and I went on to do well in agility training also.

Bax & Hubby on the raft

To say that Baxter and I bonded deeply is, well, an understatement. In the early months, I took him to the park every day to play "fetch." When I would throw the ball, he would bound after it for about 20 feet and then skid to a stop and come scampering back to me, forsaking the ball altogether. When I left the house, he would eat furniture and bark non-stop until the neighbors sent death threats. When we were together, he was cocky and arrogant, vigilantly defending my safety at all costs. He would tell me when the phone rang and when someone was at the door. He could open gates and jump 5 foot fences. He could tell if you were a good guy or a bad guy from a mile away, and if you were the latter, that was as far as you would get. For 14 years, he growled every night when my hubby climbed into bed next to me.

When Baxter was 2 years old, he broke his leg. By this time, I had been fired from the equestrian center, in no small  part for the vicious barking dog I owned, so we lived here and there, and partly out of my car. Baxter's accident sealed the deal. I could not leave him unattended because he would attempt to chew his leg out of the cast, and it began to look gangrenous. So, on my measly horse trainer salary I would have to take Bax to the after-hours vet clinic to have his bandage changed every night after work. As a result, Baxter rarely left the car, except for potty breaks vet stops and bedtime. The car was his home. He went everywhere with me. This didn't change until we finally settled on our acreage in Colorado.

One day, after a party for the hubby (then boyfriend) one of his friend's friends (you never can trust one of those) stuck his head in my car window to pet Baxter in the backseat. When the guy pulled his head back out, he was missing half of his nose. The attack resulted in Baxter being quarantined for 7 days, but thankfully no lawsuit ensued because, well, I was poor and underinsured...You just can't get blood from a stone, as my dad used to say.

The next several years went by without much incident. Baxter was the ring bearer at our wedding. We moved to Colorado and he settled right in. We added new dogs, but they were always just dogs. Baxter was different. Too smart for his own good, too difficult for anyone else to manage; an odd combination of needy and independent, clingy and aloof, fierce and loving.

7 years ago, Baxter went deaf. With this handicap came a strange sort of peace for the old man. Baxter was less edgy and more relaxed. I think silence allowed him to truly rest for the first time in his life. When I got pregnant with my first child, Baxter moved in with the neighbors. He would leave our house in the morning and return home at bedtime, having spent the entire day at the neighbor's house. Eventually, after we had the baby, he moved back in with us, but our relationship was never quite the same. I think he believed that he had been replaced by children. Little did he know that while my children will always have the largest spot in my heart, Bax's place as my first baby was secure.

In his latter years, Baxter established a routine which he kept until the day he died. Twice daily, he would do his "rounds," trotting down the lane to the neighbors property, marking the fence line as he went. Then back up to the street behind us, around to the other 2 neighbors along the street and back to the front door where he would bark until we opened it for him. As a result of his daily exercise, his body was lean and fit, (albeit covered in tumors and lumps in the end) for 17 years...until last Sunday.

We returned home from a weekend away celebrating our 10 year wedding anniversary and Baxter suddenly looked as though he'd lost half his body weight overnight. After I'd unpacked and had a chance to sit down, he came over, laid his head in my lap and groaned. The next morning, he had a seizure, and the day after that, he threw up every few hours, then laid in the middle of the carpet groaning. The message was clear. He was done.

Baxter 1994-2011

So last Tuesday, we said goodbye to crazy old Baxter. We laid his body to rest under the big cottonwood in the pasture, next to old Red Mule, my husband's hunting buddy. This fall, we will plant irises on his grave. He was an ornery old guy, but I do believe he had found peace for the last 5 years. Old Baxter will be missed by some, not soon forgotten by many.