Nectarines and Peaches.....................

Yesterday (July 22, 2006) I had the incredible luck (Except for the 108 degree HEAT) to pick very special Nectarines and Peaches from Bradford Farms in Le Grand. The Bradfords (Norman, Audrey and their son Glen) have been nice enough to let my family pick fruit here since back in the 1960's, but I had a big "gap" of over 30 years until last July when I did it once again. I was invited back again this year, and was able to pick fruit from their "breeding grounds" - where they develop new and WONDERFUL varieties of all sorts of fruit (nectarines, peaches, apricots, plums, plum-cots, almonds and cherries). I brought back lots of wonderful red, white, and yellow fleshed nectarines and peaches. They are sweet, juicy, and full of flavor - unlike anything I have ever purchased anywhere. It's fun to have varieties of nectarines and peaches that are not available to the public - they are new "creations", not yet for sale.
Because my favorite nectarines (Bradfords) have always matured in July near my birthday, I consider them a GREAT birthday present each year that I am fortunate enough to pick on their land. I have such good memories of picking them, eating them, and then on my birthday adding them to homemade ice cream! Yum! Lots of good memories.
My only fear is that I will eat too many of these "jewels" - it's hard to stop!

Here's another dolphin family (or pod) with father, mother, and two kids, one slightly older (larger) than the other. I laid on the sandy bottom waiting for this sort of thing to swim over me. You cannot easily control them, you just have to be patient and wait until they swim into your viewfinder. One of the hardest things to do is keep them there - many pictures are bad because a beak or tail is cut off due to the fact that these creatures never stop swimming, and they move pretty fast much of the time......patience is important!

Dolphin family, the older father on bottom, young one in the middle, the top. They are Atlantic Spotted Dolphins, photographed on my trip(s) to the Bahamas in 1992 and 1993. These wild dolphins are much more fun to swim with than trained dolphins and they choose to swim with you of their own free will, not for food like the trained ones...........they are fun!