Mmmmm Fredericksburg peaches

In addition to the chicks moving out, I got a few other things done over the last few days. I finally got the kids out to Fredericksburg to pick some peaches. Those of you who aren't from Texas who have never had a Fredericksburg peach may have had delicious peaches in your lives, but there is nothing like a peach from the Texas hill country! We picked close to 13 pounds of peaches in just under 2o minutes. It was a hot day so the fast results were fine with me! I am sorry to say I did not take a picture of the cobbler I made - I was so amazed with it that we dug right in and didn't think about pictures until after the fact. I will share the recipe with you though - it was so easy it is amazing.

• 4 cups sliced fresh peaches
• 2 cups sugar (divided)
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 stick of butter
• 1 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
• 1 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 cups milk

Preheat the oven to 350. Sift flour, baking powder and salt together into a bowl. Stir in 1 cup of the sugar and set aside. In a medium sauce pan, combine the peaches, 1 cup of sugar and the water. Bring to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes. While the peaches are cooking put the stick of butter in an oven safe casserole (I used an 8x10 casserole dish) and put it in the oven. When peaches are cooked remove them from the heat. Stir the milk into the flour mixture and combine thoroughly. When the batter is combined, remove the hot casserole from the oven - being careful not to burn yourself. Pour the batter into the hot butter - DO NOT STIR. Spoon the peaches over the batter and drizzle on about a cup of the cooking liquid - DO NOT STIR. Put the whole thing back in the oven and cook for 35-45 minutes or until the batter has puffed up around the peaches and has turned a golden brown. Remove the cobbler from the oven and let cool about 10 minutes and serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

I have seen this recipe called "floating peach cake" and "canned peach cake." It was so good that I really want to make it again but knowing the peaches won't be available for long I decided to can my own in cobbler recipe portions :) So the three jars in the picture at the top will be used to make cobbler in a month or two when there are no more fresh peaches available. Somehow I think that when my birthday rolls around in November I will make myself a cobbler for my cake :)

I also made the nesting box for the chickens over the weekend. It is in the garage for now - until the new chicks are out of the kennel and then I will move it into the hen house. There are two nest boxes - chickens share so two should be enough for 6 chickens. I also had enough black eyed peas to make some ham hock and black eyed pea soup and I got a nice squash from my only remaining summer squash, a cucumber and a few small cloves of garlic. I may plant a few more squash but it is pretty hot here now so I may need to wait until late August or early September to get the second harvest planting started. I may try starting some in my living room in a few weeks and try moving them outdoors when they are a little bigger.