So Many Peaches Ripened in the First Week of September That the Pie Maker Had to Make Peach Pies and Peach Pies Alone.

A blueberry Market near Grand Haven sold its last blueberry pint on Monday. Thanks to a taco truck parked beside the building, the same sign promised, "Tacos ever day now". We'll never get a visit by Donald Trump to the West Michigan shore. I noticed three trucks in a field of vines with big leaves shading small pumpkins, and I scanned the field for pickers, seeing none. I could make out the orange globes of small pumpkins, pumpkins for canning, not carving. A hedge of grapevines near my home has grape clusters coming into purple. The homeowner has draped these vines with strands of yellow caution tape. That tape stops me from picking the grapes; how can it possibly stop anyone else. I show up at the farmers market, hoping to score a slice of apple pie, and I find my baker has a shelf of peach pie by pie and slice. She had skipped baking apple pie, overwhelmed with peaches fresh from harvest and overwhelmed with orders for peach pie. Apples have a long shelf life in a root cellar and peaches have pretty much a day to become a pie. I apologized for seeming grumpy. The baker and her assistant assured me I was fine, and she served me up a slice of her peach pie with a crumbling Graham cracker crust. She tucked my slice into a brown paper bag with a plastic fork and a napkin, just the way she's done it since April. I savored every tasty bite, thinking how it compared with a peach pie made by a friend, a mom and a caretaker and an artist and a Iraq veteran trained to use machine guns and grenades effectively, according the laws of engagement. I am thinking I will ask my gun toting friend to make me another weapons grade peach pie. The first one she baked tasted like victory in the best peach pie I had ever tasted competition. Still, my apple pie baker had a great runner up and I plan on buying another slice Thursday morning.

Image is the Front Cover of Tom Robbin's Tibetan Peach Pie.