Palisade peaches

ave I mentioned lately how awesome it is to live across the street from one of our valley's best peach orchards? And have I mentioned how awesome those neighbors are? They do nice things like bring us peaches like this. If they see me out in the front yard, they'll stop by with a bag or two. Sometimes I return home from running errands and find goodies like these Red Haven peaches waiting for me at the front door.



And I stuff my face with them every afternoon.



So does the husband. Sheesh. He can polish off one giant peach in four bites or less. No lie. It's quite a thing to see.

So that's precisely why I badgered him until he agreed to enter the peach-eating contest at this year's Peach Festival, which happened last weekend. It's a contest to see who can eat one peach the fastest. I honestly didn't see how anyone could stand a chance against him.

First up in the contest was the kids 2-5 years old. There were so many entries they had to do two heats.

This girl did a great job.



But she didn't stand a chance against the girl on the right of this photo. She won the heat in what I'm sure is a Peach Festival record for girls.





And see this little boy in the middle with the red hair? He didn't have a clue what was going on, but he was so cute that nobody cared.



The second heat was all boys. The boy on the right was how I envision the husband when he was younger. Dead serious about cramming that peach in his face as fast as possible.

The poor young boy on the left really didn't stand a chance. Between being horrified at the animal of a kid to his left, and trying to wipe his face, hands, and table with a napkin to sop up all the peach juice between every bite, he came in dead last. But his mom must have been so proud of what a tidy little eater he is.



Yep, this kid here is a carbon copy of the husband.



In the end, the husband decided not to participate in the contest. He claimed that he didn't want to wait around until his age group because it was really hot and he was worried about me standing there in the heat. But in reality, I think he was afraid his time might not stand up to the kids' times.

Oh, well. There's always next year...