Not too long ago I passed a sign for a peach festival while driving to an olive oil mill just outside of Phoenix.

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Does any of this make sense to you?  An olive oil mill in the middle of the desert?  And (apparently) a peach orchard right next door?  Who woulda thunk it?!?!

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The olive oil mill visit was<em> fabulous</em>, and I made a note in my Crackberry (am I the only one in the world without an iPhone or Android at this point?) to return to the peach festival in late February.  Katie Ann agreed to schlepp an hour out to the country with me to celebrate the delectable peach.  For weeks, all I could think about was eating homemade peach pie at the festival.

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<span style="color: #ff9900; font-size: medium;"><strong>As the weekend of the festival approached, friends and my mother began to ask, "Are peaches in season this time of year?"</strong></span>

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My standard reply:  "Well, you know, it's Arizona.  The weather right now is a perfect 70 degrees.  I'm sure that all that warmth and sunshine has something to do with it."

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I could almost taste the pie.

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<span style="font-size: medium; color: #ff9900;"><strong>When the umpteenth person skeptically questioned the early peach season in Arizona, I consulted my Crackberry notepad.  There it was:  "Peach <em>Blossom</em> Festival -- Schnepf Farms -- end of February".</strong></span>

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Oh.

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So this meant Katie Ann and I were hauling our cookies all the way out to the country to look at blossoms?!?!

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Well, you know, I suppose it <em>is</em> sort of befitting for a blogger who has <em>Bloom</em> in her title to attend a <em>Blossom</em> Festival.

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And surely <strong><a href="http://schnepffarms.com/" target="_blank">Schnepf Farms</a></strong> canned last season's peaches for pie.  Surely????

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[gallery order="DESC"]

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<span style="font-size: medium; color: #ff9900;"><strong>Peachy Keen Photo Gallery Glossary pictured left to right and top to bottom:</strong></span>

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(If you would like to enlarge the photos, click once to open the photo in a new page and then click again.)

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Blossoms.  Of the apricot variety.  (Not peach.)

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A Late Bloomer picking cabbage.  (Not peaches.  And <em>not</em> romaine, Katie Ann.)  (Inside joke.)

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Peach buds.  (Not yet ready to be picked.)

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Hay ride.  (Because that's what you do on a farm.  Yee haw!)

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Silly pig photo.  (Ditto above.)

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Old farmhouse with Christmas wreath still up.  <a href="http://www.diaryofalatebloomer.com/2012/02/28/are-you-a-christmas-straggler-too/" target="_blank"><strong>(I was not alone in my Christmas straggling.)</strong></a>

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Things that make me go Awwwww.  (Farm animals that are one week old.)

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When animals attack!  (This one attacked trees and not humans, thankfully.)

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Goat Gone Wild Part Two!  (Yes, he had escaped from his pen.)

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PEACH BLOSSOM!!!!  :-D

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I've joined the Green Smoothie Revolution.  (And kale is my green of choice.)

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U Pick Garden at <strong><a href="http://schnepffarms.com/" target="_blank">Schnepf Farms.</a></strong>  (100% organic family farm = cool peeps = you should visit soon!)

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Katie Ann's harvest.  (I've enlisted her and her boyfriend in the Green Smoothie Revolution.)

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I wasn't totally off about the early peach season.  (Whew!)

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Homemade peach cinnamon roll.  (Yes, there was pie.  I forgot to take a picture of the pie, if you can believe it.  Humbug.)

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P.S.  The pie was everything I dreamed it would be and MORE!

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Which means I'm off to the <em>other</em> Peach Festival (the one where you pick peaches) in May!  So that I can bake my own pie!  Who's coming with me?

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