I wake up in the late afternoon for my drive to work.

I’m a travel nurse, and I am deep in southern Georgia, driving country roads to and from my rural hospital assignment.

Summer is just around the corner, and already, the eastern sky is an angry grey, pop up showers visible along the horizon.

I get off the main road after 2 exits, and spend the bulk of my 25 minute drive running alongside the railroad tracks. To my left, miles and miles of farmland.

Right now, early corn is already tasseling. The large irrigation systems are sprinkling the fields, moving slowly, row by row. On my right behind the train tracks, newly planted fields curve and twist along the edge of stands of southern pine.

I smell rain, and soon my windshield is splattered with a few minutes of rain, even as the sun is waning.

I spot a farm stand on the right, and the barn door is open, so I pull across the empty road, bumping across the red clay, parking next to the worn concrete foundation.

On the long covered slab, a farmer has pulled up a tractor, its scoop full of zipper peas. Methodically, he and his wife feed the peas into the shelling machine, and I’m excited, knowing I’m going home with fresh shelled peas.

Inside the big worn doors, a variety of fresh picked produce awaits. Corn, tomatoes, green beans, yellow squash, cucumbers – I sigh with happiness as I peruse the offerings.

The intoxicating aroma of fresh peaches calls me, and I pick up a box after checking them, holding the fuzzy fruit to my nose, and inhaling deeply. “They were picked yesterday!” the young woman tells me – as if I couldn’t appreciate the wonderful fresh glory before me. “I’ll take a box” I respond, rattling off my order.

A barefoot little pigtailed girl walks up, half eaten fruit in her hand. “I’m eating a peach!” She smiles up at me, presenting the fruit proudly, her hand dripping juice. “I love peaches!” I respond. She’s pleased, and runs back out to watch her grandparents shell peas.

I talk to the young woman a few minutes as she tells me the story of her twin girls birth – I work with her cousin, and we talk, as women do, about babies and birth, and the miracle therein.

I tell her I’m driving home tomorrow. She tells me if I ever need produce and they aren’t open, just message her and she’ll get Mama to set some back for me.

Arms full of produce, I place it all carefully in the back of my Jeep, waving happily as I head on in to work.

I’ve bought enough fresh produce to eat, give to Mama and my kids, and put up fresh for the long summer months without farm fresh goodness.

I pass the grain mill, slowing as I hit the edges of town. I turn at the second of two lights, passing historic downtown as the road quickly heads into the small neighborhood that borders the farmland heading out of town.

Back at the hospital, I bring in the produce for safe keeping overnight.

And every time I pass the box of peaches, the sweet nectar wafts past me, making me smile all over again.