A peach of a place

You haven’t truly experienced a summer in Middle Georgia until you’ve eaten peach ice cream while sitting in one of the rocking chairs on the porch at Dickey’s Farms in Musella. There always seems to be a nice breeze up there, no matter how hot it is, and they have big fans to stir the air.

Dickey’s is a family operation and has been around since 1897, making it the oldest, continuously operating peach packing house in the state. It’s just a stone’s thrown from U.S. 341, about six miles north of Roberta, on the “main street” in Musella. I think the entire town must work there during the summer, and there’s an old store across the street that sells gas and looks like something right out of Norman Rockwell.

Dickey’s has been extra special to our family this summer. My son, Grant, started working there in May after completing his freshman year at Georgia College & State University. It’s the perfect job for a college student because peach season runs from about Mother’s Day until the end of July, about the same as his summer break.

Grant was born and raised in the heart of the peach belt, but he admits he didn’t know a lot about peaches when he started working there six weeks ago. Now he has become quite the expert. There are 19 different varieties of peaches, all ripening at different times during the summer. He might not be able to tell you the difference between a summer prince and a harvester quite yet, but he’s learning.

He loves working there, and they love him. He leaves the house early every morning and gets home late. He works hard, comes home tired and makes good money. He appreciates the opportunity the Dickey family has given him.

Grant works at the counter, selling peach ice cream. They sell other things up on the porch – boxes and bags of peaches, fresh corn and peas, along with a variety of peach products from peach bread, peach salsa and barbecue sauce, peach preserves, peach butter and peach jam.

But folks mostly come for the ice cream on these hot summer days. It’s cool and creamy, and those chunks of peaches were hanging in a nearby orchard just a few hours earlier. It’s that fresh. Grant was amazed when he learned people come from as far away as Atlanta to get it. At times this past Saturday, the line was all the way off the porch for ice cream.

If you get over to Dickey’s, make sure you say hello to Grant. He’s the one with the big grin on his face.

He’s not going around hungry this summer, that’s for sure.

http://www.gapeaches.com/

(Photos by Joel Edward Grisamore)