News from the trenches...

that's the Cherry PIcking Trenches, of course.

We started picking, and then stopped. Cherries are later this year, but our cherry fruit fly spray was put on 21 days ago and the info sheet says to "pick in 21 days to avoid re-infestation". I read that as "pick on the 21st day to avoid worms, pick fast, eat faster".
But it's the 22nd day and the majority of cherries aren't as ripe as they should be. Never mind that we have picked 15 pails. They were ripe enough. We've given 6 pails away, eaten 1-2, have 5 sitting here and are in the process of drying 2 pails.
So we are waiting until Sunday to see if the rest of the tree ripens up, either way, the cherries are coming off.

What I have learned....
-Cherries stain, they stain your clothes, kids' faces, fingers and nails, and counter tops.
-I can eat half an ice cream bucket of cherries with no ill effects.
-Spending what seemed like a lot of money on a cherry pitting machine years ago was a VERY good idea. After washing, and de-stemming an ice cream pail of cherries, I can pit it with my handy-dandy Kirsh-o-Matic in less than 10 minutes. I think that's between 5-7 lbs.
-Drying cherries is a good idea, even if it takes 24 hours to dry 2 ice cream pails worth and 1 hour to eat them.