Cherry time has come and gone.

Note to self:  next year, I really  have to remember that cherries ripen a lot earlier than July 4th around here. We missed the bing cherries this year, but at least we snuck in under the wire for yellow cherries.

A-child emerging from the trees to show me a cherry,
with her mom's legs in the background.
I think the tree is chomping on K-daughter's head.

A-child loved picking cherries.   And why wouldn't she?   What I love about cherry picking is that a single tree is like a grocery store full of fruit.  How does it manage to make so much yummy food all by itself?   Standing in a cherry tree and looking around at the food hanging at eye level always amazes me.

Two students.  The cherry trees have swallowed them,
but eventually they'll swallow the cherries.

Speaking of which, I also love standing in the middle of a tree's branches, like I've gone into another world. A shady food world.  With my bucket.  To get food from trees.

We picked something like 17 pounds of cherries.   In previous years, I'd used a combination of low-tech, but fairly effective, pitters:  pencil tops with the eraser removed, and also paper clips.  This year, my daughter bought me a dedicated pitter that looks a bit like scissors.

And then, at the cherry check-out stand, I saw something that I immediately splurged on.  *SPLURGED*, I tell you.   A metal cherry pitter that attaches to the top of a canning jar.  Really, how could I resist something like that?!?

Two totally awesome cherry pitters.

Both of these worked great.  They not only trounce pencil/paper-clip methods in terms of speed and ease, but they also eject the pits amazingly cleanly.   I pitted cherries while watching TED talks, which also seems to be an improvement over previous year's pitting cherries while nagging my children about keeping up with me.  Go figure.

The pits, I washed and then dried in my homemade solar dehydrator.

Our rolling solar dehydrator,
next to our solar clothes dryer.

I used some denim and other scrap fabric to make a bean-bag toy with the cherry pits. Bonus: this bean-bag can go in the microwave or freezer to become a hot-pad/cold-pack as needed.  In the meanwhile, it's just fun.





And the de-pitted cherries themselves, of course, I canned up for the winter months that are sure to come.  Sixteen pints (sweet 16!), plus three more pints of cherry juice. Mmm.

Sunshine -y food in jars.  From trees I stood in.
Isn't that amazing?