Cherry Picking

For almost eight months we have walked or driven past three large trees beside our road, right in front of our home, with no idea what they were.  Then, in April, we noticed that they were blossoming.  Soon small round fruit appeared and speculation about what they were ran rampant between us and our neighbor Sara.  Before long the fruit turned bright red--cherries?  But would they be too sour to eat?  As they began to ripen, Sara, willing to test, tried them and reported back:  They are delicious!  On our next few walks we would pick and eat a few.  

As more became ripe, Sara proposed a serious cherry-picking session, for which she would supply two essential items:  a stable step-stool and a boat hook, with which to pull branches down.  And so the three friends embarked on the harvest of the bounty that nature had bestowed on them without a single bit of cultivation required on their part.

Gary pulls with the boat hook while Carmen picks

Gary's turn to pick

Carmen, Sara, the essential boat hook, and the fruit of their labor

We picked way more cherries than we could ever eat before they went bad, so what to do?  Sara to the rescue again with a family fruit cobbler recipe.  We made two that afternoon (and ate half of one almost immediately), and two more a few days later.  And yes, we had to pit a lot of cherries (two cups of cherries per cobbler).

The cobbler we ate immediately...

...and the one we didn't

After a hard day of cherry picking and baking, Sara relaxes with a glass of wine in the garden, with the puppies, Ellsworth and Hazel.