Cherries, Cherries, Cherries, and MORE Cherries!!!!

This spring our cherry trees were full with bright, white blossoms. "We looked out our windows and what did we see?  Popcorn popping on the cherry trees!" 

It was almost as if the trees were celestial!   In the seven years we've lived here, the cherry trees have never quite looked like this.  They were so beautiful! 

It wasn't long before the beautiful blossoms fell and in their place we could easily see all the small, green cherry buds emerging.  This worried us as we were nervous to the amount of fruit these trees were capable of producing! To help save some funds for our summer family vacation, we opted not to have the trees professionally pruned back in January/February and we certainly did not try pruning them ourselves.  I think the lack of pruning might have been our problem for all these cherries!  In fact, knowing that the cherries would probably be at their very best picking during the time we were on our trip, we thought much about just picking those little green cherries right then.  Someone talked us out of that idea.  Instead, we decided to have a professional come and spray the cherries for worms, for that had been a problem in years past. 

The fruit ripened, became red in color and the cherries were very plentiful.  In some areas they grew like grape clusters!  With two trees, we were going to have so much fruit and we would not be around for a couple of weeks to do much with them (nor did we really want too).  We offered the cherries to everyone!  Some came and picked buckets full.  Others came with their little children for a small grocery sack full.  

                                

One day (Flag Day), Eliza and her cousin picked cherries and sold them.  This was kind of embarrassing for me, since a few hours previously I put a post on my Facebook page that they were for free.  But those two girls picked the cherries and bagged them in various sizes and made $30+ that afternoon.  Still, this hardly put a dent in our over-abundant cherry supply! 

While yummy and sweet, the cherries can be a big mess when they fall to the ground.  Some just drop, but the raccoon and birds do their fair share in helping the cherries to fall.  My husband has spent hours raking up cherries to help get the squished, sticky residue out of the grass; in hopes that that pit comes out of the lawn too.  Why worry when you can pray?  We were worried that while we were gone for a few weeks those cherries would fall and we would come home to a huge mess on our lawn.  We prayed and included this worry in our prayer the morning we left for our trip.  Praying also that people would stop by and pick, and pick cherries while we were gone.  Some people would text or email or even comment on Facebook that they stopped by, this would make us so glad.  When we returned, we were happily relieved to not have the anticipated big mess on our lawn.  Our prayer was answered, and that prayer may have very well been answered by a kind, anonymous soul (or two or more) who raked up for us. How grateful we were for that tender mercy, no matter how the Lord chose to answer it.

I didn't know too much about what to do with cherries, other than bottling them or making jam. So when I saw this little cookbook, "Berry and Cherry Recipes" at The Arch gift shop in St. Louis, I knew I could greatly benefit from it.  Some things I made with the cherries this year were cherry syrup for pancakes; a cherry sauce and cherry frosting for some sweet rolls; a cherry crisp dessert inside a pie shell; cherry muffins; cherry braised chicken dish.  Almost all of the recipes turned out well.  Lance particularly loved the chicken and cherry crisp.  The muffins, however, did not look too great and they were heavy and dense - more like hockey pucks.  

   

We still had so many deep, red cherries all over in our trees!  Another plea was sent out.  This time we tried placing a sign at our sidewalk that would alert people passing by, including friends and neighbors in other parts of the neighborhood, that we had plenty of cherries to share and wanted to give away!  More people came and the sign was effective.  We left a larger step stool in the yard along with a wobbly, wooden ladder.  In hopes that it would make the picking job easier and perhaps more enticing.  Thankful we were whenever someone stopped by and picked.

People were appreciative too of the cherries.  Their thankfulness to us came back in various forms.  Such as people posting pictures of their pickings on Facebook or photos of pies or other yummy things they were able to make with the cherries.  Someone left a nice note on our door.  Another neighbor brought us some cherry almond jam she and her family made.  It was soooo good!  Many would tell us how much they picked and how glad they were for the cherries.  Most recently we had someone stop by and bring us a warm loaf of homemade wheat bread.  Very yummy and thoughtful too.  While these gestures were not necessary; especially since we were most thankful to them for helping us out with picking!  It did feel good to share and know that people liked them.

Well over a week ago, there were still lots of cherries high in the trees and they had to come down.  Lance was really tired of raking them and the cherries were getting less firm and darker in color.  I'll use Andrew's words to explain what we did.  He gave a talk about families at Church on Sunday and used this example in his talk.  He shared:  

"One way to help in the home is by working together.  When we work together, we can accomplish a lot.  As you know we have 2 big cherry trees in our front yard. And this year we had the most cherries we ever had! We had a lot of people come over and pick them, but it seemed to not even make a dent. Towards the end of the growing season the cherries fall on the ground. We have to rake them up, and that is a tough job to do. My dad would come out almost every other day and rake them up.  Although we didn't help him very often raking up the cherries, this week, we worked as a family and got rid of all the cherries in the tree.  We laid tarps out around the trees. Some of us climbed up in the trees and began shaking the branches. Others would reach up with rakes and knock of the trees.  Working together we cleared both trees."

The cherries would be knocked to the ground on tarps we had laid out on the lawn and then dump the cherries from the tarp to the green can.  We were so thankful for Lance's brother who came and shared a big chunk of his time helping us getting the last of the cherries down.  By the time we were all finished last Saturday, I think we calculated we filled the green can at least one and half times.  Now that's a lot of cherries!  Especially considering how many were picked and used by others!  

I hope this works, here is video that shows the process...

Why don't we just cut the trees down?  We've considered it.  But we love the shade these trees offer our home, especially since we have older windows on our west facing home that really need to be upgraded.  Certainly we will prune next year and are really thinking of spraying the trees so they won't bare fruit next year.  We'll see.  But for now, we'll enjoy the few months break before the leaves turn golden and start to fall and our work of raking starts back up.  ;)