Apologies for not getting a post up on Tuesday this week. It’s been just a little crazy lately. I’m getting better at managing the timing so please be patient with me! 🙂  

Caroline, a colleague, had told me several times about U-picking at Homestead Farm, but I never quite made it to pick. About a week or so ago, the topic came up again on Skype chat, and she mentioned she was planning to pick tart cherries that weekend.
My ears of course perked right up, and Caroline graciously let me invite myself along (thanks, Caroline!). I adore cherries of nearly any kind except maraschino, which really? Dyed? Anyway….  

 I hadn’t ever actually seen cherries on trees that I recall either, but I was not disappointed in their gorgeousness:

 Montmorency:          

And Jubileum: 

We spent nearly two and a half hours, and I picked about 17 pounds of cherries!! (Caroline stayed after and also picked blueberries, so I’m not sure how much her box full ended up being.) I neglected to take a photo of the full containers, but if you look at the pic above with me in it, it’s two of the containers I’m holding, plus two additional that are slightly smaller. The darker cherries are semi-tart, and called Jubileum. The brighter ones are very tart, and are Montmorency. There was a third variety as well, but I don’t think I ended up with any of them.

I’m not 100% sure what I’ll do with them yet. In the meantime, I’ve pitted and frozen them. Pitting 17 pounds took nearly as long as picking 17 pounds did!

  
Can you kinda see the juice in the bottom of the pit jar? I strained that into a glass and topped with soda water. No, I did not pay close enough attention, and even though I only got the glass about half full of soda water, adding soda water to other things often results in a minor volcanology modeling; pink fizz went all over the counter, but the remainder of the glass was the best cherry soda ever!

Tomorrow morning I’m off to North Carolina to celebrate my birthday with my twin sister. (As long as the weather holds, I’ll be taking off on LME. Whee!) The cherry pits are soaking, and my husband will drain them and spread them out on a baking sheet to dr for me, so I can figure out what’s next when I get back. I’ll be googling how to make those cherry-pit microwave heat packs – there’re definitely enough pits to make a small one, but I also definitely don’t want rotten pits. I’ve heard they keep the heat longer/better than rice bags, but wow are they expensive in the store, so I haven’t tried one. Now, how can I not try, with free pits? 🙂