Sunday, June 18, 2006

Life is...


A bowl of cherries.
Originally uploaded by TimsPottery.
...A bowl of cherries of course! 4 or so years ago we planted a Ranier cherry tree in the back yard. In years past, we have harvested maybe a total of 6 cherries. Not six quarts or six pounds, but six cherries.

This year, we noticed a lot of fruit on the tree, but figured the birds would take care of it for us. I checked during last week and harvested about a quart and a half of cherries. The rest were not ripe yet.


Ripe on the tree.
Originally uploaded by TimsPottery.
Yesterday, I checked, and it was definitely time to harvest the rest. I was able to reach a lot of them from the ground, and a lot more from a step ladder. As I plucked those at the limit of my reach, I reminded myself that blogging about cherries is good but blogging about recovering from broken bones is bad.


So the conundrum was, what to do about all those sweet juicy cherries that were out of reach. I just couldn't bear to let them go to waste. We checked at the hardware store, but could not bring ourselves to purchase a fruit picker that probably would be able to grab anything as small as a cherry and that would take up most of the remaining cubic foot of space in our garage. "I will make one," I declared.



Don't they look great?
Originally uploaded by TimsPottery.

After about 30 minutes with an ACT mouthwash bottle, a pair of scissors, and a stick, I had crafted the extordinary instrument displayed in the picture. I managed to grab most of the out-of-reach cherries with it and left the rest for the birds.

2 comments:

Toast King said...

And tasty they are! Rainier cherries are our favorite! Great shots, too. I especially like the one of the lone cherry hanging in the tree.

Kim in Oregon said...

Hey, sorry I used the (almost) same title for my post about the selfsame cherries.

Pics are gorgeous sweetie!