Cherry Picking

Last Thursday afternoon, I had just convinced Aidan to lay down and take a rest with me while we listened to The Penderwicks audiobook when my neighbor called.

"Molly? Joe here. Why don't you come over and pick some cherries. We've picked all that we want and you can pick the rest."

I know it's a sin, but I covet my neighbor Joe's fruit trees. I dream of an invitation to come over and pick his fruit like a sophomore girl dreams of an invitation to the senior prom. Tired as I was, I couldn't possibly take a nap when there were cherries across the street waiting to be picked.

So I picked and picked some more. I pitted until my shoulders ached and my hand cramped. I poured over my Ball Blue Book of canning and toiled over boiling hot pots of sugary cherries. Fortunately I had a little help. George helped me pit cherries, he went to the store to buy more canning jars, he set up the canner on his beer brewing stand (boy oh boy, did that speed up the boiling process), and processed the jars in the water bath after I filled them.

When we were all done, he even humored me with a few kisses for the camera so I could recreate in a photograph the Nikki McClure print I recently framed for the kitchen.



That man is a keeper. I still can't believe we've been married a dozen years.

Now it's official, we're done with cherries for the year. I think that is how it should be when eating local and in season. You get your fill of a certain fruit just as its growing season comes to an end, and you're ready for the next fruit coming into season. Bye bye cherries, hello peaches. The great thing about preserving is looking forward to a taste of the previous season and a preview of the season to come. Come October, I'll crack open a quart of cherries, make a pie or cobbler, and we'll taste summer all over again and dream of having enough cherries on our own trees next year, maybe even enough to call and invite a neighbor over to pick their fill.