Oh, hey, are you going cherry picking?  We see you have your bucket.

Do you mind if a few of my friends come along and watch?  We’ve never seen cherry picking before.  You might need a little help.

Goats are very good at helping to pick cherries you know.  They can stand up very tall and help and hold down the branches for you!

My, those cherries look very high up  there, are you sure that you can reach them?  Perhaps if you were raise up my baby, she could help you out…

Our beautiful cherry tree is giving us a bumper crop of little tart cherries this year!   They are so beautiful, I almost hate to pick them!  But if I don’t the birds and bugs will get to them first!  So pick I must.  And I always have helpers.  Everyone loves the sour little cherries.  They crunch them like hard candy, pit and all.  Of course, they only get the ones I drop or the little weird ones.  The good ones go in the handy bucket for the big house residents!

This little tree has been struggling for a few years now.  First year, it was barely hanging on, just awful, no fruit.  I pruned it back a bit, gave it a little extra compost and fertilizer and thought, well, lets see.  Second year, it was doing a bit better, just a few cherries, but hanging in there.  Last year, it had about a bowl’s worth and that was it.  Still, doing a lot better in the area of branch growth and vigor.  And this year was lovely!  A nice crop and beautiful.  I have picked now three bowls full and I think maybe one or two more.  Sure, not tons, but I’m happy to see it doing better.  Perhaps next year we will have enough to can some!   Cherry pie filling?  Yum!

Fruit trees are so wonderful.  I really hope to be able to add a bunch more to the homestead.   We have this one little cherry, and an old three in one apple tree up front.   It has good years and bad years.  And we have a lovely ancient old pear tree in the back pasture.   When it does well, it has the most lovely tasting old pears around.  And we have a beautiful English walnut tree.   It seems to be a sort of bi-annual producer, and this is it’s “on” year!  yah!   It produced over 10 gallons of nuts last time it set fruit.  And the year before it was quite a few again!   Can’t wait!

Waiting to see if our local big box places actually have any fruit trees left at the end of the season and that they will sell cheap.  I plan to get as many as I can.  Fruit trees are so awesome!