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The cherries on our trees and at the cabins ripened very quickly. Our tree grew fast too tall so in order get the cherries from the top Greg just trimmed the tree and I picked the cherries. We have many cherries saved in our basement fridge. I do hope they last.
And at the Woods home, Celeste was busy working and carrying cherries back and forth so she could eat cherry leather.
Dave was busy picking cherries from the cabins, washing them and getting them canned etc.
Cherries, cherries everywhere at the Woods. Moiya was so busy and tired.
Then there is always time for a fun photo. Tanner is so small and so cute. Audra, you are going to love him to pieces.
Glen and Noland were busy mowing the lawns. Everytime these two drove by me Glen would make a new sign with his hand and fingers. Nolan copied everyone of them.
Can you find Greg among the branch he cut down from the tree. Just a great day in June at Shuswap!
And at the Woods home, Celeste was busy working and carrying cherries back and forth so she could eat cherry leather.
Can you find Greg among the branch he cut down from the tree. Just a great day in June at Shuswap!
Celeste liked having a pit fight over under the cherry trees. Aiden, Desiree, Moiya, Wyona and Parker were having fun spitting the pits from the cherries.
ReplyDeleteThe fruit leather we made is to die for, Wyona said.
Thanks for this grand post. I wish I were already there. Little Tanner's legs are so cute. Those new born knees just don't stretch out. Thanks for showing us that.
ReplyDeleteI don't suppose there will be a lot of fruit leather left -- especially since you have told us that the cherry fruit leather is just delicious. I can imagine all of that flavour concentrated in one bite of it.
Trimming that cherry tree is a big job! Either you have to hold back on water to that tree or hold back on fertilizer for it, since it grows with exponential speed.
I don't think I have seen a picture of Nowlan on this blog for a long time. So good to see that he copies the hand signals of his grandfather. How cute is that! I can imagine -- left-turn, right turn, A-O.K., and peace, I am sure.
I want to know more about teaching grandchildren to have a cherry pit fight, Moiya? Do you teach the skill of squeezing the pit out between your two fingers, or do you use the method of seeing how far you can spit the pit from between your teeth.
Both are admirable skills.
i have grandfather's take on the song "Little children, God is Near You", with the end line, "Cherish Virtue" running through my head ("cherries hurt you")
ReplyDeleteWahh! I want to taste some fresh cherries. Not that kind I can get at Coop. I want the kind that are still arm from the sun when you take them off of the tree. If I am going to have a stomach ache over eating too many cherries let the cherries be fresh ones, only a couple of minutes off of the tree.
ReplyDeleteWe were out picking our cherries yesterday too. Not BC cherries, but pretty darn good for Quebec cherries.
ReplyDeleteWyona, I need to know how you make your cherry fruit leather!
Wyona said the fruit leather is good. The recipe belongs to Moiya.
ReplyDelete1. Pit the cherries. Moiya bought a cherry pitter and she says it is worth it.
2. In a food processor, put the cherries in.
3. Moiya then went online. One recipe there was just with plain cherries: 4 cups, but she did a triple batch, which made 7 trays in the food dehydrator. She has an excaliber and she also makes her yogurt in that. But her advice to you is, if you are working you don't have time for this. This can also be done in the oven.
4. She also did up a whole bunch of cherries, and then did half and half apple sauce and cherries.
5. She also bought silicon sheets to put it on, and puts those into the dehydrator.
6. Moiya says that your generation knows better how to go to the internet. She says there it says to put it in on 58 degrees celsius.
7. Her food dehydrator is out under the eaves right now, in the rain, working.
8. Moiya says the biggest and best suggestion is to go to Costco and buy the fruit leather. Working mothers don't have time to do this.
9. In Moiya's case she often turns this over to Dave and keeps her sanity. The easiest thing to do with an overload of cherries is to fill canning bottles with cherries, with the pits still in. Then pour boiling water into the jars. Put 3 tablespoons of sugar into the jar, and don't even stir. She doesn't boil the water anymore. She says 2 tablespoons is not quite enough. Leave some head space. Put the lids into a boiling bath and put the new sealing part of the lid on tight, put it into your processor and when to a boil, process 15 minutes. Then listen for the snap, snap, snap. That is the easiest thing to do with cherries.
10. When the cherries were being washed and pitted, with David and the grandchildren helping, she made those into 3 jars and she made a glaze out of little packets she got on sale for 25 cents each. With that huge pot of glaze, she put that glaze on them, and that is her 3 jars of cherry pie filling. That is all she was willing to do. She put the rest of the glaze into jars in the freezer. She could have thrown it out, but in the freezer was better.
11. The little packets were too much when she made them all up.
12. She also went online and looked for a recipe, make a cake with fresh cherries. It was good, but she only made one layer and she will take congratulations on making only one recipe, instead of doubling or tripling everything.
13. Moiya calls the whole thing a disaster, and hopes she never sees another cherry. Add having a full-time job to this? No, Moiya says. Just don't do it.
Arta
Moiya says that Des gets a sense of fulfillment out of growing a garden, canning or cooking. But Moiya says she no longer gets that and now calls herself "Frustrated Moiya". Her only advice is eat as many fresh cherries that you can. Then clean up all the messes the little kids make from eating the same way you just did.
ReplyDeleteMoiya also says that a good memory of her mother is that Wyora would bring up a bottle of cherries and just put a few in a dish. Then Wyora would have another dish alongside and Moiya could spit the pits there and have a piece of toast. Yum.
David will eat 3/4 of a quart of cherries in one sitting. That is his favourite way.
Arta
I am laughing hard Moiya. You are so right. Who has the time for this.
ReplyDeleteIn the fall we go crazy with the neighbourhood apples. We know everyone who has a tree and ask if we can pick. They are always happy to get rid of them. We make sauce and freeze it. Lots of sauce. It goes in lunches for months. Our neighbour has a dehydrator, so we also make dried apples and apple fruit leather. We have one of those awesome spiral apple cutters that cores and cuts the apples -- perfect for the dehydrators. I wouldn't do all this, but my kids seem to love it and will eat anything they have helped preserve. Sigh. :-)
This is the first year that we have had a bumper crop on our cherry tree. We usually get just enough to eat. This year we have been eating all we want, sharing with all the neighbours and I have not been mad at the birds when they decide to take their fill as well.
I have pitted and frozen as many as I can. In the winter months when we are stuck inside, and hypothetically have more time (which is never the case) we will pull them out and do our fruit leather, cherry pie and dried cherries then.
I watched a food channel video on how to make the best cherry pie. One step was to pit the cherries, then take some of the cherries and put them in a food processor and then strain the pulp from the juice. The juice was set aside and the pulp was then put in with the rest of the cherries to make the filling, thus getting rid of the soupy part if you just put the cherries in the crust. I don't even know where the recipe is now. And I haven't got the cherries, nor the inclination to make it. I just did want to try a recipe for a perfect cherry pie, just once, after all of the imperfect ones I have made.
ReplyDeleteAll of the above, and I still must acknowledge, I really don't like fruit filled pies, except maybe apple.