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Jun. 22nd, 2006 08:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickWe visited grandma in the hospital today (she's being discharged tomorrow, no biggie, which is why no huge chain o' family notification) and then returned home. The weather here is on the warm-n-humid side of things and it feels like it needs to rain *again* despite having been angrily thunderstorming this morning at about 5:30 AM.
We got home about two in the afternoon. Since I'm not at home much during the daytime these days, I wanted to take advantage of the daylight to investigate my friends the Odonata, it being that time of year and all. As I was smack-paf'ing my way around the pond, however, I discovered that some of the montmorency cherry trees on the point had set fruit and ripened it. What? It's cherry season? Already? It's not the fourth of July...
Clued in by the cherries on the point, I hied my sorry, elderly, sweaty ass up to the orchard (Yes, I have an orchard. It houses the cherry trees and, I suppose, could be referred to as The Cherry Orchard if I were going to be all literary about it. I do not, however, have an Uncle Vanya. Also, the orchard contains apple trees and grape vines and for reasons that escape me, two annoyingly healthy pawpaw trees. Note to Brother-the-younger: Your pawpaws are getting too big for their fences.) to investigate the state of affairs up there with the fucking montmorency cherry trees that do not live on the point and hopefully were not reaching fruition yet due to being in a slightly different location.
The cherry trees in The Cherry Orchard were uncooperatively producing ripe fruit all over the place with a complete lack of consideration for my needs. Buggerit. Fucking inconsiderate trees. I did the only thing I could do. I swore and went home and got the ladder and a five gallon bucket. I picked cherries until I was tired and the deer flies had left big quarter-sized welts on my arms. I returned home with the picked cherries. I pitted and froze the cherries in pie-sized amounts, an act of frugality which now dooms me to the production of two cherry pies in the not-horribly-distant future because frozen fruit has a shelf life of less than a year and next year there will be a new batch of cherries. Again.
You know, I don't like cherry pie all that much.
The cherries are not actually *done* fruiting. I went through and (forgive me) cherry-picked the ripest of the fruit. Most of what I left should be more appropriately ripe in two or three days if the birds don't get it first. (Psst! Birds! The cherries are getting ripe! Birds? Bueller? Anyone?) I'm hoping to be able to round up someone else or perhaps several someone elses to help with the picking of those cherries as there are a complete assload of them.
The grapes also appear to have set fruit in what look to be record-breaking quantities. We'll see -- some years the grapes look good to start and then peter out about halfway through August. You can't really estimate the grape harvest until September. (The grapes are Concord grapes. We have other kinds of grape vines but they don't make any fucking grapes. The only ones that actually make grapes are the Concords. The Concord blue grape, which is the kind we have, is an American slipskin grape. Introduced in the mid 1800's, the Concord would probably qualify to be an heirloom fruit if so many fucking people didn't grow it, both in yard trellises and commercially like for Welch's. I am a huge fan of the Concord grape, which tolerantly makes grapes without much more than benign neglect.)
In other news, brother-the-younger has apparently sold his house and will be settling on it at the end of the month. I will be getting my money back in a huge and impressive lump sum sometime after the sale. Yay! I like to look at my money and get lonely without it.
Tomorrow at work I shall check on the ripeness of the mulberries. I didn't go a-gathering mulberries last year like I was gonna and so I am looking at that project with renewed enthusiasm this year because the mulberry back of 321 fruits every fucking year and drops mulberries three inches deep on the parking pad so I'm certain that there will be enough for me to do SOMETHING with. Preliminary shakes of the tree (last year) suggest that the ripe fruit will probably fall off if I wiggle the branches vigorously. I'll be sure to keep you all posted and if I wind up mulberry colored in the process, well, at least it'll be amusing. The tenants at 321, of course, will think I am mad, totally bonkers. I do not see how this differs from the current state of affairs so am not letting it stop me from pursuing the mulberry project.
We got home about two in the afternoon. Since I'm not at home much during the daytime these days, I wanted to take advantage of the daylight to investigate my friends the Odonata, it being that time of year and all. As I was smack-paf'ing my way around the pond, however, I discovered that some of the montmorency cherry trees on the point had set fruit and ripened it. What? It's cherry season? Already? It's not the fourth of July...
Clued in by the cherries on the point, I hied my sorry, elderly, sweaty ass up to the orchard (Yes, I have an orchard. It houses the cherry trees and, I suppose, could be referred to as The Cherry Orchard if I were going to be all literary about it. I do not, however, have an Uncle Vanya. Also, the orchard contains apple trees and grape vines and for reasons that escape me, two annoyingly healthy pawpaw trees. Note to Brother-the-younger: Your pawpaws are getting too big for their fences.) to investigate the state of affairs up there with the fucking montmorency cherry trees that do not live on the point and hopefully were not reaching fruition yet due to being in a slightly different location.
The cherry trees in The Cherry Orchard were uncooperatively producing ripe fruit all over the place with a complete lack of consideration for my needs. Buggerit. Fucking inconsiderate trees. I did the only thing I could do. I swore and went home and got the ladder and a five gallon bucket. I picked cherries until I was tired and the deer flies had left big quarter-sized welts on my arms. I returned home with the picked cherries. I pitted and froze the cherries in pie-sized amounts, an act of frugality which now dooms me to the production of two cherry pies in the not-horribly-distant future because frozen fruit has a shelf life of less than a year and next year there will be a new batch of cherries. Again.
You know, I don't like cherry pie all that much.
The cherries are not actually *done* fruiting. I went through and (forgive me) cherry-picked the ripest of the fruit. Most of what I left should be more appropriately ripe in two or three days if the birds don't get it first. (Psst! Birds! The cherries are getting ripe! Birds? Bueller? Anyone?) I'm hoping to be able to round up someone else or perhaps several someone elses to help with the picking of those cherries as there are a complete assload of them.
The grapes also appear to have set fruit in what look to be record-breaking quantities. We'll see -- some years the grapes look good to start and then peter out about halfway through August. You can't really estimate the grape harvest until September. (The grapes are Concord grapes. We have other kinds of grape vines but they don't make any fucking grapes. The only ones that actually make grapes are the Concords. The Concord blue grape, which is the kind we have, is an American slipskin grape. Introduced in the mid 1800's, the Concord would probably qualify to be an heirloom fruit if so many fucking people didn't grow it, both in yard trellises and commercially like for Welch's. I am a huge fan of the Concord grape, which tolerantly makes grapes without much more than benign neglect.)
In other news, brother-the-younger has apparently sold his house and will be settling on it at the end of the month. I will be getting my money back in a huge and impressive lump sum sometime after the sale. Yay! I like to look at my money and get lonely without it.
Tomorrow at work I shall check on the ripeness of the mulberries. I didn't go a-gathering mulberries last year like I was gonna and so I am looking at that project with renewed enthusiasm this year because the mulberry back of 321 fruits every fucking year and drops mulberries three inches deep on the parking pad so I'm certain that there will be enough for me to do SOMETHING with. Preliminary shakes of the tree (last year) suggest that the ripe fruit will probably fall off if I wiggle the branches vigorously. I'll be sure to keep you all posted and if I wind up mulberry colored in the process, well, at least it'll be amusing. The tenants at 321, of course, will think I am mad, totally bonkers. I do not see how this differs from the current state of affairs so am not letting it stop me from pursuing the mulberry project.
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no subject
Date: 2006-06-23 02:47 pm (UTC)Just sayin'.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-23 06:13 pm (UTC)Also, I'd be a poor Kipling fanboy if I didn't give a shout-out to one of Baloo's lyrics in the Disney Jungle Book movie - "Now, when you pick a pawpaw or a prickly pear..." I didn't even know that was a real fruit. What is it like?
no subject
Date: 2006-06-23 06:42 pm (UTC)The pawpaw trees (Asminia Triloba, a merkin native) that we have are about waist-high at the moment -- they're not big enough to make fruit yet. As the magic 8 ball says, Ask Again Later. :) They're supposed to taste like a banana custardy thing but I think that's marketing propaganda.
On cherry pitting, I use my fingers. I hold the cherry in my dominant hand, between thumb and forefinger, with the stem scar thing (that which it used to be attached to the tree via) pointing towards my lap (ie away from the squeezing direction). The cherry should be about 1/3 in my fingers and 2/3 protruding. Then I squeeze the cherry from the blossom end towards the stem end, gently, and the pit comes out via the pre-made stem hole. It splits a little and drips some but it doesn't ruin the fruit flesh after you get a decent technique going.
Advantages: Fruit that ain't ripe enough won't do this properly. Fruit what gots little worms in it you can see to get rid of and not dump in the good fruit bin. (I have organically
raisedignored cherries so this is something to watch for.) No toolz, so nothing to lose.no subject
Date: 2006-06-23 09:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-23 10:12 pm (UTC);)