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Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Ooh-la...Cherries!

I was in Heaven, our first summer in the Aerie. If I wasn't on the back deck watching bald eagle antics, you could find me under the cherry tree popping dark and sweet fuit into my open mouth like an impatient baby bird. I loved the light filtering through the leaves and the feel of its bark under my hand.

Last summer after the cool, wet spring the cherries didn't make it. Well, let me amend that...any cherries that did make it were snarfled by our nesting ravens before I could get there. I soothed my hurt feelings by paying the extra for the mouth-watering Mt. Rainier cherries. I was leery of their look, so pale and all, until the first time my taste buds made merry over them.

Cherries (the way Mama Gaia gives them) are such a favourite, though EVERYTHING either cherry-flavoured or EVERYTHING folks do to cherries do not "amuse bouche" at all...yuck. I'm sorry, the only thing that tastes like an enjoyable cherry to me...is a cherry!

So, this year worried me. That little flash of heat and then the Mama turned time backwards and our skies lowered with the temperatures. Oh no, not another year sans cherries after getting totally hooked...*whimper.*

Oh joy of joys! It's a little later than usual (well, so is the arrival of this year's fawns) but...WE HAVE CHERRIES! *Lorraine does happy dance we call the Edith Bunker Shuffle.* Oh yes, oh yes!

Now...we wait...we watch...we listen for the hard-edged whispers of ravens in the fir trees. I ready myself for this year's Olympic race for the cherries. Excuse me while I go do a little weight-training for my picking arm, keeping my eyes hungrily on the prize!

13 comments:

JosephMcG said...

Post was scrumpulicious... we have some in our kitchen right now... bye

Stephanie Frieze said...

Yeah, fruit! Our baby plum tree, which we planted last fall, has FOUR little green plums on it.

Glad your cherries made it, Lorraine. We have to race the slugs to get to our strawberries.

Lorraine Hart said...

Now...racing a slug gives me a pretty funny visual!

Stephanie Frieze said...

I'm an early riser, but the slugs are out of bed before me. I think they wait to see the light go off in our bedroom and then they head for the strawberries!

JosephMcG said...

TIME FOR A SLUG OUT... I would put any money I had on the earliest risers...
Sorry, Steph

Lorraine Hart said...

Have you tried a little line of baking soda around strawberry plants? Or mayhap...hanging strawberries?

I'm thankful the ravens at least have a sense of fair play...and stay home at night!

Of course, we've taken so much territory and food away from our other relations, I couldn't really begrudge them anything in my garden!

Touch wood before I say this...but I have not had slugs. Stephanie, when we're sitting around the table sometime...I'll tell you my slug story....aahhh youth! ;-)

Stephanie Frieze said...

Nice one, Joseph. You're not as tired as you thought! I hate airplane travel. It's nice to not spend days and weeks traveling, I guess, but I'm not convinced that humans were meant to travel that way. As my mother would say, you've earned stars in your crown.

Stephanie Frieze said...

You are very right, Lorraine, about intruding on Mother Nature. Actually it has been suggested to me that the culprit that's been upending our garbage here in Ilwaco may not be a dog let out to run, but may in fact be a bear. Whatever it is, it will be disappointed tonight since I put the can in the barn.

Stephanie Frieze said...

Okay, we HAD four plums growing on our little tree. Today there are three. Lorraine, we don't have ravens, but we do have crows. They've been good about helping pick up the garbage the evil dog has been spilling. Could it have been a crow that spirited away our 4th plum?

Lorraine Hart said...

"Could be," she said, folding away her wings and wiping her mouth quickly....!

JosephMcG said...

Stars in my crown, ha! ha!, Steph... you should have seen me stumbling around at work today... groaning and grunting as I got up from writing notes or sitting with patients...
Felt like Joe Louis or Mohammed Ali had slugged me a few times... ("fake left, jab right, fake left, hit the belly a few times, and then, tag that weak spot a few times and watch Joseph hobble off into the cherry colored heavens)

Stephanie Frieze said...

Well, I've tied tinfoil in the tree and hope that our three remaining plums make it to maturity. The plum tree was Ana's idea and she has great hopes for it so I hope the birdies stick to picking up the garbage.

I sent a letter-to-the-editor of the Chinook Observer regarding the evils of letting dogs run loose in the neighborhood and it was in today's paper! I only sent it yesterday. Were I younger I would stay up waiting for him, but the garbage is safely tucked up in the barn until tomorrow when the pick-up is.

Kim Thompson said...

I am late to the party on this one, but my kids love slugs. They have made habitats for them and kept them as pets. I am not kidding. Poor things--my allergies prevent us from any pet with fur or hair. So, if you need to slug loving kids to catch them before they destroy your harvest, I have two I can loan out.