There are some tasks here at the farm that won't wait. It has a life of its own and it is not concerned that we still have unpacking and painting and electric that needs updated. We have two sour cherry trees that came into full cherry-ness this week. This afternoon, the kids and I spent a couple of hours picking cherries to "put up" or can. Our bounty was 8 quarts, but you can't even tell that we picked any the trees are so full. I think we will be picking cherries for the next couple of weeks. (local friends can feel free to swing by and help themselves to the cherries)
Cherry trees are fairly short, as trees go. However, we still needed a ladder and had to pull some branches down to get to the ripe ones. We picked everything that was ripe and it took about 1 1/2 hours. Then the real fun began. I went to the Kitchen Collections store and bought 4 cherry pitters last night. We used them for about 1 minute and gave up. They tore the cherries apart and didn't do such a great job at getting pits out. I found that if you gently squeeze and roll them in your fingers, the pit just pops out. Oh, and did I mention they are really messy? We and the porch were covered in cherry juice. It just gets all over you...if you ever have to pit a large quantity of cherries, make sure you wear old clothes or something red. 
We hurried up to get them in the house and start canning them. The stem opening starts to turn brown really fast if you don't soak them in a water/ascorbic acid solution....I didn't have any on hand. I had to go dig out my pots and canning jars, but we were able to get 8 quarts done in short order. As the trees ripen, we will be picking some more to make some cherry jam and pie filling to can. On a side note, we discovered that Enzo loves cherries! He laid under the tree while we were picking and gobbled up everything that fell to the ground....pits and all. When we were pitting them, he begged next to us the whole time and was so happy whenever we shared one with him. He has some cherry juice stains on his fur. We hope that they come out in the wash!
In other farm news, I got to ride the tractor for the first time this week. Bob was reluctant to turn over the key as he gets really excited about mowing the grass. However, he was working on installing the new microwave outlet and since I can't do electric, I mowed. My only complaint is that the seat is set too far back and my butt hardly stayed in the seat. It was pretty funny watching me go round the corners! I mastered it pretty quick and did a nice job.
The chicks continue to grow and grow. Tomorrow they are one month old. I am going to let them out of the coop for a while tomorrow if the weather is nice.
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