Cherry Picking

We moved into our house seven years ago last summer. At the time, we didn't know it was a fruit farm.

When we moved here, big chunks of the backyard were just a mess. Overgrown, full of weeds, probably full of ticks. One section, next to the house, was pretty much impassable.

As it turns out, that big tangle of green was hiding a fig tree and a lot of cherries.

The figs we found about two years after moving in - we can see the tree from a kitchen window, so we started braving the wilds to pick the fruit. But the cherries...well, we knew it was a cherry tree, since it flowers, but until last summer, we had no idea that the tree produced fruit.

About 18 months ago, we cleared the area to add a patio. Around then, our next door neighbor, who has a matching tree in his yard, told us to watch out for the cherries. Next thing we knew, there they were - all over our patio.

Last year, we discovered them a little too late. This year, we weren't going to make the same mistake.

Plus, one of the branches was growing toward the house - and toward the fig tree. Cooper decided to remove the whole branch:.

Dixon pretended to help, but spent most of his time posing:

Dixon is just over four feet tall. That's a big branch.

Even after tossing the bruised fruit, we ended up with an impressive haul - and there are still a ton of cherries left on the tree.

Then we got busy.

Cooper mixed some cherries with vodka; I did the same with simple syrup. We'll see how those go.

I also baked a cherry clafoutis:

(Recipe to follow.)

The clafoutis used three cups of cherries and we probably used another three cups for the vodka and syrup. Which leaves us with...a whole lot of cherries.

So...anybody want some cherries?