Life is like a bowl of cherries

After many years of trying to catch the very short tart cherry season, I finally did it this weekend. I had a lovely morning climbing cherry trees, and came home with 6 quarts of my favoritest fruit in the whole entire world and only very minor injuries. It would have been more, but these horrible loud people with a bunch of little kids showed up. (For the record, it was the adults that were horrible and loud. I don't always care for little kids in public, but these were fairly tolerable and were appreciating the cherries properly and somewhat quietly.)
Oh how I do wish that flats containing ~8lbs of cherries were sold in six packs.

I don't quite know what it is about fruit in the sink that I find so charming, but one day, I'm going to do something with all of these photos. Maybe decorate a kitchen.

And then began the pitting... I filled that pint jar 2.5 times with cherry pits. When I was done, I was sticky and cherry flavored, which I can't really say is a problem.

Of course I made jam.

And a crisp.

And then, because J was later than expected from picking his friend up from the airport, I finished these:
Moose, you should have stayed for a week, if not to entertain me or for the long overdue socks, then for the blueberry pancakes which have been happening at regular intervals.

Using frozen berries makes them look a little funny. The berries keep the batter around them from cooking as fast as the rest of it, so they get these weird circles around the berries, but they taste just as delicious as with fresh berries.

2011 Fruit Count:
Fresh fruit personally picked: 12 quarts (3 gallons!) strawberries
3 quarts of blueberries
6 quarts of tart cherries
Jam canned: 10 pints of strawberry
7 pints of blueberry
5 pints of cherry