Can She Bake A Cherrie Pie, Billy Boy, Billy Boy?

There were three pie cherry trees on the property when we moved here. I killed one of them -- yes, I cannot tell a lie, I pruned it back so far that it died.

Last summer, before the cherries had time to ripen, the birds and squirrels knocked many of them off the trees. The few that were left were eaten by the birds before we ever had a chance to pick them.



This year, just as many were knocked down while still green but many managed to get ripe and were still on the trees for us to pick.



Years ago, we made the kids pit cherries on a sterilized 16 penny nail pounded into a 2X4. Then I canned them. It was a messy job but a good one for the kids to do.


I didn't have a cherrie pitter or a kid around this year so I happily bounced into the Linen and Things store where I was directed to the "Gadget Wall". Oh, my, I nearly didn't get out of there. I felt my eyes glazing over, my breath slowing, I was going into a trance. I, who doesn't like to cook, felt the strong magnetic pull of all those gadgets. A small quiet voice inside my head said, "You need everything here." I fought back; I shook my head to clear it out. I found this cute cherrie pitter and headed back to the front of the store as fast as I could walk in my clogs.



As cute as it was, I quickly discovered that once pressed to push out the pit, it did not spring back on its own. Fifteen minutes into the task and I was no longer enamored with this plastic piece of junk but I finished the bowl that had been so carefully picked off of our very own trees.


The next day I went back out into the world to hunt for the perfect cherry pitter. I knew I wanted something that was spring-loaded and made out of metal. I found it at my local Freddy's store at three times the price of the plastic piece of junk.

I pitted twice the amount of cherries in half the time that evening. So very satisfying to harvest your own fruit and to put it in freezer bags and into my freezer to make pies this winter.

Unpitted

Pitted

Mrs.RGS