We are blessed with free cherry wood and fruit throughout the year here. Last winter Matthew stopped by where some men were trimming the cherry trees and he asked if they would mind if he picked up some of the small pieces of wood. They said, “You don’t want this, come over here as we have a pile for you. Surely there was so much wood that it took months for Matthew to clean it up for them for free. They don’t have to sit around and burn it for days. The Supervisor, Santos is more than happy that Matthew helps “clean up the wood”.

On the other hand, Santos told him to come pick as much cherries as he wanted to and to also glean the trees after they left. Well, between the first picking as you see below and then the gleaning, we got about 100 lbs of Rainier Cherries and Bing Cherries. We don’t like to can much as you lose the nutrients and enzymes in the fruit so we pit and freeze and put in shakes, etc… Matthew has a 6 cherry pitter and he pitted all of them over the course of a few days, by himself. He finds it relaxing to do monotonous work like that. 

Here’s the first little batch. I didn’t take a picture of the big one as we kept it inside in a cooler. 

See the quality of the cherries?