Bye Bye Miss American Pie

There are so many things I would LIKE to write about today. But they are all exhausting, and have sapped my energy for a couple of days now. Some were good, some so disappointing I can't believe people vote for leaders who are intent on returning to the 18th century (or worse).

 In search of joy, short of ordering a certain pair of pink tennis shoes, I immersed myself in nature yesterday afternoon, and dealt with the bounty today. Sometimes getting outside and climbing trees is all you can do to save your sanity.

You might not have heard, but the NW Cherry Crop is in danger of exploding, so to speak. We all look forward to this time of year. There's nothing like fresh cherries in July. But when Mother Nature decides to send monsoon rains, well, it puts a damper on the harvest.

Split Cherry

I was wasting time getting myself all riled up about lying cheating Texas Legislators, activist Supreme Court Judges, and the idiot governor of a certain state I twice lived in. Not to mention a WA State second session that was resembling its namesake on the other coast a little too much. My friend Rosemary called and woke me from my overload stupor. THE CHERRIES ARE BURSTING! You see, she has a small orchard of bing and pie cherries that are ripe and ready. If I wanted, I could bring my cooler and fill it up with cherries before they became red stains and bird food. So I jumped into my trusty Subaru and headed to Old Hwy 8 in Lyle. Cherries quickly replaced the evil in my mind.

Bing Cherries

After a couple of hours, I had plenty of each to take home and decide what to do with...but it was Marimba Night so that meant a quick sanitizing soak and drying on towels til I got home.

Pie Cherries

 Good, grief, I needed to find a cherry pitter. A quick stop at dreaded Walmart, with an entire aisle of kitchen gadgets, yielded nothing. Nada. Zilch. Jeez, this is Hood River Walmart, in the middle of cherry country, and you only carry your cherry pitters ONLINE to be delivered sometime NEXT WEEK if I go on line right now and order one???? You're missing the boat, Walmart. I personally know about half a dozen people looking for cherry pitters right now. I'll figure something out.

So I got home, pitter-less, and it was too late to do anything with them. Besides John Oliver was coming on and I did not want to miss what he was going to do with those evil things that were in my mind earlier. Note: He did not disappoint. So they waited until this morning.

I looked up cherry pitters and found- on Huff-Po no less- alternative solutions to cherry pitter gadgets, including smacking them with a chef knife so they split and you can take out the pit, using a hairpin, bending a paper clip to make a scoop, bending fork tines to make a scoop, and the winner (at least for me, I just couldn't deform a fork for life)...Cake Decorator Tips!!!

Pie cherry being impaled upon small star decorator tip, with bloody, I mean juicy, bing sized large tip in background

 My cherries were two sizes so I used two different star tips. Perfecto!!! In two hours I'd pitted enough for 2 pies and filled 5 trays of the dehydrator. I finished pitting the pie cherries, and froze the last pie's worth for future deliciousness.

Dehydrator humming away (Thanks Ann)

That's the good news. The bad news is, I still have a load of bings in the fridge. They'll have to wait until Saturday. I'm about cherried out of time...I need to go to water aerobics tonight to work off that piece of almond crumb topped cherry pie I'm gonna eat later on! Bon Apetit!