Up here in Michigan the 4th of July means it’s cherry picking time. At least around here. Though sometimes I’ve missed the whole crop when it’s been early, waiting till the 4th to check with the orchard. But this year the fruit is right on time.
When I was a kid we used to all pile into the station wagon and head for this very orchard. Cherries are one my favorite things to pick. No thorns, they’re usually at eye level, so no stooping, they’re beautiful when the sun shines on them. And they taste good too. Though tart cherries might be an acquired taste. We grew up on them, so I laugh as I listen to other people in the orchard tasting them straight off the tree. Pretty sour!
At Spicers Orchard your cherry picking adventure starts with a ride in the wagon pulled behind a tractor. This morning I was the only one heading out and I remembered driving a tractor as a kid at my uncle’s farm. Frankly, I’d rather be driving than sitting in the bouncy trailer eating his dust. But that’s another blog.
Eventually he dropped me off near the fully loaded trees.
The most important part of any picking is choosing the exact right tree to work on. We were trained as youngsters not to waste any fruit; to stick to your tree and pick all the ripe fruit before you moved on. To crawl under the tree and look up, where you’d find some of the best, most ripe fruit. So you want to find a good tree right off the bat.
And just like you wouldn’t jump into a row of strawberries that someone else is picking in, you don’t walk up to a tree that someone is already working on. There are plenty for everyone, so you find your own tree. Didn’t everyone get raised with property fruit picking etiquette?
Apparently not.
As I’m under my tree, reaching high in the branches for the most succulent, translucent ripe cherries two people climb off the latest trailer and walk directly to my tree, three rows in from the road, and begin to pick! The entire orchard is empty except for me, under my tree. They are talking loudly and non stop in an Asian language that of course I can’t follow. And though it’s interesting to try to pick out what they’re talking about, there on the other side of the trunk of my tree, it’s also annoying. Because part of what I enjoy about picking fruit is the relative peacefulness of it all.
Perhaps this is a cultural thing. Perhaps if you come from a country where space is at a premium you have never had the experience of having personal space. Nor do you know that in a rural orchard personal space encompasses an entire tree. I decide to chalk it up to that and continue picking, smiling as they stay only a few minutes then wander away, still talking nonstop.
They probably never even saw me. And paradoxically, I am a bit lonely when they leave. Because another part of fruit picking is that it’s generally done by families, and I miss my family this holiday weekend. So I will freeze a few packages of cherries, the better to make our traditional cherry pie, the next time they come up for a visit. Might even use it as a bribe to get them to come north.
Better get to pitting. You didn’t think the work was done with the picking did you?
A spur of the moment decision found me flying south for the weekend. South to where my family is. South to where the lonely little house on the lake waited. It was anxious to be filled again with the sound of laughter and talk, the lights glowing again late into the night, smells of dinner and especially dessert filling the air. The little house on the lake where memories of yesterday mingle with today’s events. South.
To get a little swimming and skiing in between the raindrops.
And lots of good eating.
Sweet weekend. Short weekend.
Change Is Hard 