Cherry Pickin' in PICTURES

I'd never realized before that our local orchard allows people to pick their own cherries.  I happened upon that little gem of information a few days ago, and quickly carved out time on our calendar.  Of course I was looking forward to some yummy cherries...but -- truthfully -- I wanted pictures of two sweet cherry-pickers just as badly!

We checked in with the store and chose a couple of flat boxes to collect our bounty.  They pointed us towards the trees, and we were off!  Of course the girls wanted to carry the (empty) boxes!

Here's A, looking up at the cherries in the trees.  The girls were SO excited!!!

Here's B, getting started...

Baby A, adding her cherries to the growing collection...

Baby A with a huge handful!  (These were picked by Daddy, and she was carrying them to add to the box.)  (And I love the cherry juice under her fingernails!)

Baby B with another huge handful...I love her expression in the sun!

This was a posed picture...although it didn't turn out like I'd hoped.  I wanted each of the girls to hold up a stem of cherries.  They finally got into "position"...but only after a series of directions from Mommy...and by then the moment was long-gone.  HA!

Daddy was ready to call it a morning, and I think B was with him...but Baby A wanted to keep going!  I love the look of concentration on her face!

We finally agreed to call it quits.  Here are the girls, surveying our bounty.

After such a fun adventure, it was time to head home.

When we weighed in, we discovered we'd picked a little more than four pounds of cherries.  I can now confirm that cherries can be hand-pitted at an approximate rate of one pound per 15 minutes...much better than I thought!  Four pounds of cherries, at our house, yielded one cherry pie, one 9x13" cherry cobbler, and 1/2 a recipe of fruit spread.  We're loving the goodies at our house...you can truly taste the freshness!!!

And even if the cherries we picked had all been given to the birds...it still would have been worth it to me for the sweet pictures and precious memories.

Happy Summer, y'all!!!