Cherries

Since we moved into the new house, I have been watching this magic happen right outside our
windows:

That's a cherry tree, alright. Which is probably no big thing to people in most of North America, but which is a very, very big thing in my part of Newfoundland. Fruit trees are very uncommon here. I don't know why that is, because obviously cherries grow perfectly well in downtown St. John's.

The tree belongs to our neighbour, but almost a full half of the branches are on our property, bopping us in the faces with ripening cherries every time we go out into the back yard. Since we're just getting to know our neighbours, I wasn't sure whether they would be keen on us devouring half their cherries; I know that, technically, the cherries on our property should be ours to do with as we will, but people can be funny about trees. I needn't have worried; one of the tree's owners was climbing up after his cherries yesterday, and enthusiastically encouraged me to pick as many as I could get my hands on. Apparently this had always been the deal with the previous owners and tenants - whatever is on our side of the fence is ours to eat or ignore, as we wish.

Needless to say, I spent the afternoon picking these:


There's twenty times that many on our side of the tree, but they're too high up for me to reach. I can almost grab some of the biggest bunches by leaning out the befroom or dining room or bathroom windows, but they're just that little bit too far away to grab. I tried to rig up a basket on the end of a broomstick, in the hope that I could reach it out a window and sort of coax the fruit in but man, those cherries hang on tight. It's raining tonight, and there's a good chance that they'll split in the morning, and be ruined. It's a tragedy! Next year I'm totally saving up and renting a 20-foot ladder. It will be well worth it.