Morning decisions

Yesterday I picked enough cherries to fill up one of those gallon-plus ice cream buckets. Those cherries yielded enough to make three quarts for the deep freeze. According to my estimates, there's an hour and fifteen minutes of labor in each quart.

I've barely made a dent in the cherries on the tree. Most of them will go to waste, because I've spent about all the time I want to, pitting sticky, sour cherries.

I would, however, like some cherry jam; it's my favorite. I have a box of pectin and plenty of sugar.

If memory serves me, I'm pretty sure I've had trouble getting cherry jam to "jell" sufficiently in the past. That's no big loss, though, because if it's too thin to be called jam, it makes an excellent ice cream syrup.

So I guess I'll change into some clothes that I don't mind getting stained and head to the tree, bucket in hand.

I would love to have a sweet cherry tree; Cliff, however, doesn't think I'd keep it sprayed. I told him that if it were up here by the house, I would remember to spray it. He's not so sure.

I saw some sweet cherries at Walmart yesterday and picked up a bag; then I realized that, at $3.99 a pound, that bag would probably cost me ten dollars, and I put it down.

I really love sweet cherries, though. I imagine I'll be paying the price soon enough and bringing some home.