It's that time of year!

My wife and kids headed out today to take advantage of one of the huge pluses of living in an agricultural area...the local U-Pick, Ray French Orchard.  The first crop of the year is ready to start harvesting(well, fruit crop...asparagus was ready a few months ago), so my wife came home with 15 pounds of Benton Cherries today.  She also has a friend with a Bing Cherry tree in her front yard, who is letting my wife have dibs on the whole tree in exchange for a few jars of whatever she makes.

By the time I made it home, she already had everything washed and de-stemmed. 

After dinner, she started on pitting the cherries, using her new 'four at a time' pitter that she bought yesterday.  She liked it, finding it much better than the single punch style, although she did say that she would have a bought a 12-at-a-time pitter if they had one...

I look forward to coming home tomorrow to the smell of canning cherries...