The Anting Days of Summer

While we mostly refer to August as the dog days of summer, there is something about this hot and sticky time that kicks my anting habits into hyperdrive. As the humidity levels soar and my brain begins to melt, a tiny voice in the back of my head starts warning me of frost and snow... and wants to know what I plan to do to get ready. After months of waiting around for fresh garden goods and hungry for even one piece of local bounty, it all arrives in a heap – no time to think, no time to plan, just hurry hurry hurry before it all begins to rot around me.

This last weekend found me making like Lady Macbeth, wandering the house wondering how I was ever going to get the damn spots off my hands. Luckily, it wasn't the lifeblood of my liege, just the result of slogging my way through 42 POUNDS of cherries. The grocery store down the road had a sale on local cherries* - a miracle sale of 1.99lb instead of their usual 6.99. I love sweet cherries. Actually, I adore sweet red cherries, but I can never bring myself to spend so much on fruit – heck, my meat price cutoff point is $3.99 a pound and THAT'S only for special occasions. Usually, I'll allow myself a few ruby orbs as a treat – but to buy enough to put up? Couldn't do it. When I saw the sale I was wavering... when I saw they were local I caved. Hard. But can you blame me? Check out the size of these beauties:

(Yup, bigger then a quarter!)

We have cherry bounce, cherries frozen with raw sugar, cherries flash frozen plain, cherry bars, dried cherries, and enough cherries eaten out of hand I'll not need lipstick for a few weeks.
Not a bit is going to waste – cherry pits are cleaning as we speak for a project for tomorrow, even cherry stems are in the tinder box (they add a sweet smell when tossed into the wood burner).


More of my cherry jubilation tomorrow, I'm off for another bath. I seem to have gotten cherry juice in the oddest places.




* No organic this time. Frankly, the last batch I got was virtually useless – crawling with bugs, quickly passing fermenting to plain rotting. Sadly, the farmers market the Prime Geek and I had tried seemed to be cashing in on “organic” without bothering to try for “quality” as well. And at 9.99 a pound... not something I'm willing to waste cash on.