Saturday Farm Report

My neighbor offered to swap some meat for the use of my brush mower. I haven’t used it in the last few years. I’m hoping he can get it running. So the trade is for maintenance, not for meat.

Last night I picked a gallon of sour cherries. Usually the birds get the cherries before we do, but this year I think the orioles and their ilk have been preoccupied with an abundant mulberry crop. Earlier this summer the orchard was infested with tent caterpillars. I worried that neither the birds nor the people would have any cherries; but, I sprayed a soap mixture on them every day and knocked down their tents with a broom and generally made their little larval lives a living hell. Eventually after they had chewed most of the leaves off the cherry tree I won the battle. Well, the stress of leaf loss seems to have been good for the fruit. I’ve noticed that dying trees produce fruit in abundance before they croak, but I’m sanguine regarding this cherry tree’s prospects. After the caterpillars were gone, the leaves seemed to come back. I’ll prune it like crazy this winter and expect to see a rejuvenation.

Meanwhile… cherry pie! Speaking of which, that’s (J)erry Garcia on the pedal steel on the cut above.