Summer 2018

Good day to you and yours,

Sunday afternoon took me to the couch looking through my old photo album when I was a pipsqueak. Ah yes, the joys of Summer as a child… As you can see in the photo, even at a young age I was an accomplished cherry pitter. My oldest sister, Heidi, was sorting them, I was pitting them, and I think Mom was acting as the inspector/supervisor. My other sister, Elizabeth, is probably hiding behind the couch in the living room reading a book. 😉 (But don’t worry, I’m sure I found and made her wash all the dishes.)

After pitting the cherries we would lay them on cookie sheets and freeze them so they wouldn’t all stick together in one big clump. After they are frozen we would then put them in pint or quart bags. We could then enjoy them all summer long in smoothies, with mixed fruit, or in cherry cobbler.

We had two cherry trees behind the calf barn, and it was always my job to protect them from the blackbirds, which I always thought was counterproductive because for each cherry the birds ate, that was one less that we had to work up…

Photo taken June 2006. I was 15, Elizabeth on the right was 16, and Heidi on the left was 17.

I also ran across this photo which was taken a few years later in the summer kitchen. We were still doing cherries and, yes, it looks like we found Elizabeth (the one with the towel on her head) and made her help this time. 🙂 It also looks like mom must have fully trained us and no longer needed to supervise the work. You’ll note we were still using the same cherry pitter all those years.

Now comes the great responsibility of teaching my own children the value of hard work, along with the concept that by working now, one can then enjoy the fruits of one’s labor later. There really is nothing like eating food that you prepared and put up yourself, especially when you get to work as a family.

I also swindled my mother out of her amazing cherry cobbler recipe 🙂 (Yes, that is her actual recipe card; some people still use those…)

I hope you have an amazing summer, filled with the joys which God’s creation affords. Don’t eat too much cherry cobbler and be sure to share some with your neighbors.

Hope to see you real soon!

Levi Good