So it’s FINALLY beginning to look like SUMMER here in Utah. We’ve had a constant stream of rainy days (no pun intended) and it’s finally warming up. Please don’t read any complaints in there about the rain. Where I live in Utah is a mountain desert… we are a dry desert up in the mountains and all moisture is appreciated, but this June seemed particularly abundant in moisture.

We lived in our house for 8 years now. (Erin trivia: 3.5 years ago marked the longest I had lived in ANY one home EVER in my entire life…. we’ve way surpassed that point now…) Anyway… when we broke ground on this lot and started to build we were lucky enough to find that there was a solitary treebush growing on our property on the back hill…. we had no clue what it was so we left it and let it grow. And we let it grow. And grow. and grow….. always wondering “just what is that tree anyway?” We knew it was some sort of fruit tree and we suspected cherry or peach but were never sure.

In 8 years we never had fruit from the tree…. but the birdies did. They always enjoyed a nice fruity treat each spring. Lucky birds.

This year we were surprised to find a MOTHERLODE of little green fruits all over the tree. There were GOBS of little baby fruits hidden amongst the big green serrated edged leaves.

A few weeks later this is what we found:

DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT SOLITARY LITTLE BEAUTY IS??

YES. You are CORRECT!

It is a CHERRY! Sweeeet, delicious, juicy cherry… one of them there ‘spensive varieties from the supermarket. They’re pink n white/yellow. YUM YUM YUM. Specifically they are Ranier cherries. (I did some research on the good old dubya.dubya.dubya)

And we looked up in the tree.

Look up… seee…. loookie, loookie…..

Click the picture… enjoy the cherry delight…. those little darlings are hiding everywhere….

So into the monster tree we went…. ok, so I stood on the edges and picked the lower hanging, easy to reach, sissy girl cherries….. I sent my brave, strong, man into the depths of the monster tree.

Ok, he’s not that far into the tree in this pic… but he did have to go into the middle and climb up as far as the tree would support him…

Look at these beauties! Several handfuls of brave cherry souls sacrificed themselves to our hungry tummies that evening….

This is what we ended up with (one for my tummy, one for the bowl…. one for my tummy… one more for my tummy…..)

And of course I had to eat some while taking the photos…. They were staring right at me… c’mon… I HAD to do it… they were practically begging to be gobbled up.

But nothing tops a happy cherry picker… with a cherry filled tummy…..

Isn’t he a cutie patootie? How can you resist that sweet grin… lol!

So, Thank you, Mr Farmer (who’s sweet wifey must have put some cherries in his lunch that day), for spitting out a seed or two that grew into a sprout, which grew into a bush, that grew up to be a tree that provided some nice snacking for the cutie patootie couple who built a home on their old farm land.