Cherries

This week cherries have taken over my life!  My mom's ward was doing a fundraiser for girls camp and scout camp by selling cherries for 50 cents a pound.  The ward (and my mom) went and picked them over in Eastern Washington and then my mom delivered them here to Gig Harbor on the 4th of July.  Because the price was so good, I had asked other women in my ward if they wanted to order cherries.  Lots of people ordered, so my mom brought about 600 pounds of cherries and put them in my garage.  The timing was a bit tricky (they were supposed to be ready earlier, but because of the cold weather we have been having, they weren't ready to pick until July 3) since it was a holiday weekend and a couple days before girls camp.  So some of the people who ordered cherries didn't want them anymore. 

I had a lot of cherries to deal with.  So, I dried them,

pitted and froze them,

and canned them.

It was a ton of work.  My hands are still stained red. 

I also spent two days trying to track people down and get their cherries to them.  And then I had to figure out what to do with the extras.  After selling them to everyone interested and giving them away to the neighbors, we decided to try selling them along the road. 

Doing a lemonade stand was one of the things on our summer list, so we decided to combine the cherries with a lemonade stand and sell them both.  The kids made signs and stood on the side of the road waving their signs and selling their wares.  They had a blast!  They even sold quite a bit of lemonade and nine pounds of cherries.

Kate needed a drink, of course, to have the energy to keep on selling.  It was a hot day!  Who knows if they sold more or drank more...but no matter, they had a fun afternoon!