Where oh Where are my Cheeerieees?

This year we gave each other anniversary presents. I gave Jesse exactly what he asked for . . . a shop vac. Apparently other people do not find this gift romantic, but it does come in handy when you need to suck dead leaves from your rock garden. See?

While taking care of the garden, Jesse noticed that one of our trees appeared to be a fruit tree. I have to admit that I was not happy with this news. My only personal experience with a fruit tree involved a messy nasty crab apple tree we had in Portage. Blech. As it turns out, however, our fruit tree is the best type possible: a cherry tree!

We were both quite delighted with this discovery and immediately thought of my dad. He loves cherries. Alot. Because it is very expensive to get them in Thailand, whenever he comes here he buys bags and bags of them and is known to eat a whole pound in one sitting! I thought this would be a great way to entice him to visit soon.

But alas, this year's cherry crop was not meant to be. We fought against two types of critters with mixed results. First, Jesse found out that our tree was infected with a worm, which was why the tree had a number of dead branches. He was, however, able to kill it so we thought we saved our cherries. Oh contraire. Our next match-up was against the longstanding cherry champ: the bird. Just as the cherries appeared to be ripe enough to pick, this deceptively cute pest attacked and gobbled all the good ones up.

Have no fear, however, we will be better prepared next year. We will de-worm the tree in the fall and we got a net to keep the birds away from our precious fruit. Sweet victory will be ours!