Plinkety, Plinkety, Plinkety, Plink*

That's the happy sound of canning lids sealing.  A sound one wants to hear after having spent a good portion of the day in the kitchen making and canning jam.

Our house guest and her daughter went to Michigan yesterday to pick cherries.  And pick cherries they did... to the tune of nearly 100 pounds of cherries; half sweet and half sour.  When you've spent that much time driving and picking, you don't want the cherries to go bad.  We needed to do something with them. Today.  And to add to the fun, (and because I'm a tad bit compulsive) I went to the farmer's market this morning hoping to find the last of the strawberries and brought home 6 quarts.  I really do think they were the last; they were very sweet and very ripe.  Waiting to do something with them was not an option either.

As you can see in the picture above, we ended up with 6 1/2 pints of sour cherry jam.  (This was new for me and I have to say I'm pretty proud of how it turned out.  It is way yummy.) There is also 6 pints of strawberry jam.  But wait... that's not all.  We also froze 6 pies' worth of sour cherries and 6 more cups of sour cherries for making more jam at a later date.  And... in my crock pot are 2 quarts of sweet cherries slowly cooking down into cherry butter.  I've never had cherry butter, but it sounds incredibly wonderful and if the recipe reviews are to be believed, eating it is truly a life-changing experience.  There are still several more pounds of sweet cherries to eat, but I believe we will be able to handle that.

*Raise your hand, all you Frances fans out there.  You know this reference is from A Baby Sister for Frances and this is the beginning of one of Frances' songs, "Plinkety, plinkety, plinkety, plink.  Here is the dishrag that's under the sink.  Here are the buckets and brushes and me.  Plinkety, plinkety, plinkety, plee."