We had an awesome day cherry picking with our friends Jeannie and Mark (+3 kids) and Aske and Twan (+1 kid) on Saturday.  ‘Boy did we get cherries!

There is something amazing and very biological about walking through a grove of fruit trees putting warm fruit in your mouth.  We are designed for this! Social, gathering, animals! Juice dripping down your chin.  We were all mesmerized.  No matter how we started, soon we were all like Sufi poets – or hunter gatherers on miraculous summer day, wandering through, noticing leaves, comparing fruits, ooh’ing and eating warm bulbs, sharing and laughing, wandering and parenting each others’ children.  Everyone fanned out, zig zagged through, and eventually ended up plopped in a dusty clump under the shade of a few beautiful trees.

We had a picnic lunch.

Picked some strawberries at another patch.  And headed home.

Our route was filled with horses, cows, goats, sheep, a few hawks and a beautiful winding road through ranches and farms.  + not a more bountiful day

Gosh, after this, even our amazing local market seemed like nothing like the nirvana of fruit as they are made and created.