Cherry Picking!

After dropping Mason off at the Portland airport (sad, sad, sad), we decided to stop by a U-Pick Cherry farm some friends of ours told us about.  It's located about halfway between the airport and our house.

We got some instructions, some bags, and the last available bucket, and set off to the cherry trees.  We wanted mostly Rainiers cherries, but they ended up being smaller and not as ripe.  Neither one of us had picked cherries before and we quickly got frustrated with trying to carefully pluck the cherry+stem off, but not too much of the base of the stem so the cherry could grow next year.  If anyone has any suggestions, I am ready to listen :) 
Since the car was close by, we walked back and got a knife and I just so happened to have a pair of scissors in my purse that day...

It went MUCH faster after our new tools and we quickly filled two grocery bags with cherries.

We laughed and talked and had a great time.  It reminded me a lot of picking raspberries when I was little.  All of us cousins would be out there with dishrags tied around our waists to hold the jars.  We probably ate more than we picked, and I remember Grandpa Rex telling us he couldn't hear us whistling.  He said we couldn't whistle if we had a mouthfull of raspberries :)  I must say though, picking cherries is waaaaay easier than picking raspberries :)