Some seasonal experiences stretch over weeks, even months. Wakesurfing, for example. Others are so fleeting that it’s easy to miss them if I’m not paying attention. These ephemeral comings-and-goings — the blooming of shadblow comes to mind — can be especially poignant. I was recently reminded by our abbreviated cherry season that the border between the enduring and the transitory sometimes defies expectation.
Before making a whirlwind excursion to Santa Fe (June 24-28) to see my parents and to attend opening night of La Bohème at the Santa Fe Opera, I took time to wander Rosslyn’s orchard. So much happening so fast this time of year, and I wanted to make sure I checked in with all my trees before departing for a few days.
Several grey tufted birds were enthusiastically eating their way through our two cherry trees. (I mistakenly identified them as female orioles. I’ve subsequently decided that tufted titmouse is a more probable guess.) The enthusiasm and efficiency with which they were devouring the fruit startled me. Pecking efficiently at each ripe cherry they managed to remove all of the flesh, leaving the pit hanging from the stem to dry in the sun. Remarkable!
These happy birds flitted from fruit to fruit as if anticipating individual cherries ripening, feasting as each colorful cherry reached optimal sweetness.
I was struck by the possibility that these birds might devour the entire cherry harvest from both cherry trees before I could make it back from Santa Fe! Unwilling to yield Rosslyn’s cherry season decadence to my fine feathered friends, I began to devour the sun-warmed fruit.
Divine!
I had asked Glen to spray one of the trees with kaolin clay and to leave one unsprayed in an effort to evaluate how effectively the pest deterrent worked with our cherries. I noted no difference, and it was clear that the birds certainly were undeterred. So we shared, I racing the happy birds, and the birds racing one another and me.
In hindsight, I should have called Susan to jon the banquet. Caught up in the moment, I failed to invite my bride. She lamented this fact during our subsequent flight when I chronicled the experience. She also lamented an even more obvious alternative: I hadn’t thought to harvest cherries for her to enjoy. Yes, that would have been wise…
And, as suspected, both trees were stripped bare by the time we returned to Essex. So it is that our 2025 cherry season abbreviated is memorialized in my mind as delightfully tasty, a competitive contest with my feathered foe, and a falling short of my connubial expectations. Will try harder next summer, but two out of three isn’t bad!
Another distant memory also surfaced. A dozen years ago I asked the universe for help identifying a pair of red berried plants. One quite likely was a wild cousin to the tasty fruit in our orchard.
Wild cherries. Although I described the plant as a shrub, I suspect it may actually be a young tree. Both the berries and leaves lead me to wonder if this isn’t a young wild cherry tree. (Source: Red Berries: Ginseng and Cherry?)
Might be able to better ID both plants now with one of my plant apps…
What do you think?