Saturday, July 28, 2007

Too Many Chokecherries

In North Dakota there was always a tug of war between the bird and me regarding the chokecherries on our bushes out front.

They were up earlier and ate faster than we could pick. Jays, Robins, Gracklings, blackbirds. They all feasted at the Redlin table.

I was superficially irritated but I liked to see the birds eat too.

This year it's different. We have far too few apples, no bees. And at this late date the chokecherries are drying up on the branch. This is a bad situation.

I won't use them. We still have chokecherry jelly and chokecherry syrup (the secret is grind them WITH the pits, it's fabulous).

But there are no birds to eat the fruit ready to harvest. Oh there are birds but not cherry eating birds. Nile Virus. It's sad.

I don't know if other areas are short of birds this summer but I am. Come on you guys. The cherries are free and will never taste better.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

the lack of fruit is because the blossoms and/or buds froze when it snowed in May. nothing to do with bees. bees can't pollinate a frozen then dead flower. global warning.

Julie said...

I'm wondering what can't be blamed on Global Warming.

Anything?

Didn't think so.

Anonymous said...

Ah, but it was a trick - I did not blame a THING on global warMing.

I said global WARNING. We are using resources faster than nature can replenish them. We have fished the oceans out. We are barely feeding ourselves. If we were relying on the food from these chikeberry trees, we would be in deep trouble because of a late snow. We should not let outselves get into that position. We should keep our land in good shape so that it retains productivity and limit population to ensure the land is enough to support us. Such things as how a late snow can decimate a crop or whatever has reduced our bee populations are WARNINGS.
One WARNING here is about those who let themselves be so dead set against environmentalism because it is against the "God will take care of us so we don't have to" and because it has a leader who is a prominant Democrat. Using your refusal to believe in global warMing as an excuse from caring for the environment in a thousand other needed ways is dangerous. Environmentalism used to be conservative thing before big oil got in the way of it and forced the liberal to care about it instead. Environmentalism is a whole separate thing from global warMing. Environmentalism was and still is a good idea. Heed the warNing and get to work on some sort of environmentalism.

Haralowka said...

Your comment on there being no bees this year is exactly what my 87 year old neighbour said. There are very few cucumbers in our Regina gardens and that is due to the lack of bees.

We don't have global warming here because Al Gore came and gave us his $120,000 presentation this spring.
So everything is fine.

Karen said...

What are your best recipes for chokecherries? My syrups are not as thick as I would like. Still adjusting pectin and cornstarch ratios. Karen