Got a surprize this morning when I went to pour some black cherry
juice into a jar. It was already partly jelled, about the
consistencey of clotted cream. I had simmered the cherries last
evening to soften them and then mashed them (gently to not crack
any pits) and laddled them into the jelly bag. Cherries are
supposed to be low in pectin and not jell without adding some.

I only had a few black cherries so this morning I hand squeezed
the cold pulp from the jelly bag in a bit more water to get the
last of the juice out of them, and rehung the jelly bag. I have
about 5 cups of juice so far and hope to maybe get another cup.

There is a rare black cherry tree in the immediate neighbourhood
which I found by accident when looking for a more direct route to
a large pin cherry tree. I located the pin cherry and a choke
cherry in the spring by looking for blossoms, but the black cherry
was hidden by brush and covered by wild grape vines. So I took a
pruning saw to the brush and sawed off the vine at its base. A few
days later I climbed the tree and pulled down all of the covering
vine. Made quite a difference. The cherry-eating birds seem to
apprecaite it.

This little tree has the largest wild black cherries I've seen. Of the
other black cherries I've found over the years, a large prolific
tree fell over under the weight of ice during a winter storm in
1998, and the others were lost to residential real estate
construction in the last couple of years. I've scattered and
planted a few cherries from this tree so far. I hope to separate out the
seeds from this pulp and dry them for planting which may or may
not not work as they have been in hot water.

On the subject of cherry pits, the mouse who visits my loose
stacked concrete block composter has been making neat little holes
in the choke cherry pits to eat the meat inside. The pits look
like necklace beads piled on the top row of blocks of the
composter where the mouse sits at night and eats them. Yesterday
evening it was getting dark when I finally finished cleaning some
elderberries and rose hips for jelly. When I lifted the cover on
the composter there sat a very fat little grey mouse.
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